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Show HN: The users behind Hacker News

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Re: Show HN: The users behind Hacker News

#61
post #20

Do the users get to submit updates to the descriptions? Do they get to delete their descriptions if they would rather not be listed? Is there are a particular reason why some users on the current Hacker News leaderboard http://news.ycombinator.com/leaders appear not to be on your interesting and informative site? After edit: I see at the bottom of the display it says "powered by HNSearch API," which makes me wonder w…

For me, leader board needs to be sorted by average karma per post, with a minimum karma required to be eligible to be on the list (like 10K points). The list would look very different with such sorting. Maybe pg or someone working on the site can change column titles to clickable headers that sort by that column. Not that it's particularly difficult to just copy paste as a table to Excel.

The trouble with average karma is that it penalizes people for carrying on conversations. I often post something that has 10, 20, or even 50 points. Then someone replies, and I reply to that. This deeper reply will almost always get only half the karma of the original. Possibly because it is less interesting, possibly because it is posted later in the life-cyle of a submission.

If average karma was a goal of mine, I would never follow up to my own posts, I don’t think that I’ve ever had as much karma for a follow-up comment as for an original.

Re: Show HN: The users behind Hacker News

#63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting... it seems you must have some other criteria because my (admittedly woefully outdated) profile lists my (admittedly neglected) Twitter account, but I don't see myself on there. ~5000 karma should put me only a couple pages in.

Hi Andy. I am sorry, but not everybody had a clear twitter username on their profile. You are right, the list was complemented with the data from this one: http://talkfast.org/2010/07/28/twitter-users-most-followed-b... I've added you to the direct list. Note that the inference algorithm is quite forgiving, so "twitter @Locke1689", or "@Locke1689 on twitter", or even "twitter: Locke1689" would all have worked out. Ab…

Indeed, I've reduced mine to '@barrkel'. But I'm not hungry for fame or followers.

Re: Show HN: The users behind Hacker News

#64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting... it seems you must have some other criteria because my (admittedly woefully outdated) profile lists my (admittedly neglected) Twitter account, but I don't see myself on there. ~5000 karma should put me only a couple pages in.

Hi Andy. I am sorry, but not everybody had a clear twitter username on their profile. You are right, the list was complemented with the data from this one: http://talkfast.org/2010/07/28/twitter-users-most-followed-b... I've added you to the direct list. Note that the inference algorithm is quite forgiving, so "twitter @Locke1689", or "@Locke1689 on twitter", or even "twitter: Locke1689" would all have worked out. Ab…

I think you could have easily assumed any word starting with @ is a twitter profile, especially if it does in fact correspond to an existing twitter profile.

Also, I feel left out. :P

Re: Show HN: The users behind Hacker News

#65

Do the users get to submit updates to the descriptions? Do they get to delete their descriptions if they would rather not be listed? Is there are a particular reason why some users on the current Hacker News leaderboard http://news.ycombinator.com/leaders appear not to be on your interesting and informative site? After edit: I see at the bottom of the display it says "powered by HNSearch API," which makes me wonder w…

Hi. Thanks for noticing. The reason is that standard Hacker News profiles don't have photos or real names. Therefore I focused on the 1000 Hacker News profiles that have such data (by stating their twitter profiles). Notice that HNSearch API limits the amount of responses to 1000, but this has nothing to do with the current limit (you can hack this limit by sorting ascending and descending). But the limit was not rea…

It jumps from 6284 to 5914. I'm 6258 and am on Twitter too.

Re: Show HN: The users behind Hacker News

#66
post #31

I'm a fairly private guy, and I find this a bit creepy. I've never been more glad that I don't have a Twitter profile. (Which is not to say that I think that the developer is doing something wrong , or even unethical: if you have a Twitter profile with your picture on it, one could fairly argue that you've made a contract with the world that the information is public. But all the same, stuff like this makes me want d…

You could use a pseudonym. ;)

Pseudonyms are not to be relied upon too heavily as a means of safeguarding your identity, particularly if you want to use them now and then in real life (which is why I don't bother to keep my pen name a secret) but they still have their uses. Overtly playing a character is an age-old trick for getting over one's stage fright. And it's helpful if you find that more than one of your public personae would like to use the internet now and then. (Yes, people have more than one public persona. Even those of us who aren't teachers or psychologists.)

Obviously, though, HN and Twitter are mass media and if you actually want your writing to remain a secret you have to avoid putting it up on here. There's nothing wrong with that. Private diaries are still legal and everything.

Re: Show HN: The users behind Hacker News

#68

Do the users get to submit updates to the descriptions? Do they get to delete their descriptions if they would rather not be listed? Is there are a particular reason why some users on the current Hacker News leaderboard http://news.ycombinator.com/leaders appear not to be on your interesting and informative site? After edit: I see at the bottom of the display it says "powered by HNSearch API," which makes me wonder w…

Hi. Thanks for noticing. The reason is that standard Hacker News profiles don't have photos or real names. Therefore I focused on the 1000 Hacker News profiles that have such data (by stating their twitter profiles). Notice that HNSearch API limits the amount of responses to 1000, but this has nothing to do with the current limit (you can hack this limit by sorting ascending and descending). But the limit was not rea…

I have just the twitter handle on a new line, if someone has 1 word on a new line starting with @ it's probably pretty safe to assume its a twitter.

Re: Show HN: The users behind Hacker News

#69
post #25

heh... I was wondering why I started getting a bunch of beta signups + twitter followers today. I like the highlight effect you have on mouseover, although it kind of feels like something should happen when you click on someone's profile. Perhaps redirect the user to the person's HN profile?

Yea I think that would be helpful. Usually if people have a high amount of karma, they have put some time into their profile.
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