How to Hack Hacker News

#1

Post by micaeloliveira » Fri, May 25, 2018, 1:53 PM UTC

How to Hack Hacker News
news.codecademy.com

Re: How to Hack Hacker News

#2

Post by ineptech » Fri, May 25, 2018, 5:07 PM UTC

Somewhat different from my idea of how to get to the front page of Hacker News (from http://ineptech.com/index.html?blog&post=20):

* Use a plainly wrong headline which you intend to weasel out of in the body of the essay (e.g. "Why Javascript is lower-level than Assembly", "Mobile is dead")

* Any " in " project that hasn't been done yet (e.g. "Building a reverse-Polish calculator in Rust", "Show HN: Umud, the first MUD client for Urbit")

* Devise a variant on an obscure technology or algorithm and give it a quirky name (e.g. "Soda-can steganography", "Homomorphic hashing the Monty Python way")

* Vague counter-intuitive advice for startup founders (e.g. "Raising your valuation through the power of song", "How beating my children saved my B round")

Re: How to Hack Hacker News

#3

Post by tj-teej » Fri, May 25, 2018, 5:15 PM UTC

"These queries reveal that Github, the New York Times, and Medium are the sources the Hacker News community trusts the most."

I agree it says something about how HN regards the NYT; but isn't saying Github or Medium are "sources the community trusts" like saying paper is a source someone trusts because they get their knowledge from books?

Re: How to Hack Hacker News

#4

Post by mikestew » Fri, May 25, 2018, 5:49 PM UTC

tj-teej wrote: post #3

"These queries reveal that Github, the New York Times, and Medium are the sources the Hacker News community trusts the most." I agree it says something about how HN regards the NYT; but isn't saying Github or Medium are "sources the community trusts" like saying paper is a source someone trusts because they get their knowledge from books?

In the case of Medium, it says essentially that right on the tin. Because, you know, the medium is not the message.

Re: How to Hack Hacker News

#5

Post by jenoer » Fri, May 25, 2018, 8:03 PM UTC

This article has been posted 4 hours too early.

Re: How to Hack Hacker News

#6

Post by craftyguy » Fri, May 25, 2018, 8:13 PM UTC

ineptech wrote: post #2

Somewhat different from my idea of how to get to the front page of Hacker News (from http://ineptech.com/index.html?blog&post=20 ): * Use a plainly wrong headline which you intend to weasel out of in the body of the essay (e.g. "Why Javascript is lower-level than Assembly", "Mobile is dead") * Any " in " project that hasn't been done yet (e.g. "Building a reverse-Polish calculator in Rust", "Show HN: Umud, the first…

so basically: use a clickbaity title

Re: How to Hack Hacker News

#7

Post by craftyguy » Fri, May 25, 2018, 8:15 PM UTC

mikestew wrote: post #4

tj-teej wrote: post #3

"These queries reveal that Github, the New York Times, and Medium are the sources the Hacker News community trusts the most." I agree it says something about how HN regards the NYT; but isn't saying Github or Medium are "sources the community trusts" like saying paper is a source someone trusts because they get their knowledge from books?

In the case of Medium, it says essentially that right on the tin. Because, you know, the medium is not the message.

I always interpreted the name as being "it (the content) is not high quality, or low quality, it's medium quality"

Re: How to Hack Hacker News

#8

Post by RugnirViking » Sat, May 26, 2018, 2:43 AM UTC

ineptech wrote: post #2

Somewhat different from my idea of how to get to the front page of Hacker News (from http://ineptech.com/index.html?blog&post=20 ): * Use a plainly wrong headline which you intend to weasel out of in the body of the essay (e.g. "Why Javascript is lower-level than Assembly", "Mobile is dead") * Any " in " project that hasn't been done yet (e.g. "Building a reverse-Polish calculator in Rust", "Show HN: Umud, the first…

To be honest most of those articles look like something I want to read. Especially soda-can steganography.

Re: How to Hack Hacker News

#9

Post by anotherevan » Sat, May 26, 2018, 4:09 AM UTC

Normally, the trick to getting on the front page of Hacker News is to submit an article about Hacker News, but we're all a bit distracted by the GDPR at the moment...

Re: How to Hack Hacker News

#10

Post by muzz » Sun, May 27, 2018, 4:10 PM UTC

mikestew wrote: post #4

tj-teej wrote: post #3

"These queries reveal that Github, the New York Times, and Medium are the sources the Hacker News community trusts the most." I agree it says something about how HN regards the NYT; but isn't saying Github or Medium are "sources the community trusts" like saying paper is a source someone trusts because they get their knowledge from books?

In the case of Medium, it says essentially that right on the tin. Because, you know, the medium is not the message.

Maybe it has multiple meanings, but I thought medium referred to the length of content. As opposed to short form (Twitter) or long form (articles, papers, etc)