I use /active more then /newest because I often am looking for a discussion already happening so I can learn from others.
I feel that new is wasted on me because I'm not confident that my own thoughts on what's interesting and worth front page promotion is well... interesting to the community.
Yea, /active is HN's secret, killer app. HN's default ranking algorithm often penalizes stories that "get too much activity" which means that if you aren't one of those guys who refreshes the main page every 5 minutes, you're going to miss a lot of newsworthy articles that happen to get many comments. I'd recommend all HN readers visit /active once at the end of the day to see what The Algorithm hid from the front page.
Those missing stories are nearly all Reddit-style political flamewars which is not what this site is for, so don't think finding something on active is some massive W.
