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Ask HN: Does anyone understand how Hacker News works?

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Re: Ask HN: Does anyone understand how Hacker News works?

#241

Post by jacquesm »

ssl-3 wrote: post #183
IAmBroom wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But to exclude popularity from the definition of success is highly atypical, at best. "My son is a successful artist, and like Van Gogh he's only ever sold one piece of art in his life" said no mother ever. Now post mortem, Van Gogh has certainly "enjoyed" more success, by many peoples' rankings.

It is certainly true that one of the ways in which success can be measured is sales. What is Y Combinator's HN selling? Are they successful in that effort?

HN isn't selling anything, but without HN the founder feed would likely dry up (or maybe not, now they have critical mass) and eventually of course they're selling stock.

Re: Ask HN: Does anyone understand how Hacker News works?

#242

Post by lovich »

jacquesm wrote: post #240
lovich wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is zero evidence that would sway me other than full transparency into all company records, which I recognize as an implausible ask. I do not trust companies, or any organization involved in their creation and investment like this forum, to speak honestly and openly. They have an incentive not to and their peers have proven time and time again that this incentive is too enticing to avoid. I have seen and taken p…

Don't underestimate the power of brigading. If a couple of YC founders on YC's internal forum (much like HN) decide to get together there isn't much the moderators of HN can do about it other than to act retro-actively. You'll see the same happen whenever someone is critical of some deity or brand (say, Steve Jobs or Apple). This is a generic problem, and it is a hard one to solve. I've always been a fan of analyzing…

I don’t care about all those signs/flags? Is probably the best I can express my feelings.

I assume anything corporate or corporate aligned, which I believe this forum is, is being manipulated by the owners because they are structurally unreliable.

Corporations are counter parties who will betray you the second it’s in their benefit, and then crow about it in their quarterly earnings reports to their shareholders.

They’ll have their pocket MBAs and lawyers tell you how they have a fiduciary duty to maximize shareholder returns and quote some fucking 1920s era lawsuit with Henry Ford despite not actually having to maximize return but just having to do what’s in the shareholders best interests.

The sociopaths in our society have determined that means getting more money even if other people are harmed.

I am going to continue assuming that any corporate aligned org is following the incentives of our societal structure until we change that, and if you try to convince me I should ignore the structural incentives then I am going to assume you are trying to pull the wool over my eyes.

Re: Ask HN: Does anyone understand how Hacker News works?

#243

Post by jacquesm »

lovich wrote: post #242
jacquesm wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't underestimate the power of brigading. If a couple of YC founders on YC's internal forum (much like HN) decide to get together there isn't much the moderators of HN can do about it other than to act retro-actively. You'll see the same happen whenever someone is critical of some deity or brand (say, Steve Jobs or Apple). This is a generic problem, and it is a hard one to solve. I've always been a fan of analyzing…

I don’t care about all those signs/flags? Is probably the best I can express my feelings. I assume anything corporate or corporate aligned, which I believe this forum is, is being manipulated by the owners because they are structurally unreliable. Corporations are counter parties who will betray you the second it’s in their benefit, and then crow about it in their quarterly earnings reports to their shareholders. The…

> if you try to convince me I should ignore the structural incentives then I am going to assume you are trying to pull the wool over my eyes.

It won't be long now and you'll accuse me of being part of the YC cabal...

Re: Ask HN: Does anyone understand how Hacker News works?

#244

Post by aristofun »

I think the big part of why HN is so cool and hard to game is that real people are behind it that show up every day to make it work. Not robots (literally and metaphorically).

No corporate bullshit, no scaling strategies, no ai gimmicks and algorithms to raise revenue, just good old “make something people want”.

I assume your frustration is by design. It’s not a marketing channel.

Re: Ask HN: Does anyone understand how Hacker News works?

#245

Post by Rendello »

dang wrote: post #196
StanislavPetrov wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you ( "The royal you"

I've used that construct a lot over the years and it seems to help: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...

One can simply employ 'one' if one fears not the air of pretentiousness.

Re: Ask HN: Does anyone understand how Hacker News works?

#247

Post by baranul »

dang wrote: post #8

(I'm a mod here) It's true that this place can be cryptic, and that has downsides—specifically, it can be confusing to newcomers, even to some newcomers who would make ideal HN users. That sucks. But there's a key that unlocks most of the puzzles. That is to understand that we're optimizing for exactly one thing: curiosity. (Specifically, intellectual curiosity, since there are other kinds of curiosity too.) Here are…

This is basically admitting to gross manipulation and even censorship by "we're optimizing for", "we try to elevate", and "we try to demote things", which looks to be based on personal or corporate biases and tastes.

Hacker News can only be "figured out", relative to what looks like the biases and financial interests of ownership and its staff, where they do the "pushing" (elevating) and "demoting". This "state of curiosity" being referred to, appears to include wanting readers to blindly accept what is fed to them, and ignore or not question strange inconsistencies.

Newcomers and outsiders would usually be expecting transparency, honesty, and impartiality. Their confusion, can be when they notice the difference in moderation based on adhering to a clear and obvious standard versus the hidden, strange, inexplicable, or unequal treatment.

Re: Ask HN: Does anyone understand how Hacker News works?

#248

Post by dang »

baranul wrote: post #247
dang wrote: post #8

(I'm a mod here) It's true that this place can be cryptic, and that has downsides—specifically, it can be confusing to newcomers, even to some newcomers who would make ideal HN users. That sucks. But there's a key that unlocks most of the puzzles. That is to understand that we're optimizing for exactly one thing: curiosity. (Specifically, intellectual curiosity, since there are other kinds of curiosity too.) Here are…

This is basically admitting to gross manipulation and even censorship by "we're optimizing for", "we try to elevate", and "we try to demote things", which looks to be based on personal or corporate biases and tastes. Hacker News can only be "figured out", relative to what looks like the biases and financial interests of ownership and its staff, where they do the "pushing" (elevating) and "demoting". This "state of cu…

HN has always been a curated site [1]. That's all that "we try to elevate X and demote Y" means. The frontpage is produced by a combination of community, software, and moderation [2]. All three are necessary - without any one of these, the site would be a completely different place.

Despite how dark and sinister you've made everything sound, you've mostly just rephrased what I wrote, with a lot of pejoratives. In that sense, you're right—there isn't much disagreement here. You just think we're wrong and bad to run HN the way we do, and that's fine.

[1] https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...

[2] https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...

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