Personaly, I was doing a search on something like 'The best websites for developers', and I think it's on StackOverflow that I found people mentioning HN and reddit/programming among other websites. I heard from Y Combinator by Alexis Ohanian at CUSEC 2012, so the URL of HN stood out. And of course, same thing for reddit.
The content at that time was luckily quite interesting, but both website appeared to report the same articles. After a week sight seeing on both, I concluded that HN was usually of better quality than reddit. I think that articles on reddit tend to cover more trivial subjects than on HN, making for an easier, more casual reading, which is usually not what I'm looking for.
I want to participate because I would like to be part of a community of 'doers'. And every time I participate and post something, I'm at risk of getting my face slapped and hell-banned by the readers, which makes for a harsh but effective learning experience.
I doubt readers have anything to do with hellbanning. You can have plenty of karma and still get hellbanned which clearly implies arbitrary moderator action. (But of course, when bringing that up one gets to read the rationalizations for such cowardly abuses of power, which is a learning experience, too... and not one of minor importance)
I'm pretty sure I discovered HN as a source in Pulse and found myself hooked on the frequent stories relating to what I would call "real tech", descriptions of actual engineering challenges and solutions.
That's a rare thing as the majority of sites and communities are "passive" in their topics.
It actually took me a while to recognize HN as more than a news feed.
I'm not sure what drove me to actually participate since I generally try to avoid reading, much less posting comments anywhere.
For me, many other online forums discussing software have become too hostile to developers. (Or just too hostile in general.)
I remember HN was mostly populated by developers and so far I've found what I was looking for: more civility and interesting technical discussions. It caters less directly to my specific interests (I'm a game developer), but I'm still reading.
I'm not the parent, but I heard about HN recently through a friend. I've got an account that is my real name, I just don't use it for non-startup related comments/submissions.
Why wouldn't new users want to participate here? HN has a fantastic community. What isn't there to like?
I'm not sure I'd want new users to participate. I'd want them to lurk for a while (a few weeks or months) to learn the standards of the community before "contributing".
If the average new user just started doing what they do on other similar sites, HN wouldn't be a "fantastic community" for long.
I would argue that simply reading the guidelines page would be sufficient in order to properly assimilate a new user into the community, wouldn't you? After a day or two of reading the comments, I had a pretty good idea of what the standards of the community were.
I heard about it from a coworker in the office. I like it because it's like Digg in it's early golden days -- mostly technical stuff hitting the front page. But more than that, I have entrepreneurial goals, and I enjoy seeing and sharing with other similar-minded people.
I read that it was 500 but I passed 500 and went for awhile before I got them. I don't remember the exact number but it was a random number and in the 550 range (like 542 or 568 etc)
