How to stop a story from appearing on Reddit (2010) • Hacker News Board

Re: How to stop a story from appearing on Reddit (2010)

#11

Post by rcfox » Fri, Mar 15, 2013, 1:26 AM UTC

wmf wrote: post #10

networked wrote: post #2

Submitting a story with a bad title would make for a similar, if weaker, exploit for Hacker News. A key to this would be to make the title boring rather than offensive so that it doesn't get flagged but rather slips off "new" into oblivion. You can also use a handy chart [1] to pick the worst time to post. As a bonus you'll also get karma from all the people legitimately trying to submit the story. A pertinent questi…

HN's dupe detector is so weak that you can just add ?reposting or something to the URL and it will get another chance.

People (like me) notice this, and don't appreciate it.

Re: How to stop a story from appearing on Reddit (2010)

#12

Post by sgdesign » Fri, Mar 15, 2013, 1:29 AM UTC

I wonder if HN should permit duplicate URLs. Maybe with a message saying that the URL has already been posted and asking if you're sure you want to double post (I think that might be what Reddit does?).

Re: How to stop a story from appearing on Reddit (2010)

#13

Post by westonh » Fri, Mar 15, 2013, 1:40 AM UTC

Mallory's a guy?

Re: How to stop a story from appearing on Reddit (2010)

#14

Post by markkat » Fri, Mar 15, 2013, 1:41 AM UTC

I remember when we used to just be able to append ?x to the url and it allowed duplicates.

Re: How to stop a story from appearing on Reddit (2010)

#15

Post by damian2000 » Fri, Mar 15, 2013, 2:14 AM UTC

markkat wrote: post #14

I remember when we used to just be able to append ?x to the url and it allowed duplicates.

I believe you still can - works on HN and reddit.

Re: How to stop a story from appearing on Reddit (2010)

#16

Post by mparlane » Fri, Mar 15, 2013, 2:49 AM UTC

rcfox wrote: post #11

wmf wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

HN's dupe detector is so weak that you can just add ?reposting or something to the URL and it will get another chance.

People (like me) notice this, and don't appreciate it.

People notice this and realize there is a reason they have done so.

Re: How to stop a story from appearing on Reddit (2010)

#17

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Mar 15, 2013, 2:49 AM UTC

[deleted]

Re: How to stop a story from appearing on Reddit (2010)

#18

Post by dfc » Fri, Mar 15, 2013, 2:53 AM UTC

westonh wrote: post #13

Mallory's a guy?

I had always thought Mallory was the female name and Mallet was the male name for the second attacker. I did a little digging and it seems that Mallory is primarily a girl's name it can also be a boy's name.

Re: How to stop a story from appearing on Reddit (2010)

#19

Post by jcr » Fri, Mar 15, 2013, 3:13 AM UTC

rcfox wrote: post #11

wmf wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

HN's dupe detector is so weak that you can just add ?reposting or something to the URL and it will get another chance.

People (like me) notice this, and don't appreciate it.

When you think it through completely, you'll see there's good reason for the dupe detector to be lenient. In the early days of HN (or earlier, as "Startup News"), avoiding dupes was more important since the rate of submissions to the /newest queue was fairly slow. These days, the rate of submissions is very brisk, so a lot of really great stuff floats by basically unnoticed. Allowing for a second chance actually makes sense.

If you have "Show Dead" on, you'll see there are a lot of people submitting who have their submissions immediately marked [dead]. If you've studied how HN is built, you'll see pg (et al) tends to follow an "Enough Rope" design policy -- this is from the old expression "Give him enough rope to hang himself, and he will." It seems if you intentionally and repeatedly abuse the lenient dupe detector to promote something, you will be noticed, silently, and handled accordingly.