My mom left behind some number code • Hacker News Board

Re: My mom left behind some number code

#101

Post by calebegg » Wed, Jan 11, 2023, 11:02 PM UTC

mypalmike wrote: post #90

dmonitor wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there a name for this phenomenon, yet? When a comment about an obscure search query becomes the top result of the query.

It's named after the parent user, and is called the "isitthough42 effect". You can Google that term soon enough.

It worked! :D

Re: My mom left behind some number code

#102

Post by kjs3 » Thu, Jan 12, 2023, 7:09 PM UTC

randomdata wrote: post #21

bnegreve wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know .. is it that more of these questions get answered, or that when one of these questions gets an answer, we all learn about it?

If more questions are answered, is it because of the internet or is there some other factor like people having more time to answer questions? It's not like the internet wasn't alive and well 20 years ago. Hell, Stack Exchange is little more than Usenet, and that was in use over 40 years ago.

There wasn't a search engine for Usenet for a long time (other than grep'ing the spool dirs), which was frustrating. I would argue it's more like some combo of "more people connected together who can answer, an ability to quickly find relevant pervious answers, coupled with some amount of social capital accrual that makes taking the time to answer worthwhile". Those things make me think 'internet' is at least a big part of the answer.

Re: My mom left behind some number code

#103

Post by Natfan » Wed, Jan 18, 2023, 4:01 PM UTC

dmonitor wrote: post #84

calebegg wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Funnily enough, your comment is now the top search result for that query....

Is there a name for this phenomenon, yet? When a comment about an obscure search query becomes the top result of the query.

Googlewhack[0] might be a close one?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Googlewhack