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Gitlab Handbook's HN Page

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Re: Gitlab Handbook's HN Page

#61

Post by KennyBlanken »

romanhn wrote: post #9

> Never submit GitLab content to Hacker News. Submission gets more credibility if a non-GitLab Hacker News community member posts it, we should focus on making our posts interesting instead of on submitting it. I appreciate this policy, it makes it clear that HN is a place to engage with the community, rather than a free advertising channel. Looking at the CEO's profile, the last time he made a submission about Gitla…

Yeah, but the takeaway is that "coordinated responses" are the norm for even a relatively small tech company and we basically can't count on any genuine social media discussions about large companies. Disclaimer: I'm not saying you-know-who does or doesn't do any of this (though other pages on their wiki do describe some of what I talk about. You can read it for yourself.) At best what looks organic isn't remotely close.

"Coordinated response" is PR-speak for a company's PR team at best controlling the "message" and who delivers it, instead of half a dozen employees chiming in with "inconsistent messaging". Somewhere in-between: immediately calling/DMing certain employees known to toe the company line / have a good reputation publicly, and who are in a relevant department.

It's severely disingenuous, particularly since people interpret the quick appearance as the employee being active in the community, and never will you hear the employee say "well, actually, our PR team rang my phone off the nightstand and said "shmeddit is discussing _______, please immediately get on Slack to provide a response using talking points to some comments that are coming up."

At worst, it's also a company mobilizing, if necessary, a vendor who supplies an army of users (real or fake) on the platform to comment, upvote, downvote, flag, etc. They even have prearranged topics to boost/suppress, canned talking points, etc.

I think the most visible evidence of this is a certain electric car company, which routinely abuses the DMCA takedown process to suppress videos that are unflattering. Google their name and "dmca video" and you can read all about it.

The same technique has been used by a certain rich playboy who sucker-punched a restaurant worker while someone was recording him without him realizing it, and the video made it onto reddit. The video kept getting either removed by moderators or DMCA'd.

A large number of VHNWI's/UHNWIs have standing contracts with reputation management firms for exactly that sort of action.

Re: Gitlab Handbook's HN Page

#62

Post by rattray »

slater wrote: post #47

Anyone else think this is a bit... icky? If you have to game the "system", sorry, I mean, provide "social media guidelines" to this extent, maaaaybe your [whatever you're trying to push/advertise/spread] isn't all that worthwhile...? Especially in the "nerd" world, it seems word of mouth will get out without having to rely on such inane strategizing. I understand that this is just the tip of the iceberg, and other co…

Imagine yourself as an excited, enthusiastic young engineer working at a relatively big company. A blog post relevant to the product you work on comes up - what do you do? Should you post to HN? If it comes up there, should you engage enthusiastically? What's appropriate?

Having guidelines can help with this kind of thing. Of course, guidelines that advised a lot of astroturfing or disingenuous engagement would be pretty icky indeed…

Re: Gitlab Handbook's HN Page

#65

Post by Gigachad »

KennyBlanken wrote: post #61
romanhn wrote: post #9

> Never submit GitLab content to Hacker News. Submission gets more credibility if a non-GitLab Hacker News community member posts it, we should focus on making our posts interesting instead of on submitting it. I appreciate this policy, it makes it clear that HN is a place to engage with the community, rather than a free advertising channel. Looking at the CEO's profile, the last time he made a submission about Gitla…

Yeah, but the takeaway is that "coordinated responses" are the norm for even a relatively small tech company and we basically can't count on any genuine social media discussions about large companies. Disclaimer: I'm not saying you-know-who does or doesn't do any of this (though other pages on their wiki do describe some of what I talk about. You can read it for yourself.) At best what looks organic isn't remotely cl…

Yes, almost every company has automated alerts for mentions about them on any platform. It can be a great thing and it can be abused. A great way for a company to handle social media is to clarify confusion and to answer questions but not raid every thread with defensive or astro turf content.

Often people post online about their complaints about how a product or service doesn't do x when it does but they haven't found it or its newly added. When the PR team can drop in and give a quick update its quite useful.

Re: Gitlab Handbook's HN Page

#67

Post by Gigachad »

ljm wrote: post #46

> We learned that the key to a post reaching the front page was the content itself. Content is King.

Eh, on reddit it seems that the content of the post doesn't matter much at all and that links are simply titles for starting a discussion on site.

Re: Gitlab Handbook's HN Page

#68

Post by Gigachad »

pottertheotter wrote: post #53
slater wrote: post #47

Anyone else think this is a bit... icky? If you have to game the "system", sorry, I mean, provide "social media guidelines" to this extent, maaaaybe your [whatever you're trying to push/advertise/spread] isn't all that worthwhile...? Especially in the "nerd" world, it seems word of mouth will get out without having to rely on such inane strategizing. I understand that this is just the tip of the iceberg, and other co…

I initially felt that way but less so as I read. Also, any large company has procedures for PR. It’s a part of life.

It's only weird because it's public. Every other big company has this on their internal wiki

Re: Gitlab Handbook's HN Page

#69

Post by mooreds »

gandalfgreybeer wrote: post #59
romanhn wrote: post #9

> Never submit GitLab content to Hacker News. Submission gets more credibility if a non-GitLab Hacker News community member posts it, we should focus on making our posts interesting instead of on submitting it. I appreciate this policy, it makes it clear that HN is a place to engage with the community, rather than a free advertising channel. Looking at the CEO's profile, the last time he made a submission about Gitla…

In my ideal world, most content sharing and even social media sites should be like this. Good content driving interest instead of gaming the algorithm to get clicks and views would lead to a better ecosystem of information with less noise. Although I doubt we’ll ever reach that point so I’m wondering if there are other small communities around the web that are just more quality-oriented on the content shared (I just…

Lobsters is a good one. (You need an invite.)

And I'm a member of some slacks that are just killer in terms of content and discussion.

Too bad about the memory hole.

Re: Gitlab Handbook's HN Page

#70

Post by beachy »

This culture of radical openness must be quite refreshing for people inside the company.

A lot of companies would never want this sort of thing to be out in the open. But really, why not? I imagine it helps to keep things sensible if you know that a thousand eyes could be trawling over your employee policies. You're certainly not going to be promoting astroturfing or other undesirable activities.

At the same time, you aren't burdened with deciding what to share. Many (most?) companies tie themselves in knots trying to decide what to share, and end up sharing nothing.

Sharing everything means less time spent deciding what to share and more time developing the stuff in the first place.

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