When the price of a high karma account becomes attractive to the owner. So, probably never.
Ask HN: When will the first HN account appear on eBay?
11–20 of 23 posts
Re: Ask HN: When will the first HN account appear on eBay?
#12We have been maintaining a set of HN accounts used to rank stories on the first page and it has been a valuable asset in gathering instant attention of a fairly large amount of users in a short amount of time.
Works, as opposed to what some people suggested in some comments.
Re: Ask HN: When will the first HN account appear on eBay?
#13We have been maintaining a set of HN accounts used to rank stories on the first page and it has been a valuable asset in gathering instant attention of a fairly large amount of users in a short amount of time. Works, as opposed to what some people suggested in some comments.
I knew it :) Thx for being sincere.
Re: Ask HN: When will the first HN account appear on eBay?
#14We have been maintaining a set of HN accounts used to rank stories on the first page and it has been a valuable asset in gathering instant attention of a fairly large amount of users in a short amount of time. Works, as opposed to what some people suggested in some comments.
What do you mean by that? Mass upvoting?
Re: Ask HN: When will the first HN account appear on eBay?
#15Meta-threads like this are a perfect illustration of how HN is declining. It does nothing to motivate/inspire hackers and startups. Instead we waste time up-voting/discussing things that have no relevance to real life. If someone wants to waste money buying an account based on "Karma", let them. Karma = nothing in real life
Re: Ask HN: When will the first HN account appear on eBay?
#16The rewards of owning a high-karma account are limited. You don't get to upvote a frontpage item more than once (or do you? not at 780). Your comments may receive an occasional fanboy upvote, but that only creates more karma and doesn't shift the visibility of your message by a large amount. So in conclusion, I don't think HN accounts will be traded much. Perhaps more if the frequency of "free invites to our beta ser…
While you still only get to upvote once, as I understand it, that vote counts more than once based on your karma.
Regardless, while you might get high karma values based only on article submissions, that isn't going to impress anybody. When PG is looking at your HN account, he's almost certainly looking for insightful comments, vs. just a high karma score.
It's really hard to farm out quality comments to somebody else, and have it matter at the same time.
Re: Ask HN: When will the first HN account appear on eBay?
#17"Hacker News has its own karma based system, which gives high karma users a power to create destinies of stories and also users."
HN karma gives high karma users a power to change the color of the top bar when they're logged in.
Re: Ask HN: When will the first HN account appear on eBay?
#18I had thought about doing this for a while and giving the money to charity so that pg would look bad for banning me, but was convinced that it was more valuable to have my HN account. I think right now I'd value my Hacker News account around $5k, so would probably sell for $5k or more to the charity of my choice.
It's not my karma points that allows me to get things on the front page, but my intimate knowledge of the Hacker News ecosystem and voting process. The bonus I receive for having a possibly recognizable username is minimal.
As far as I know, Hacker News is the last reach of the social web that has not been hijacked by people selling votes. But I'm probably wrong.
Re: Ask HN: When will the first HN account appear on eBay?
#19We have been maintaining a set of HN accounts used to rank stories on the first page and it has been a valuable asset in gathering instant attention of a fairly large amount of users in a short amount of time. Works, as opposed to what some people suggested in some comments.
I knew it :) Thx for being sincere.
I'm such a good liar.. On the internet.
Re: Ask HN: When will the first HN account appear on eBay?
#20Meta-threads like this are a perfect illustration of how HN is declining. It does nothing to motivate/inspire hackers and startups. Instead we waste time up-voting/discussing things that have no relevance to real life. If someone wants to waste money buying an account based on "Karma", let them. Karma = nothing in real life
Someone could sell their HN account in real life.
"Relevance to real life" is not a good indicator of a submission's suitability for HN. The Minecraft CPU has less relevance to real life than this submission, but a Minecraft CPU definitely deserves the front page.