I'm on the list, does this mean I got into YC?
I for one would not object to getting paid for comments. If I had a penny for every shitpost I made on the internet, I'd have tens of thousands of pennies!
Top Hacker News commenters of 2021
41–50 of 138 posts
Re: Top Hacker News commenters of 2021
#42Heh, the fact that (IMO) I don't comment that often but still am in the top 5k (rank 4228, 185 comments) just goes to show how all things considered HN is still a very niche/small community.
Same here, top 2.5k after 6 months and ~a couple hundred comments.
Re: Top Hacker News commenters of 2021
#43#5!
A lot can be written while waiting for an incremental build to compile
Thanks for all the substantive entertainment everyone
Re: Top Hacker News commenters of 2021
#44Heh, the fact that (IMO) I don't comment that often but still am in the top 5k (rank 4228, 185 comments) just goes to show how all things considered HN is still a very niche/small community.
It's very difficult in HN to put comment and gain points. Atleast for me. Tried couple of times. Downvoted most of times. So I just visit and read comments. Have been doing same for more than 7 years now. I am sure there are lots of readers like me.
There is an art to it.
Although if a new account got negative karma early on, I would just abandon it.
Selective evolution towards an account with comments that hit well enough.
Re: Top Hacker News commenters of 2021
#45Earlier quoted context omitted.
I’m around the same position as you and was equally surprised - I feel like increasing that count would be more work than I’d want to put in though
Why would you want to increase the count though, right? I appreciate that HN is a kind of a community where people post when they actually have something to say. I mean, I often write a comment and then delete it before posting it if I figure it doesn't really add anything to the discussion. I actually feel like doing it for this comment too.
You should have done
Re: Top Hacker News commenters of 2021
#46It would really scare me if dang wasn't the first one. But at the same time, I feel immense pain thinking about what he has to deal with on a daily basis. Literally the entire functioning of the last somewhat civil, fully moderated, independent, anon-friendly board on the internet in 2021 on the shoulders of one admin. I'd like to say how a million flowers should bloom from this shining example, but it seems more lik…
> Literally the entire functioning of the last somewhat civil, fully moderated, independent, anon-friendly board on the internet in 2021 I recognize an hyperbole when I see one, but this one is kinda of a big one.
To be honest, This is definitely more civil than other forums on the internet which have essentially become silos of their political leaning.
Even the people who disagree with you here are polite. There are your occasional reddit-style "cool" sounding snarky comments every now and then. But decent overall
Re: Top Hacker News commenters of 2021
#47I think it would be even more interesting to see the list of highest average comment karma or something.
Maybe that would better highlight what I really enjoy with HN: A story about aviation and suddenly 4 airline pilots appear and share insight, or when some tech legend dies and several colleagues pop in and tell stories about them. Or like the other day when one of the authors of the BLAKE3 algorithm (?) participated in some friendly flame-waring.
Re: Top Hacker News commenters of 2021
#48Looks like I made spot #844. I already knew I spent too much time on HN, but that seems excessive, so it boggles my mind how anyone could have the time to be in the top 100.
Re: Top Hacker News commenters of 2021
#49Heh, the fact that (IMO) I don't comment that often but still am in the top 5k (rank 4228, 185 comments) just goes to show how all things considered HN is still a very niche/small community.
It's very difficult in HN to put comment and gain points. Atleast for me. Tried couple of times. Downvoted most of times. So I just visit and read comments. Have been doing same for more than 7 years now. I am sure there are lots of readers like me.
The formula is pretty simple: Write cool comments about things you know about in threads that aren't dead yet.
If you're really trying, you can accumulate over a hundred points in a day without posting any articles.
The site is basically a game if you're optimizing for points, and it's better designed than reddit because you have to actually know things to get them.
Have a niche programming language you like? Talk about it! Have a weird subset of computer science you wrote a thesis on? Write a few paragraphs a day on it! Have domain knowledge for something that isn't computing? "Debunk" all of the articles you see on it. Avoid controversial topics, because these don't grant you as many points. Go solely for uncontroversial deep dives into subjects you know about; it's far better for achieving as many points as you can possibly get as fast as possible.
You also have to have a particular style of writing. Detached, yet (at least on the surface) quite thoughtful. Use commas and semicolons rather than writing choppy sentences, and pay attention to your spelling; presentation is half the battle, and you'll have a hard time getting anywhere if you use less than stellar English. Otherwise identical comments will perform drastically different if there is a single misspelled "at least."
If you master these two steps, you, too, can farm Hacker News for points, get bored and eventually make another account when you want to feel the beautiful feeling of your words having attention focused on them once more, the sweet point-ticker on the top right of the screen offering you slow doses of dopamine throughout your workday that just doesn't hit the same if you're on an account with over ten thousand points.
I don't play this game anymore, as anyone can probably tell from this account and my willingness to break every rule I listed in this comment on it. It's fun to play, though, and I would recommend doing it if you have an aptitude for it; more people talking about more things deeply is always better.
Re: Top Hacker News commenters of 2021
#50Interesting observation: I'm place 3501, I have been reading HN since 2009 and I only recognize 2 handles in the top 10.
I guess this is because HN de-emphasises usernames.