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Amazon has no idea how to run an app store

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Re: Amazon has no idea how to run an app store

#151

Post by kzhahou »

venning wrote: post #144
overgard wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IMO, "these people don't know what they're doing" isn't linkbait, it's a very specific criticism that the people in charge of the app store are either naive or incompetent. You could complain that's a pretty harsh take, but the truth of the statement has nothing to do with the harshness of it, it lies in the evidence they provide. You can even test it! Do they make good decisions or poor decisions? I think there's a…

I think it is precisely that harshness that pushes the original title towards linkbait. Again, I'm not questioning the legitimacy of the involved developers' emotions. The point of a linkbait title is to elicit an emotional response that is disproportionately strong compared to that of the actual content. As such, they are worded strongly. I agree that "relatively new" was a bad emendation. I probably just would have…

I've always believed that "linkbait" is a MIDLEADING title or one that omits key information only to force you to click on an otherwise uninteresting title.

Linkbait: "You won't believe the disgusting thing this A-list star did in public!"

Non-linkbait version: "Tom Cruise accidentally stepped in dog poo."

The first is linkbait because it teases you to learn who the star is and what was the disgusting act (which was actually quite boring).

--

Linkbait: "This company sucks at app stores!"

Non-linkbait: "Amazon sucks at app stores!"

The first is linkbait because it forces you to click to learn which company it's talking about. It would most likely make the reader think it's about Apple, or maybe Google Play Store, both of which are probably more interesting than Amazon's store. The second title is NOT linkbait because even though it's inflammatory, it conveys enough information to let the reader decide whether it's worth a click. The reader immediately knows:

* It's about Amazon app store.

* It's going to be very negative.

If the HN reader is interested in how Amazon's app store is doing and how users are reacting, then it will stand out as a link worth clicking. If the HN reader doesn't care for an opinion about amazon's store, or doesn't want to read a strongly-worded one, they'll pass. There was no baiting at all.

---

I argue that the editorializing of the article created MORE of a problem, because it wiped away an important piece of information for HN readers: that this is a strongly-worded negative review. The edited title ("Amazon is relatively new..") conveys no information about the article. Frankly, it now sounds like a very dumb article.

Re: Amazon has no idea how to run an app store

#152

Post by derefr »

meesterdude wrote: post #138
venning wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The HN Guidelines [1] state that submissions "should use the original title, unless it is misleading or linkbait." While I am sure the emotions of the developers affected by this are legitimate and strong, the original title borders pretty heavily on linkbait; though I appreciate there is some debate there. HN may strive to provide intellectually superior content, but that doesn't make me any less susceptible to link…

It's more an opinion than linkbait; an opinion which gets tossed by the way side because it is found to be disagreeable. Do authors have no say in what they call their piece? linkbait is, at least to me, more along the lines of "you'll never believe what these developers made" and this post is nothing of the sort.

Calling something linkbait doesn't mean that that thing is factually incorrect, or even a bad title. It just means it's a superstimulus for off-topic debate. HN isn't a magazine; it's a forum. What the articles get labelled isn't about being accurate, or even evocative; it's about eliciting productive discussion.

Re: Amazon has no idea how to run an app store

#153

Post by derefr »

meesterdude wrote: post #131
timrpeterson wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jumping_the_shark

Good comment, never knew about this as a concept but I've definitely seen it play out. (and what an amusing source of origin!) But you might be right. I've been on HN for 3+ years and i've never seen anything like this happen before. This is clearly an abuse of power and is not in any way an act on the behalf of the community.

An abuse of power to achieve... what, exactly?

dang is here as a moderator precisely "on behalf of the community." As in, he acts to facilitate productive discussion. You might disagree with his decision here, but I can't see any way in which he has different goals than you would want him to. At worst, he has made a mistake, and the backlash from it will make him not do it again. (At best, he is being "the hero we need" by attempting to stop a flamewar argument before it starts, even if that means taking the heat that that flamewar would have spawned entirely himself.)

Re: Amazon has no idea how to run an app store

#154

Post by meesterdude »

derefr wrote: post #153
meesterdude wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good comment, never knew about this as a concept but I've definitely seen it play out. (and what an amusing source of origin!) But you might be right. I've been on HN for 3+ years and i've never seen anything like this happen before. This is clearly an abuse of power and is not in any way an act on the behalf of the community.

An abuse of power to achieve... what, exactly? dang is here as a moderator precisely "on behalf of the community." As in, he acts to facilitate productive discussion. You might disagree with his decision here, but I can't see any way in which he has different goals than you would want him to. At worst, he has made a mistake, and the backlash from it will make him not do it again. (At best, he is being "the hero we ne…

You're talking about goals and motive; I don't know why. I took issue with the behavior, the specific act of editing the title, in a way that contrasts the actual articles title.

Re: Amazon has no idea how to run an app store

#155

Post by coderdude »

lkrubner wrote: post #148
coderdude wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The submitted article and especially its title are both emotional to a fault and sensationalist. The arguments presented are backed up only by anecdote and cherry-picked comments from other people who have been rejected by Amazon. I've seen all this before. There's a reason why the article is scant on the details of the rejection. In the same way a rant about PayPal tends to exclude certain details that deflate the a…

This is a strange thing to say: "There's a reason why the article is scant on the details of the rejection" Did you click through the link to the page where the developers were discussing the certification process on the Amazon developer forum? This is the link the article above: https://forums.developer.amazon.com/forums/thread.jspa?messa... This seems as detailed as you will find for a critique of an app store. And…

Actually, I didn't see those. I'll read them.

