This is one reason I feel an odd disconnect (anonymity?) with HN that isn’t felt on other social platforms I’ve been a part of. Those often have avatars or some other visual form of recognition that helps put a “face” to a name.
I’m not sure if that’s a good or bad thing, but I definitely think it’s intentional.
I've been collecting a long list of ideas on what you're describing. Thanks to AI encouraging me to really dive in and use it, I've been quietly working on something for what you're describing.
First step is to improve the HN UX a tiny bit and flesh out a framework for how to code it. Next will add some interesting social features I've been brewing on. Why can't I easily follow someone?
Open source. GPLv3. It isn't perfect, but this is not AI vibe slop, and there are lots of tests from day one. I want to make this sustainable over a long period of time and become genuinely useful to a community that I've gotten a lot out of.
Note, the chrome store is really slow at getting releases out (or I'm too fast), best to install from github releases. It is also buggy and I'm fixing and improving things as fast as I can.