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How to Participate in Hacker News
81–90 of 126 posts
Re: How to Participate in Hacker News
#82"I see no need for "personas"" If you work for a company X and you are posting with your real name, you will somehow represent the company X. Whatever you say on YC is public. Be careful to not damage your company image.
This stung me really bad in my first job as a trainee developer. I made a comment on a site (slashdot I think) and foolishly put down my real name and company name. Some journalist on CNet took my comment as the official company line and included it in an article. It was picked up by investors (during what was in retrospect due diligence before the company was sold) and I got a severe reprimand from my manager for it…
Sorry to hear that. I did put a disclaimer on my personal blog because I don't want to use a persona but I still have things to say ;-)
Re: How to Participate in Hacker News
#83Earlier quoted context omitted.
You're full of shit.
Interesting perspective. What data led you to that conclusion?
The ironies that lie is this ^^ post…
In all seriousness, humor on HN needs to be:
1) Actually funny; it can't an obvious pun or cliché.
2) Constructive; humor *can* convey and add to meaning.
3) Clean and nice; this should go without saying.Re: How to Participate in Hacker News
#84Earlier quoted context omitted.
HN has a really bizzare, inconsistent relationship with humour. Best to avoid it altogether.
It's more that there are large numbers of people who consistently don't get humour, either for cultural reasons or deficiencies in their humour glands or whatever. On the other hand, in forums where people upvote humour, there can be mechanisms that actually are counterproductive. E.g. on Reddit where there is something serious that you are interested in, but some idiot starts a punning thread which takes off and run…
I don't think that downvotes necessarily mean that people didn't get the joke. If I see a witty one-liner comment to a serious story, my normal reaction is "Ha ha ha! Downvote." Or else I ignore it entirely. (And sometimes it simply _isn't_ very funny.)
I just don't think we need to encourage content-free comments here; there are plenty of places to go if you want to make fun of the news.
Then again, I moderate a site that's been accused of taking too hard a line on "fun", so maybe I shouldn't talk.
Re: How to Participate in Hacker News
#85Here's another suggestion: flag sparingly. A lot of long-time HN'ers are frustrated at the "flag patrols" -- people of one group who don't like such-and-such author and flag them and their submissions. I've heard several people complain to me about having normal articles flagged and I've done my share of complaining. Don't be the guy who takes out your personal grudges in the form of flagging. Let the votes work. The…
Moderation should be approached like web security - any feature has potential exploits. Expect the flag patrols and bury brigades because if you allow folks to downrate or flag, someone will abuse it. You know, the only site that had moderation pretty much figured out (meaning: signal to noise ratio is much better than rest of internet) for over a decade was Slashdot. Making the system both resilient to attack as wel…
Haha, "Bury Brigade" ... cute.
Re: How to Participate in Hacker News
#86Thanks for those article. I'm trying HN at the suggestion of a colleague, having been a longtime participant in the Slashdot community. It's a bit intimidating as a noob here, but I think that's just because I'm not used to the higher signal to noise ratio (though /.'s moderation system does a very good job with what it has).
I'll still probably lurk more as I get used to the community. It's great to say "participate!" but there is something to be said for understanding the people with which one is talking as well.
Re: How to Participate in Hacker News
#87Shame for my lurk so long! : )
Re: How to Participate in Hacker News
#88Earlier quoted context omitted.
On the contrary, I think people should flag away -- but go to the new stories page first. There's plenty of spam and politics and duplicate content and other off-topic humdrum. And if you happen to come across an interesting article about hacking or startups, vote it up -- it might even make it to the front page.
Not sure if you know this or not, but flagging an article as it first appears prevents all other HNers from seeing it. Flagging it later on causes it to sink rapidly off the top page. This means that a very few people could prevent huge chunks of legitimate stories from being seen by fellow HNers by flagging. Flagging, for whatever reason, is much more powerful than voting. If you flag, you not only note that the art…
> Not sure if you know this or not, but flagging an article as it first appears prevents all other HNers from seeing it.
As I understand it, this is not the case. If enough people flag a story before it gets some upvotes, then it gets auto-killed, but one flag won't kill a story. It does make it harder to get to the front page though.
> Flagging it later on causes it to sink rapidly off the top page.
This is exactly how I'd expect a downvote to function, so I'd say flagging is serving a sort of dual purpose.
If you look at the front page, there's no lack of quality stories. It's harder these days for any individual story to make it to the front page, but that's a function of greater submission volume.
Quality discussions on the other hand have become more sparse as HN has grown. Perhaps it's a function of community size and there's no real fix for it.
Re: How to Participate in Hacker News
#89I never understood why people lurked so long. As a long-time lurker, I mainly visit HN to get exposed to new ideas that I know little about. This is why I don't (and shouldn't) comment very often.
I was a long-time lurker as well for the same reason. I do find however, that participating in the community opens up new discussions and I can further my learning by connecting with other people. It's always a learning experience to have discussions with people who are more knowledgeable about a topic or have differing opinions than your own.
Re: How to Participate in Hacker News
#90I've been a long time lurker here. I lurked for several months before creating an account and then I lurked quite a bit longer before participating. Groups of intelligent people are intimidating at first but please don't hold back if you have something to add to a discussion. New voices are incredibly important for preventing groups from merely becoming echochambers for established members. I especially agree with th…
I'm generally happy lurking, and I can lurk with the best of them (see 4 years / 35 karma :-)) To be honest I just don't have the time to comment often and karma (in a HN sense) means nothing to me. My way of giving back to the community happens more in real life (aka meatspace, though I hate that term),more recently it's the connections I've made through HN and iOS meetups here in Tokyo that are the most valuable to…
I hope this isn't too off-topic, but would you be willing to describe the iOS scene in Tokyo? I always love hearing about what programming habits and techniques are popular in different countries. Would you say the community there embraces a fast-release philosophy or are they more like the big name devs (Square Enix)? Are any frameworks popular? Is iOS development big? What would you say is the most popular language in Japan?
Thanks!