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What I've Learned from Hacker News

paulgraham.com

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Re: What I've Learned from Hacker News

#11

Post by vlad »

tsally wrote: post #6

Does the submitter have a script that automatically posts new essays from paulgraham.com? You've submitted the last three in a row almost instantly. Not that I'm criticising; just curious :-).

Years ago, I figured that I could get lots of karma by creating an auto-submit script to submit stories from techcrunch and paulgraham.com. Best of all, if another auto-submit script submitted the same story a bit later, they would actually be voting up your story, so the more auto-submitters existed, the better. Sure, more competition from other scripts and users sounds like it's bad. However, I calculated that the scripter still wins because when they're the first to submit, there are even more votes than before (due to other scripters submitting a story a few seconds later and therefore voting up the original). It's better to get beaten by other scripts most of the time and make it to the front page with a bunch of upvotes in just a few minutes, than to always be the first and only submitter/upvote, most users never seeing the story.

And when an article has 10 upvotes in the first few minutes, it's almost guaranteed to make the top spot on the front page, and therefore gain even more votes from real users due to the publicity and feel that others have found the article interesting.

I was top 15 and wanted to get invited to Startup School again, so I didn't make the script. But since then, users have come out of nowhere to reach the top ten, accumulating karma at a dizzying pace.

One of the top users has said he submits the best stories from his rss reader every day. I believe a more likely explanation is that all stories from sites that are commonly referenced on the front page are auto-submitted by a script that checks for new articles every few minutes.

This was also my explanation on why so many techcrunch stories have been upvoted on news.yc--they make an easy candidate for auto-submitting: not because of story content, unfortunately, but because auto-submitting stories from sites that already appear often and that other auto-submitters might submit gives one a free set of 4-10 votes each time.

I guess my point is that Hacker News is being gamed the way reddit and digg are.

Re: What I've Learned from Hacker News

#12

Post by tptacek »

alain94040 wrote: post #8

Hear, hear: if you have a solution for detecting stupid comments, let Paul know. I liked the two ideas Paul mentioned: length of comment is related to stupidity, and not using the same words again. Just make those fall toward the bottom of the page and we'll all be happy. While any algorithm can be gamed, length is still pretty good. If I have to go through the extra effort of adding two paragraphs each time I write…

If it's a similar problem to Google, then you wonder whether the reputation of the commenters and the comment's responders could factor in.

I'd like a system that gave credit to people who start high-ranked threads (in the aggregate).

Re: What I've Learned from Hacker News

#13

Post by pkaler »

How about requiring submitters to tag stories that are submitted?

If you have a set of blessed tags, then the submitter must carefully think which tags apply to their submission. This also forces the submitter to consider if the story fits with the content guidelines of the site.

Re: What I've Learned from Hacker News

#14

Post by aneesh »

vlad wrote: post #11
tsally wrote: post #6

Does the submitter have a script that automatically posts new essays from paulgraham.com? You've submitted the last three in a row almost instantly. Not that I'm criticising; just curious :-).

Years ago, I figured that I could get lots of karma by creating an auto-submit script to submit stories from techcrunch and paulgraham.com. Best of all, if another auto-submit script submitted the same story a bit later, they would actually be voting up your story, so the more auto-submitters existed, the better. Sure, more competition from other scripts and users sounds like it's bad. However, I calculated that the…

"I guess my point is that Hacker News is being gamed the way reddit and digg are."

Only if you think the "game" is to accumulate karma. For me, the submissions are merely seeds around which insightful discussions grow.

Re: What I've Learned from Hacker News

#15

Post by pg »

vlad wrote: post #11
tsally wrote: post #6

Does the submitter have a script that automatically posts new essays from paulgraham.com? You've submitted the last three in a row almost instantly. Not that I'm criticising; just curious :-).

Years ago, I figured that I could get lots of karma by creating an auto-submit script to submit stories from techcrunch and paulgraham.com. Best of all, if another auto-submit script submitted the same story a bit later, they would actually be voting up your story, so the more auto-submitters existed, the better. Sure, more competition from other scripts and users sounds like it's bad. However, I calculated that the…

I know most of the highest karma users and I'm pretty sure they're not using scripts. I also have lots of code watching voting patterns (e.g. for voting rings) and though it's common for a user to submit many stories from one site, the evidence suggests nearly all of them are doing it to drive traffic, not game karma.

Re: What I've Learned from Hacker News

#16

Post by bk »

Completely minor factual amendment:

It was Ed Koch (and his police commissioner) who initiated the broken windows based policing. Giuliani took it to the next level and as you correctly phrased it, is the one with whom it became most associated.

Source: http://books.google.com/books?id=vHKBXA8nXvQC&pg=PA63&#3...

Re: What I've Learned from Hacker News

#17

Post by run4yourlives »

What a disaster that would be, to attract thousands of smart people to a site that caused them to waste lots of time.

Wow, it's like university. :-)

Ok, now that I've made that moronic joke, being HN I know I'll need to add some more substance to counter balance the negative effect. This, in essence is one of the reasons I love coming here - For users that care it's self policing, in other words, what Paul says regarding the broken windows theory is absolution correct.

The whole broken windows theory (and it critiques) are fascinating reads. I'd urge anyone who only knows of the summary version to dig deeper into the ideas. Certainly up most hacker's alleys.

Re: What I've Learned from Hacker News

#18

Post by wallflower »

tptacek wrote: post #12
alain94040 wrote: post #8

Hear, hear: if you have a solution for detecting stupid comments, let Paul know. I liked the two ideas Paul mentioned: length of comment is related to stupidity, and not using the same words again. Just make those fall toward the bottom of the page and we'll all be happy. While any algorithm can be gamed, length is still pretty good. If I have to go through the extra effort of adding two paragraphs each time I write…

If it's a similar problem to Google, then you wonder whether the reputation of the commenters and the comment's responders could factor in. I'd like a system that gave credit to people who start high-ranked threads (in the aggregate).

I would be interested in seeing the total aggregate comment points for a thread. I think some of the most interesting threads take off with unexpected tangents. For example, the recent one on marriage/dating.

Re: What I've Learned from Hacker News

#19

Post by kwamenum86 »

aneesh wrote: post #14
vlad wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Years ago, I figured that I could get lots of karma by creating an auto-submit script to submit stories from techcrunch and paulgraham.com. Best of all, if another auto-submit script submitted the same story a bit later, they would actually be voting up your story, so the more auto-submitters existed, the better. Sure, more competition from other scripts and users sounds like it's bad. However, I calculated that the…

"I guess my point is that Hacker News is being gamed the way reddit and digg are." Only if you think the "game" is to accumulate karma. For me, the submissions are merely seeds around which insightful discussions grow.

There is a tangible reward for people who have the most karma though.
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