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.
You're totally right, we all see that happening as far as it goes. But how far does it go? I've only ever posted on controversial topics. Usually when I post, I'm prepared to be downranked, and I'm mildly surprised when I get upvotes. I try to stay away from the dang-hammer. And on code or business subjects, I only ever go deep into things I have obsessive opinions about, popular or not. And that seems to rank OK.
I do see bot/troll type attempts on this board all the time, but they usually rack up a lot of points in a short span and can't sustain because they're not real people, or not actually saying something coherent besides "look at me".
The "Show HN" aspect is fantastic. You do see some wild stuff every day. I wouldn't deprive those people of their moment of glory.
But in the long run, I don't know what the point farming points would be, and neither does anyone else. If someone with 40k points disagrees with me, it's not like I think they have a more valid opinion. This, again, is a testament to the style of moderation on this board more than anything else, because it doesn't gamify herd mentality in the way reddit or even SO does.
>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.
Haha.
Actually HN seems to be least technical community (when it comes to arguing) out of all those I know (reddit, forums)
Discussions raaarelly *try* to go into the technical details, let alone deeply. I don't think I've seen more than 5 code snippets over year on HN
Not only HN's format doesn't favor this kind of discussions, but also it seems that people prefer more "abstract" more "fancy" topics
I've been accused of shilling a product I genuinely enjoyed, because of the english I used. :) I think it seemed too exaggerated. But I'm no native, so what do I know. In the end who cares about upvotes.
I shilled my own product once and it didn't get downvoted, but that day people started signing up with thousands of stolen credit cards. Dealing with the fraud that was a result of that post was probably one of the most interesting things in my career though, so I dunno, I guess HN delivered as always.
> It's very difficult in HN to put comment and gain points
Somehow, I find the opposite to be true. Probably I spend too much time on HN (as evident by the #66 ranking in this list), but most comments are just off-hand thinking/reactions to the submission itself. Some comments do come from being an experienced software developer who never had troubles finding work (which, I guess speaks to something but unclear exactly what, technical capabilities or be-able-to-bullshit? We don't know yet).
The times my posts do gets downvoted, I can mostly understand why, as I made the comment in anger/too emotional place. Maybe your comments are the same? The only time I really get downvoted without really understanding why (exception the emotions of the downvoter) is in various cryptocurrency discussions. HN seems very divided as soon as it comes up.
It really depends on the topic as well. In the vast majority of cases people are reluctant to dish out any karma and your comment stays at one point. But that changes for some topics. I guess if you want to get more upvotes, articles about new Apple releases and similar stuff is most rewarding.
Sometimes this can be a signal about the content of your comment, other times it can be a signal about the content of the thread/topic.
There's a fun HN data mining project waiting to be done on voting/flagging trends, including cross-community topic sentiment surveillance within specific time windows.
I get flagged even more often than I get downvoted. I think it's a personality issue. Theirs, specifically. I usually just go away for a few days and come back when I'm bored / done with the next job.
No, it's selective evolution towards comment that appease the majority of the commenters, which is different. It's how you end up with reddit-like echo chambers.
caslon|4 years ago
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.
noduerme|4 years ago
I do see bot/troll type attempts on this board all the time, but they usually rack up a lot of points in a short span and can't sustain because they're not real people, or not actually saying something coherent besides "look at me".
The "Show HN" aspect is fantastic. You do see some wild stuff every day. I wouldn't deprive those people of their moment of glory.
But in the long run, I don't know what the point farming points would be, and neither does anyone else. If someone with 40k points disagrees with me, it's not like I think they have a more valid opinion. This, again, is a testament to the style of moderation on this board more than anything else, because it doesn't gamify herd mentality in the way reddit or even SO does.
tester34|4 years ago
Haha.
Actually HN seems to be least technical community (when it comes to arguing) out of all those I know (reddit, forums)
Discussions raaarelly *try* to go into the technical details, let alone deeply. I don't think I've seen more than 5 code snippets over year on HN
Not only HN's format doesn't favor this kind of discussions, but also it seems that people prefer more "abstract" more "fancy" topics
pferdone|4 years ago
jrockway|4 years ago
capableweb|4 years ago
Somehow, I find the opposite to be true. Probably I spend too much time on HN (as evident by the #66 ranking in this list), but most comments are just off-hand thinking/reactions to the submission itself. Some comments do come from being an experienced software developer who never had troubles finding work (which, I guess speaks to something but unclear exactly what, technical capabilities or be-able-to-bullshit? We don't know yet).
The times my posts do gets downvoted, I can mostly understand why, as I made the comment in anger/too emotional place. Maybe your comments are the same? The only time I really get downvoted without really understanding why (exception the emotions of the downvoter) is in various cryptocurrency discussions. HN seems very divided as soon as it comes up.
raxxorrax|4 years ago
noduerme|4 years ago
Come to think of it, I'm not sure why other people are so stingy with upvotes. I vote pretty much everything I like.
verdverm|4 years ago
arkj|4 years ago
One can have better luck in getting noticed if you are early on the thread.
In a way those members who pickup new threads for discussion are pivotal for a community to thrive.
walterbell|4 years ago
Sometimes this can be a signal about the content of your comment, other times it can be a signal about the content of the thread/topic.
There's a fun HN data mining project waiting to be done on voting/flagging trends, including cross-community topic sentiment surveillance within specific time windows.
noduerme|4 years ago
vmception|4 years ago
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.
birracerveza|4 years ago