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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?

#161

Post by tptacek »

silisili wrote: post #55
PaulRobinson wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A great take, and thanks for your all hard work dang. Yesterday the top comment on two stories I went to discuss had deep and meaningful content, before the last line which was a "and I talk about this stuff all the time on my newsletter [link]", and I was conflicted. Same poster each time. The poster had done the HN thing: responded with thoughtful examination of TFA, unique and interesting insight, and I don't feel…

Not a mod, but I do hope you flag comments like that. Dang is awesome, but it is user moderation that makes a giant difference.

You flagged an otherwise good comment because it linked out to a newsletter?

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

#162

Post by tptacek »

jesusofsuburbia wrote: post #116
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…

Honest question: was an LLM involved in writing this comment? The em-dash style stood out to me

"Dan" is an LLM. Did you not know that?

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

#163

Post by tptacek »

esperent wrote: post #80
ThrowawayR2 wrote: post #6

> " 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.' " ... " If so, what are the real levers, and what do people consistently misunderstand? " There are no "levers". People come to HN to discuss nerdy topics and those that have come to HN to help make those discussions more informed and interesting are welcome. Anyone who comes t…

> There are no "levers". Everyone wants to believe that their community doesn't have levers. But this is just wishful thinking, ego talking. Of course HN has levers, of course the community here can be manipulated. The easiest way I can see would be to frame a helpful, curious question to which your service just happens to be the answer. So then you most an Ask HN like "can anyone help me to understand why people do…

Ask HN is a distinctly bad way to drive engagement for a business through HN. Not a good lever. I agree that there are levers, though.

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

#164

Post by tptacek »

edent wrote: post #40

Do you want to know a secret? Sometimes my friends post on social media platform A "Hey, I've just posted on platform B. Upvotes appreciated." Or a newsletter will say "please share this post on…" Or people on Discord / Slack / Matrix will say "people are being mean to me on platform C, where are my defenders at?" HN feels organic - and is pretty well moderated - but it isn't immune to family & friends giving somethi…

The opposite thing is true in my experience. We write a post and immediately warn our friends not to upvote it, because none of us know how the ring detector works, but we're pretty sure it's hair-trigger. I don't think stories get to the top of HN by being voted up by friends.

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

#165

Post by gus_massa »

darkwater wrote: post #140
matsemann wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, this "btw I have a newsletter here" seems overly promotional. HN as a forum doesn't have support for "signatures", then it feels a bit off to end every post with something not really relevant. The grey area is people constantly linking to their own blog, but the linked post is relevant (example [0]). Like, it's good when people post relevant links to diver deeper, but when it's constantly your own content, that…

> [0]: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que ... simonw is a smart guy, definitely an HN darling for anything LLM related nowadays but at the same time he is constantly pushing for his personal brand, IMO. Maybe unconsciously and just because he is very prolific but still, I get that feeling.

Looking at the examples, each one goes to a different post that is relevant to the discussion. For me that's fine.

I'd be unhappy if it's always the same link, for example to the top of his blog. Or different post to slightly related topics.

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

#166

Post by nxor »

TomasBM wrote: post #119
nobodywillobsrv wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you know they don't? How can you show this? It's fine if it's just vibes but just want to know what is known and can be said.

I can't know for sure. For me, it's just the "eyeball method" of comparing HN and different subreddits on Reddit. As to how I (or anyone) could show this, here are a few example questions: 1. How many examples of stealthy but otherwise blatant promotion do you see in the comments? Not every astroturfing campaign will be successful or original, so you'd be able to notice some patterns. Plus, HN is already commercially…

[dead]

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

#167

Post by cainxinth »

Things HN likes (in my experience):

- Reverse Engineering (legacy code analysis, hardware teardowns)

- Bug Post-Mortems

- Systems Internals (database engines, kernel scheduling, compiler edge cases)

- Retro-Computing

- Infrastructure History

- Obscure Museums / Web Archives

- Convivial Tools (right to repair, privacy first)

- Intellectual Curiosities: (biological quirks, niche economies)

- Neologisms (enshittification, context engineering)

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

#168

Post by huhtenberg »

tptacek wrote: post #161
silisili wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not a mod, but I do hope you flag comments like that. Dang is awesome, but it is user moderation that makes a giant difference.

You flagged an otherwise good comment because it linked out to a newsletter?

Not the GP, but, yeah, because it is still a form of spam.

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

#169

Post by saidnooneever »

HN works like this. you can post something and if people have something to say they can comment. if you make the title accurate its more appreciated than making it cool. if people like what you did it will 'take off'. i dont think there's much other than that which i think makes it appealing.

there might be people that try to get more out of it somehow, but i dont think it 'works like that'

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

#170

Post by silisili »

tptacek wrote: post #161
silisili wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not a mod, but I do hope you flag comments like that. Dang is awesome, but it is user moderation that makes a giant difference.

You flagged an otherwise good comment because it linked out to a newsletter?

It's really contextual so... maybe? A good comment that just happens to do it once, likely not. But OP saw it multiple times in a short time from the same user, so probably.

Constant self promotion is what is hurting so many other platforms, I'd hate to see this one take even a step in that direction.

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