I think Offer HN is appropriate in some situations where the offer is something particularly unique you wouldn't be able to find elsewhere on the Internet such as the Ivy League UG Application reviewer. The rest of it is offering info you could probably learn through Googling.
Tell HN: Please stop offering your services
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Re: Tell HN: Please stop offering your services
#12I actually think it is fascinating to see this, and I don't think they're spam at all and suggesting they are really not nice at all.
HN is many things to many people don't let your particular view of what HN should be dictate the status quo.
> But if everyone posted "Offer HN" posts, even if they all did it just once and with a genuine desire to help, rather than a secret need to build their public profile and/or get some interesting serendipitous contacts, HN would become much less valuable.
That says more about you than it does about the people offering their help. How could you possibly suggest that those doing this are doing it out of a secret need to build their public profile. That's a pretty cynical worldview.
> To those who believe that this new "Offer HN" craze is something worth encouraging, if that's the case, please create a site that's better tailored to making those offers. Maybe you can even get pg to link to it if it's good. You'll certainly get feedback, and so on.
Do you feel the same about Ask HN threads ? What about rate my startup ? Aren't those people 'cynically using the business, design and cumulative knowledge of HN' for their own betterment or the building of their public profiles ?
> But please don't post any more "Offer HN". Despite the generous impulse behind them
Please do !
> they are basically just spam that's pushing out other more interesting stuff, at the moment.
Such as ?
Angelgate ? Blocks of Ice ? Parachutes ?
edit: I've posted the opposite of this article here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1840143
Re: Tell HN: Please stop offering your services
#13I'll start worrying about this once it becomes a problem. So far, it's been 2 days. For now, my asumption is that it will go away soon, and it's fun to watch for a while.
Re: Tell HN: Please stop offering your services
#14Don't worry, these things always run their course. At least this is driven by generosity. Plus you have to admit it's sort of interesting to watch new forms of internet behavior evolve.
Maybe it's interesting to you since HN is your baby and it's fun to watch people use your creation in unexpected ways, but for us, it's lowering the value/utility.
Repl to the rescue: http://news.ycombinator.com/offerless
(defop offerless req
(offerlesspage (get-user req)))
(newscache offerlesspage user 90
(listpage user (msec)
ranked-stories*
[and (>= (realscore _) front-threshold*)
(cansee user _)
(no (begins _!title "Offer "))
_]
nil nil "offerless"))Re: Tell HN: Please stop offering your services
#15The community as a whole seems to appreciate them, based on the upvotes.
That's not a fair assumption since there are no downvotes. If 20% of people really like something, and 80% hate it, it could still very easily own the front page.
The hypothetical 80% who hate it are free to vote up the items they'd rather see (higher) on the front page instead.
Re: Tell HN: Please stop offering your services
#16While I do not think that they are spam, I think that the trend will eventually have a negative impact on the community. If you eat too much chocolate you will get sick of chocolate.
Re: Tell HN: Please stop offering your services
#17Earlier quoted context omitted.
Maybe it's interesting to you since HN is your baby and it's fun to watch people use your creation in unexpected ways, but for us, it's lowering the value/utility.
Repl to the rescue: http://news.ycombinator.com/offerless (defop offerless req (offerlesspage (get-user req))) (newscache offerlesspage user 90 (listpage user (msec) ranked-stories* [and (>= (realscore _) front-threshold*) (cansee user _) (no (begins _!title "Offer ")) _] nil nil "offerless"))
Hehe. Super.
Now that's what I call applied technology :)
I think this is technically an 'Offer HN: Less Offers'
Re: Tell HN: Please stop offering your services
#18What if someone wanted to offer a physical product to HN community as a thank you? Would that be appropriate?
Re: Tell HN: Please stop offering your services
#19Of all the types of posts to complain about, this type seems odd. Do you really think this trend will continue for more then a week? A month, tops?
Re: Tell HN: Please stop offering your services
#20I actually think it is fascinating to see this, and I don't think they're spam at all and suggesting they are really not nice at all. HN is many things to many people don't let your particular view of what HN should be dictate the status quo. > But if everyone posted "Offer HN" posts, even if they all did it just once and with a genuine desire to help, rather than a secret need to build their public profile and/or ge…
Hey, you're part of the Secret Cabalistic Society of HN Worship now, you're not allowed to disagree anymore! Get in line!
More seriously - call me a cynic if you will, but when I see people offering help with the Twitter API or with SEO or tax advice or even help with RoR, well, I don't know, something smells fishy to me. That help is freely available on numerous forums to anyone who's looking for it, and it is a pretty standard model for those industries to offer free consultations before reeling you in.
Of course, I'm not saying that's specifically the case with these specific offers, but I'm sure we can all see where this is going.