Tell HN: Please stop offering your services • Hacker News Board

Re: Tell HN: Please stop offering your services

#101

Post by tobtoh » Wed, Oct 27, 2010, 11:52 PM UTC

I think there is a big difference in an 'Ask HN' post and a 'Offer HN' post.

In general terms, an 'Ask HN' post is the HN crowd helping an individual. Everyone can participate to help that individual. An 'Offer HN' post is one person helping one other person (or maybe a small handful). I enjoy seeing the occasional Ask HN post because I can participate/contribute in some way to most of the requests. For Offer HN posts, I can't participate unless I have that specific need.

To me, there is less 'value' to the HN community from the Offer HN posts to the Ask HN ones for that reason. Yes - I understand 'value' is subjective, but this I think my point is reasonably objective from a 'whole community' point of view.

Re: Tell HN: Please stop offering your services

#102

Post by dasil003 » Thu, Oct 28, 2010, 12:03 AM UTC

swombat wrote: post #20

jacquesm wrote: post #12

I actually think it is fascinating to see this, and I don't think they're spam at all and suggesting they are really not nice at all. HN is many things to many people don't let your particular view of what HN should be dictate the status quo. > But if everyone posted "Offer HN" posts, even if they all did it just once and with a genuine desire to help, rather than a secret need to build their public profile and/or ge…

Hey, you're part of the Secret Cabalistic Society of HN Worship now, you're not allowed to disagree anymore! Get in line! More seriously - call me a cynic if you will, but when I see people offering help with the Twitter API or with SEO or tax advice or even help with RoR, well, I don't know, something smells fishy to me. That help is freely available on numerous forums to anyone who's looking for it, and it is a pre…

> Hey, you're part of the Secret Cabalistic Society of HN Worship now, you're not allowed to disagree anymore! Get in line!

If there's any secret cabal activity happening here, it's a conspiracy to maintain top-ten leaderboard positions by means of random sensationalistic debates.

Re: Tell HN: Please stop offering your services

#103

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Oct 28, 2010, 12:05 AM UTC

pg wrote: post #14

zackattack wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe it's interesting to you since HN is your baby and it's fun to watch people use your creation in unexpected ways, but for us, it's lowering the value/utility.

Repl to the rescue: http://news.ycombinator.com/offerless (defop offerless req (offerlesspage (get-user req))) (newscache offerlesspage user 90 (listpage user (msec) ranked-stories* [and (>= (realscore _) front-threshold*) (cansee user _) (no (begins _!title "Offer ")) _] nil nil "offerless"))

[deleted]

Re: Tell HN: Please stop offering your services

#104

Post by techbio » Thu, Oct 28, 2010, 12:05 AM UTC

pg wrote: post #14

zackattack wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe it's interesting to you since HN is your baby and it's fun to watch people use your creation in unexpected ways, but for us, it's lowering the value/utility.

Repl to the rescue: http://news.ycombinator.com/offerless (defop offerless req (offerlesspage (get-user req))) (newscache offerlesspage user 90 (listpage user (msec) ranked-stories* [and (>= (realscore _) front-threshold*) (cansee user _) (no (begins _!title "Offer ")) _] nil nil "offerless"))

This kind of social programming interests me.

Have you written about interacting with the community on that level?

Re: Tell HN: Please stop offering your services

#105

Post by bloggergirl » Thu, Oct 28, 2010, 12:12 AM UTC

malbiniak wrote: post #42

swombat wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hey, you're part of the Secret Cabalistic Society of HN Worship now, you're not allowed to disagree anymore! Get in line! More seriously - call me a cynic if you will, but when I see people offering help with the Twitter API or with SEO or tax advice or even help with RoR, well, I don't know, something smells fishy to me. That help is freely available on numerous forums to anyone who's looking for it, and it is a pre…

I think you're addressing a problem before it's arrived, and I don't think that's a bad thing. I agree that this isn't sustainable, and at some point, the offers are going to become less genuine and less valuable. However, after looking at the bloggergirl copy deck suggestions, I want to clearly state that she (and other offers) don't fall into this group. Great work. I'd encourage users to ask for help. We're alread…

Thanks, malbiniak! I agree that, as interesting as Offer HN could be, the real opportunities to help others will be in continuing to read Ask HN posts and offering your services there, where there's a good match.

As someone mentioned already, you can give your services away to a lot of people, and possibly only 1 will really need it, be grateful, and pay it forward. So why not save your free services for that 1 'special' HNer who asks for help? Just a thought...

Re: Tell HN: Please stop offering your services

#106

Post by jacoblyles » Thu, Oct 28, 2010, 12:47 AM UTC

nfriedly wrote: post #98

noahth wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One thing that I've found entertaining in my short time on this site is the surprising number of semi-hidden features. It's almost like the In-N-Out of tech sites. And now I know where to find the secret menu :). Thanks!

Wait, In-n-Out has a secret menu? What have I been missing!?

Animal style fries, for starters.

Re: Tell HN: Please stop offering your services

#107

Post by jacquesm » Thu, Oct 28, 2010, 1:59 AM UTC

mr_twj wrote: post #99

Not to be overly melodramatic, but I think this is my last comment here on HN for better or worse, simply because this is exactly the microcosmic ideal I've hoped for HN from my beginning involvement--if it dies, there's no need to drag things out and I am grateful for all of HN's relentless resourcefulness I've encountered. And if not, I'll probably be helping HN continue to develop this idea further through action…

Please don't leave.

Re: Tell HN: Please stop offering your services

#108

Post by jacquesm » Thu, Oct 28, 2010, 2:04 AM UTC

willlangford wrote: post #18

What if someone wanted to offer a physical product to HN community as a thank you? Would that be appropriate?

That's already happened, someone offered a whole pile of books, including some pretty valuable ones.

Re: Tell HN: Please stop offering your services

#109

Post by techiferous » Thu, Oct 28, 2010, 2:08 AM UTC

petercooper wrote: post #97

jemfinch wrote: post #38

> Often, a good test of whether something is worth doing is "what if everyone did the same?" Nice try, Kant!

That's why I didn't become a doctor. I thought, if everyone else became a doctor, there'd be no-one left to fix my car or grow food for us to eat.

That's why I'm not going to comment on this. If everyone did it, then it would overwhelm the servers.

Re: Tell HN: Please stop offering your services

#110

Post by mattmaroon » Thu, Oct 28, 2010, 2:55 AM UTC

erikpukinskis wrote: post #93

mattmaroon wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not a fair assumption since there are no downvotes. If 20% of people really like something, and 80% hate it, it could still very easily own the front page.

That's ridiculous, of course there are downvotes. In fact all it takes is a very small minority to flag something and it goes off the site. This happens all the time.

A flag and a downvote are two very different things. If there were downvotes I'd use them all the time. There are flags and yet I only use them rarely, for spam, or something off topic, or with an editorialized headline, etc.

Flags aren't meant to express dislike, they're meant to express something being inappropriate. Lots of stuff I dislike is appropriate here.