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Ask HN: Does anyone understand how Hacker News works?

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Re: Ask HN: Does anyone understand how Hacker News works?

#61

Post by simonmales »

drsim wrote: post #53
onion2k wrote: post #51

When working on my projects and talking to investors, I often hear: “Just post it on Hacker News or Reddit and show that people love it.” Unless you're building a start up where the potential customers are specifically HN and Reddit readers, get the hell away from those investors. They're idiots. As lovely and wonderful as the readers of HN and Reddit are, being loved on HN or Reddit means essentially nothing . Peopl…

I love HN. And the Show HN graveyard is huge! Many a time I’ve searched, found a post I thought sounded cool, and it’s dead… sometimes in just a couple of months.

This is a hard truth. I looked at my own Show HN post history, some are definitely in the graveyard.

Re: Ask HN: Does anyone understand how Hacker News works?

#62

Post by Imustaskforhelp »

onion2k wrote: post #51

When working on my projects and talking to investors, I often hear: “Just post it on Hacker News or Reddit and show that people love it.” Unless you're building a start up where the potential customers are specifically HN and Reddit readers, get the hell away from those investors. They're idiots. As lovely and wonderful as the readers of HN and Reddit are, being loved on HN or Reddit means essentially nothing . Peopl…

The magpies of the internet sounds like a really cool name for what its worth, dont mind if I steal it :)

I played inscryption (a really good game) and magpie had the sigil of being able to take any card from the deck and oh my, it was a beauty seeing a magpie or the sigil because that meant that I could then get any overpowered card I had from the deck.

I am sure people might not understand it if they haven't played the game but everytime I hear magpie, Its almost obligatory for me to mention inscryption. (also the same goes for stoat and ouroborous too)

Re: Ask HN: Does anyone understand how Hacker News works?

#63

Post by teekert »

onion2k wrote: post #51

When working on my projects and talking to investors, I often hear: “Just post it on Hacker News or Reddit and show that people love it.” Unless you're building a start up where the potential customers are specifically HN and Reddit readers, get the hell away from those investors. They're idiots. As lovely and wonderful as the readers of HN and Reddit are, being loved on HN or Reddit means essentially nothing . Peopl…

Of course, the Dropbox post has a meme-level example of an HNer predicting its popularity :) [0]

That said, it also often happen that you share something and it is not picked up, even though after 10 years I think I can predict what HN loves. Sometimes a repost after 2 days will hit the front page, certainly not always.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9224

Re: Ask HN: Does anyone understand how Hacker News works?

#64

Post by RobotToaster »

onion2k wrote: post #51

When working on my projects and talking to investors, I often hear: “Just post it on Hacker News or Reddit and show that people love it.” Unless you're building a start up where the potential customers are specifically HN and Reddit readers, get the hell away from those investors. They're idiots. As lovely and wonderful as the readers of HN and Reddit are, being loved on HN or Reddit means essentially nothing . Peopl…

> get the hell away from those investors. They're idiots.

Re: Ask HN: Does anyone understand how Hacker News works?

#65

Post by RobotToaster »

onion2k wrote: post #51

When working on my projects and talking to investors, I often hear: “Just post it on Hacker News or Reddit and show that people love it.” Unless you're building a start up where the potential customers are specifically HN and Reddit readers, get the hell away from those investors. They're idiots. As lovely and wonderful as the readers of HN and Reddit are, being loved on HN or Reddit means essentially nothing . Peopl…

> get the hell away from those investors. They're idiots.

Surely idiot investors are the easiest to get money from?

Re: Ask HN: Does anyone understand how Hacker News works?

#66

Post by Imustaskforhelp »

dang wrote: post #8

(I'm a mod here) It's true that this place can be cryptic, and that has downsides—specifically, it can be confusing to newcomers, even to some newcomers who would make ideal HN users. That sucks. But there's a key that unlocks most of the puzzles. That is to understand that we're optimizing for exactly one thing: curiosity. (Specifically, intellectual curiosity, since there are other kinds of curiosity too.) Here are…

Yes I agree with your comment, as you say I feel like the author of this post is trying to game the system for their "investors" and I do feel like it doesnt get into the ethos of hackernews

Purpose of hackernews as you said is fulfilling curiosity, its not a place where people should try to post to get eyeballs or something because their investors said so.

Honestly hackernews to me is a place where tinkering as a hobby is appreciated. I have read so many large threads here and ended up sometimes having a new point of view on something and so many posts here which make me want to be curious and tinker around too. I cannot really name something exactly which clicks on hackernews but that is what makes it unique and this does mean I cannot explain it to others sometimes since my hobbies are tangential to hackernews too, I just end up saying my hobby is tinkering with computers (currently only software)

Re: Ask HN: Does anyone understand how Hacker News works?

#67

Post by maxbond »

Sounds like analysis paralysis. Read posts here, pay attention to what this audience expects, and then post your work. If you really want to find a source on this topic Michael Lynch (mtlynch) wrote a book called Hit the Front Page of Hacker News and you can find it if you search for it (I haven't actually read it), but I think spending an hour a week reading HN and asking yourself why a piece of writing did or didn't work for this audience would be more worthwhile.

Re: Ask HN: Does anyone understand how Hacker News works?

#68

Post by Imustaskforhelp »

fzeindl wrote: post #15
dang wrote: post #8

(I'm a mod here) It's true that this place can be cryptic, and that has downsides—specifically, it can be confusing to newcomers, even to some newcomers who would make ideal HN users. That sucks. But there's a key that unlocks most of the puzzles. That is to understand that we're optimizing for exactly one thing: curiosity. (Specifically, intellectual curiosity, since there are other kinds of curiosity too.) Here are…

Obviously all of what dang said, but I want to add that I think timing is an additional factor. If you post when silicon valley wakes up on a weekday, you might get “initial” points faster, which leads to your submission being ranked higher up for a while and being more discoverable.

Interesting stuff but we should keep these secrets otherwise people will try to game this system :)

Re: Ask HN: Does anyone understand how Hacker News works?

#69

Post by Sander_Marechal »

RobotToaster wrote: post #65
onion2k wrote: post #51

When working on my projects and talking to investors, I often hear: “Just post it on Hacker News or Reddit and show that people love it.” Unless you're building a start up where the potential customers are specifically HN and Reddit readers, get the hell away from those investors. They're idiots. As lovely and wonderful as the readers of HN and Reddit are, being loved on HN or Reddit means essentially nothing . Peopl…

> get the hell away from those investors. They're idiots. Surely idiot investors are the easiest to get money from?

Even idiot investors eventually want their money back. And they will ruin you in the process with their idiotic ideas.

Re: Ask HN: Does anyone understand how Hacker News works?

#70

Post by badtuple »

RobotToaster wrote: post #65
onion2k wrote: post #51

When working on my projects and talking to investors, I often hear: “Just post it on Hacker News or Reddit and show that people love it.” Unless you're building a start up where the potential customers are specifically HN and Reddit readers, get the hell away from those investors. They're idiots. As lovely and wonderful as the readers of HN and Reddit are, being loved on HN or Reddit means essentially nothing . Peopl…

> get the hell away from those investors. They're idiots. Surely idiot investors are the easiest to get money from?

Ideally you'll be working with the investors and leveraging their expertise and connections. If you're choosing an investor that you'll be working with for years, it's worth looking for things in addition to money.
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