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How we hack Hacker News and consistently hit the front page

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Re: How we hack Hacker News and consistently hit the front page

#61

Post by inopinatus »

robust-cactus wrote: post #22

Ok so, different take - if this what people call "gaming the system" I'm all for it. All this article says is that hackernews likes interesting, informative posts that actually tell a real story. And I for one am here for that all day. So yes, everyone take this strategy and make great content.

On the one hand, sure, it’s a kinda like that Mission Accomplished xkcd.

On the other hand, the parable of Frogstar World B warns against self-reinforcing focus on a local maxima at the expense of diversity.

Fortunately I doubt we’re at risk of passing the Marketing Content Event Horizon just yet

Re: How we hack Hacker News and consistently hit the front page

#62

Post by andreyk »

This article is great insofar as it describes how to write an article that appeals to HN. But having been writing and submitting to HN for like 8 years with maybe a dozen front page entries, I think the hack is simpler: pick a topic people want to discuss/find interesting, name the article well (not clickbaity but not boring), and submit earlyish in the day PST. The content of the article is not super important for hitting the front page (as evidenced by a lot of the stuff that does hit front page). BUT if you want to stay on the front page/rank higher, I suspect article quality does matter a lot.

Re: How we hack Hacker News and consistently hit the front page

#64

Post by richardatlarge »

carabiner wrote: post #33

Spoiler: headline is clickbait and article is a bunch of HN reader flattery, so naturally it gets upvoted. It is not a critical look at exploiting HN algorithm or audience, it just tells people what they want to hear on a lazy Saturday.

Lazy Sunday in NZ :)

Re: How we hack Hacker News and consistently hit the front page

#65

Post by Brystephor »

shever73 wrote: post #10
dmbche wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well then again, the articles they write and post (seem?) To have value, as they are written "with reaserach, without bs" and on newsworthy subjects... I see this less as "gaming HN" than "realising what the niche is" and fulfilling the niche. I guess I'm fine with someone posting first about a subject that will be there anyway? Maybe I'm not seeing something.

It’s possible (likely) that I’m not seeing something too. I read the article in the spirit of the headline, which is basically: we wrote a bot to tell us stuff that would do well on HN so we can shill our/our clients’ stuff. In other words, HN becomes an echo chamber of rephrased news articles recycled into commercial blogspam.

What's the problem though?

Basically the trigger for the article is a bot instead of a self generated idea. It doesn't change the quality of the article. And self thought of ideas will usually contain promos of some kind in them.

Also if they're the first to write the article in depth, then they're not the problem. It's the others that are the problem for reposting the same content, right? It seems silly to be upset with someone for posting good content about recent changes because it gets recycled and paraphrased into a new article.

Re: How we hack Hacker News and consistently hit the front page

#66

Post by j45 »

ouid wrote: post #19
nkurz wrote: post #3

Vouched for and upvoted because I think it's important for readers here to see how much effort goes into creating posts that game the system. I think it's better for these strategies to be known than hidden. It will be interesting to see how tactics like this one evolve as ChatGPT use becomes more widespread. There's a definite tension between the rule of not accusing other users of being shills and the reality that…

the rule against calling other people shills is the worst part of hackernews. Skepticism is important, and important to share. I have never been anything but grateful to read a comment pointing out that another comment was obviously a shill. Perhaps I have been embarrassed for not seeing the obvious truth, but always grateful.

Innovation can only exist in a mindset of possibility.

Exploiting possibilities and capabilities to see what can be faster, better and cheaper takes a certain degree of positive, resourceful unreasonableness that finds a way to find and connect the dots that matter.

Skepticism, cynicism and doubt worshippers who validate their beliefs by painting it on others are rarely hackers, or folks who chase the risk of creating interesting, useful or remarkable items if only momentarily.

Haters and talkers are usually busy doing nothing themselves so a culture on HN to build and share is so critically important.

If you can’t explore something with excitement knowing it mah not last and there may be a dead end, I think some of the ability to learn through passion and interest can be stifled around naysayers.

Fanboyism and chasing shiny objects has its caveats too.

Innovation just isn’t a purely logical pursuit or skill. It has creativity, emotion and other human skills that are critical to learn or miss out on at one’s own peril.

Re: How we hack Hacker News and consistently hit the front page

#67

Post by rpeden »

irrational wrote: post #36

While reading, I kept asking myself why someone would care about getting to the front page of HN (saving up this fake points to get something good?) until I reached: > Step 3: The secret sauce We always end with a section that is called: Final thoughts. This is your moment to shine and drop a punchline that talks about your product/service. And, there it is.

Isn't this part of content marketing 101, though?

I've bounced back and forth between engineering and DevRel over the years and whenever I create this kind of content I'm careful to provide the interesting and valuable part up front. And I try to make the pitch at the end gentle and easy to skip or ignore if that's what the reader wants. I never want someone to feel like they were tricked into reading a sales pitch.

I see this as one way of trying to stem the tide of shitty articles and blog posts that have been proliferating for the past couple of decades and are kicking into overdrive now.

Companies should also consider, on the other hand, that writing interesting things and then not making a pitch at the end can be even more valuable. This kind of content is becoming very rare because it takes time to deliver impact, and that impact is hard to measure.

I think that's why creating great content without a concluding product plug is the ultimate mic drop in an era where many marketers are running scared and dropping easy-to-measure milquetoast bunt singles because execs mention 'operational efficiency' twenty-seven times during every all-hands meeting.

To be clear, I'm not advocating inefficiency; I'm just saying thoughtful posts that don't immediately and directly shove a percentage of readers into your funnel might be the current Moneyball of marketing to engineers.

Re: How we hack Hacker News and consistently hit the front page

#69

Post by kyleyeats »

linkdd wrote: post #60
everybodyknows wrote: post #12

> You can post multiple times: HN understands that quality posts can go unnoticed, ... Yes, anecdata: A number of my own highest-quality finds have sink with barely a ripple on the "new" page. > ... so you can try the same post again. Don’t overdo it. I would say max 2 or 3 times. Most legit posters have better uses for their remaining lifetime minutes of brain activity than to game HN in such a tedious exercise. Var…

> ... so you can try the same post again. Don’t overdo it. I would say max 2 or 3 times. I don't even understand how that's possible. Every time I tried to post a link that was already posted (by me or someone else), it redirected me to the original post (and upvoted it if I wasn't the author). After observing that behavior 2 or 3 times, I assumed HN had some kind of deduplication system.

People used to throw a # on the end

Re: How we hack Hacker News and consistently hit the front page

#70

Post by revolvingocelot »

marketingLizard wrote: post #48
dang wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes please. Edit: actually not so silent - it's the latter part of this guideline from https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html : " Please don't post insinuations about astroturfing, shilling, bots, brigading, foreign agents and the like. It degrades discussion and is usually mistaken. If you're worried about abuse, email hn@ycombinator.com and we'll look at the data. " It's part of the contract we have with…

How long do shill posts last before they've been taken care of?

Turn on showdead -- sometimes they last until the user/human-in-the-loop notices that they've been hellbanned.
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