You needn't! But we hope it will create an interesting new way to find excellent stuff on HN that one otherwise wouldn't have seen. So much content—both good and bad, of course, but much of it superb—streams through this site that no one can see it all. Not even those of us whose job it is to monitor it.
Maybe this is just my jaded moderator perspective, but it sometimes feels like more attention gets paid to the bad stuff on HN (the latest flamewar, the latest shockingly offensive something-or-other) than to the brilliant, often quietly brilliant stuff that shows up here every day. That's clearly backwards, so we need new ways to give the best posts the attention they deserve. Shared favorites lists are one effort in that area.
Maybe this is just my jaded moderator perspective, but it sometimes feels like more attention gets paid to the bad stuff on HN (the latest flamewar, the latest shockingly offensive something-or-other) than to the brilliant, often quietly brilliant stuff that shows up here every day. That's clearly backwards, so we need new ways to give the best posts the attention they deserve. Shared favorites lists are one effort in that area.