Re: Amazon has no idea how to run an app store

#156

Post by venning »

derefr wrote: post #152
meesterdude wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's more an opinion than linkbait; an opinion which gets tossed by the way side because it is found to be disagreeable. Do authors have no say in what they call their piece? linkbait is, at least to me, more along the lines of "you'll never believe what these developers made" and this post is nothing of the sort.

Calling something linkbait doesn't mean that that thing is factually incorrect, or even a bad title. It just means it's a superstimulus for off-topic debate. HN isn't a magazine; it's a forum. What the articles get labelled isn't about being accurate, or even evocative; it's about eliciting productive discussion.

Thank you for teaching me "superstimulus". That word pretty much captures my concerns with linkbait and the like.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supernormal_stimulus

Re: Amazon has no idea how to run an app store

#157

Post by ojr »

overgard wrote: post #142
venning wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The HN Guidelines [1] state that submissions "should use the original title, unless it is misleading or linkbait." While I am sure the emotions of the developers affected by this are legitimate and strong, the original title borders pretty heavily on linkbait; though I appreciate there is some debate there. HN may strive to provide intellectually superior content, but that doesn't make me any less susceptible to link…

IMO, "these people don't know what they're doing" isn't linkbait, it's a very specific criticism that the people in charge of the app store are either naive or incompetent. You could complain that's a pretty harsh take, but the truth of the statement has nothing to do with the harshness of it, it lies in the evidence they provide. You can even test it! Do they make good decisions or poor decisions? I think there's a…

who really "knows what they're doing" and made a software program they did not have to iterate on later? The problems with Xcode hurts me far worse than a hacky, easy submission process.

Re: Amazon has no idea how to run an app store

#158

Post by galactoise »

coderdude wrote: post #135
meesterdude wrote: post #124

Actual title: Amazon has absolutely no idea how to run an app store Why did the title change? It used to be the same as the original article, but now it's been needlessly editorialized to be kinder to amazon. Seriously? What the fuck. That's not HN's job, and is a disservice to the article, and the community.

The submitted article and especially its title are both emotional to a fault and sensationalist. The arguments presented are backed up only by anecdote and cherry-picked comments from other people who have been rejected by Amazon. I've seen all this before. There's a reason why the article is scant on the details of the rejection. In the same way a rant about PayPal tends to exclude certain details that deflate the a…

It's scant on the details of the rejection because it wasn't his skill that got rejected. His article is specifically about the uproar among the community at the terrible job they're doing.

As happenstance would have it, though, it was MY skill that got rejected that started the forum thread that he pulled quotes from. If you are actually interested in more details, I can provide them, but the point wasn't really about my specific rejection - it was that this has been an ongoing and growing pattern recently across the entire development community. These issues are well documented and individually enumerated (so as to not just be anecdotal, per your concern) on the Amazon developer forums, if that is what you're looking for.

Regardless, the title may be emotionally driven, but it is not sensationalist. They (the Alexa team) literally do not have a good understanding of how to run this app store. I think the context missing here is that we don't mean that in the sense of "we're angry because our opinion does not match Amazon's". We mean that in the sense that we (and every time I say "we" here I mean the Alexa developer community) has had to hand hold the Alexa team into doing even the most basic things just to get the skill "store" where it is now, because it has not been a focus of theirs.

Re: Amazon has no idea how to run an app store

#159

Post by dang »

meesterdude wrote: post #124

Actual title: Amazon has absolutely no idea how to run an app store Why did the title change? It used to be the same as the original article, but now it's been needlessly editorialized to be kinder to amazon. Seriously? What the fuck. That's not HN's job, and is a disservice to the article, and the community.

The title was obvious linkbait, so we changed it in accordance with the HN guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.

We're always happy to change a title again if someone can suggest a better one: https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme....

Edit: Ok, since people feel so strongly about this, let's restore the original title minus the high-octane "absolutely". If I hadn't been in a rush earlier today I probably would have settled on that in the first place, but not every day can be a ponder these things deeply day.

Everyone should realize, though, that indignant denunciations are not in the spirit of this site and don't belong in titles here. They are a form of linkbait because, unfortunately, indignation always sells—mechanically and for reasons that have nothing to do with the intellectual curiosity that this site is supposed to be for. Upvotes due to indignation are reflexive; what we want HN to be is reflective. This isn't a matter of taste but of core values. To change that about HN would destroy it, so we're not going to.

Re: Amazon has no idea how to run an app store

#160

Post by dang »

lkrubner wrote: post #123
wglb wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am sorry to say this contributes to the feeling that the HN rule about titles is entirely arbitrary. It isn't, really. Editorialized titles tilt the balance in an opinionated way. Most of the time the rule seems stupidly rigid and inflexible. For more detail, see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10877460 . Or, you can write a blog post commenting on that story, and post the blog entry to HN.

You don't understand what you are talking about. HN doesn't have a rule against blog posts with editorialized titles, instead, HN has a rule saying that the people who submit articles to HN can not editorialize the titles. Basically, the rule is that the title on HN should be exactly the same as the title of the blog post. Except here, Dang is breaking that rule. The initial title of this submission on HN was exactly…

> You don't understand what you are talking about.

Please don't address a fellow user this way.

> Basically, the rule is that the title on HN should be exactly the same as the title of the blog post.

That's mistaken. The actual rule is to use the original title unless it is misleading or linkbait: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html. Had you known that, you'd have known that we were upholding the rule, not breaking it. It's standard practice, when a title breaks the HN guidelines, to replace it with neutral, representative language from the article.

Does that mean we get every edit right? Of course not, but if you're going to object, please do so on the basis of what the guidelines actually say.

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