From the guidelines, "Please don't post on HN to ask or tell us something (e.g. to ask us questions about Y Combinator, or to ask or complain about moderation). If you want to say something to us, please send it to hn@ycombinator.com."

That is a narrow use case related to Y Combinator chatter. You can post to ask or tell something to the HN community.

Most recent discussion here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7869246, and previously here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4512928.

It was an invaluable resource for obtaining open source software at the time, especially if one was using a smaller distribution like Slackware. In highlighting new releases, it also seemed to help sustain the excitement of consuming and exploring the software, at least in my recollection.