Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

We're only being dishonest to get your attention. Join us!

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–77 of 77 posts

Re: We're only being dishonest to get your attention. Join us!

#71

Post by gus_massa »

jlgreco wrote: post #58
corin_ wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

HN is, at least in theory, a place where being polite when giving feedback is the norm. Reddit, on the other hand, is a place where humour and rudeness is not only expected, but wanted by the majority.

Reddit ads are pinned to the top of the page but allow comments. HN ads float with the rest of the links, but don't allow comments. Either has their pluses and minuses.

In HN they don't float. They go down slowly in a deterministic way. (Perhaps the details of the algoritm have changed a little.) From http://ycombinator.com/newsnews.html#12may11 :

> Now instead of being ranked by points, jobs simply start at position 4 and slide down the page at 4 positions per hour.

Re: We're only being dishonest to get your attention. Join us!

#73

Post by quantumpotato_ »

leetrout wrote: post #27

As a newer HN user I was surprised that there are no comments on job postings. I've also noticed some interesting posts and think there could be some constructive conversation around them. I can appreciate why there are no comments but also I think it would be interesting to allow direct feedback to job postings. Anyone else ever thought this, too?

What determines a post as a job posting and disables comments?

Re: We're only being dishonest to get your attention. Join us!

#74

Post by derefr »

eksith wrote: post #64
zck wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One reason, iirc, is to prevent stealth companies from being outed.

I still don't understand what stealth companies are all about (I mean the premise of "stealth"). If they say, we're working on X field with some Y tech, but can't discuss details, that's whole 'nother story. With some of these I have no idea what the company is, what it does, why it exists and even why anyone would use them. If they want to avoid tipping competitors, there better ways of doing that. I don't know. The…

I think the presumption is that you're already in the Bay Area, so all they have to do with the ad is to get you curious, and then it's not very much effort for you to just head over to their building and find out more in person.

Sucks for the rest of us, though.

Re: We're only being dishonest to get your attention. Join us!

#75

Post by 59nadir »

anthracis417 wrote: post #68
corin_ wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

HN is, at least in theory, a place where being polite when giving feedback is the norm. Reddit, on the other hand, is a place where humour and rudeness is not only expected, but wanted by the majority.

And HN is a place where short articles and comments lacking depth are not only expected, but wanted by the majority.

Is that so? I personally go to HN for the comments, mostly. The articles themselves are just fuel for discussion, as I see it. Then again, I only use the daemonology Hacker News Daily as well, so I'm hardly seeing all of it.

Re: We're only being dishonest to get your attention. Join us!

#76

Post by venomsnake »

dylangs1030 wrote: post #16
pearjuice wrote: post #6

YC companies always have the worst link-baiting lines to get you to click on their job offers. Just put them in a standard template so we know who is looking for what before clicking on the link. I propose: {company} ({yc season}) looking for {role} Role should be the actual function title and if applicable mentioning the language-stack (i.e. RoR, node) the candidate should master.

I second this strongly. I'd pay a lot more attention with a simple format. It's more respectful to the audience and makes you seem more professional. Common objections: But we're young and hip, we wanna look different from the big companies! - Doesn't matter. Still bad practice. But we don't like labels. We want generalists. - Then specify that. Asking for a "ninja" or some other nondescript title is retarded. But we…

I don't get the whole ninja thing - I went to an interview with a set of swords, shurikens and a nunchucks and they refused to hire me. Go figure.

I think that being dishonest is stupid while hiring especially here and for a small start up. You want the elite - treat them like one. A non brain dead person will see through the bullshit in a seconds. So you will be left with second tier candidates.

Re: We're only being dishonest to get your attention. Join us!

#77

Post by larrys »

jacquesm wrote: post #60
larrys wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"because they tend to become a running critique of the company or product doing the posting" Why do they feel that is bad? And have they ever been on on HN job postings (if so how long ago)?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2022018 Some more background info. Other issues were: - outing companies that were still under the radar - hijacking threads with other job postings

Thanks.

PG did a good job (as tptacek did) of trying to spin this [1] but the bottom line is there aren't comments because somehow it's not good for YC. (Which is fine of course since it's YC's sandbox.)

Fully see the problem of course with the "outing companies that were still under the radar". I would have just left it at that. The rest is just a distraction that gives people a reason to refute the additional points made.

In selling it's best to just concentrate on the strongest angles. Otherwise you give people an opening on something that doesn't even matter or a problem that can be solved.

[1] Reminds me of when trying to "explain" to children why they can or have to do something. The bottom line is "we're your parents and that's why and a different set of rules applies to us".

Post reply on HN