Ask HN: Why can't we have our own AMAs, like Reddit?

One thing I mean by "more HN-native" is placing the emphasis more on substance than celebrity. An idea we've tossed around is to invite people on to discuss specific work they've done, or even to commission them to write a new post about work they did, and then come here to discuss it.

"Work they did" might be a paper or an open-source project or anything the community finds interesting. We would invite them, not to answer anything, but rather to explain and answer questions about this specific work.

The minute you say "ask me anything", the focus becomes the individual, and diluted that far, the topic becomes unsubstantive (though it can still be fun as entertainment). But focus on the work—that seems like the HN way to go about it, and potentially exciting.

1. The publicizing of AMA's requires a lot of meta discussion and threads and one of the things that makes HN HN is frowning upon the promotion of meta discussion.

2. HN tries to be somewhat meritocratic, and AMA's are intrinsically tied to celebrity.

3. AMA's happen spontaneously from time to time on diverse topics, e.g. some project hits the front page and the author shows up in the discussion thread or a company hits the news and the founders show up to answer questions.

4. HN would turn into Reddit, which incidentally is the only acceptable meme on HN.

5. HN has a specific business purposes for YC. General internet interest does not appear to be among them.

6. Without coordination, the Ask HN page would be flooded with AMA's. e.g. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5250690