The hn-books.com posts are starting to feel like a spam site now. All the links on the site are bit.ly to hide that they're referral links. Stop breaking the web, url shortners are there to work around twitter deficiencies.
I have an issue with the way people define "spam" as anything they don't like. Spam is a real and serious problem, and we dilute the importance of fighting it when we call anything remotely commercial as spam.
A blog has the right to make money. How? Typically ads and affiliate offers. As long as there is disclosure for both, I see nothing wrong with their use. OP wrote a review of a product and then submitted it to HN. People liked the review and therefore up-voted it. I think that's totally fair. Or are you suggesting that the OP is gaming the site?
The lack of comments may be explained by the fact that people didn't have much to add about the product, they are afraid of being labelled as SEO people, or they are simply toying with SEOmoz after reading the review.
HN-Books.com looks like a site dedicated to (mostly) book reviews. I don't see 10 posts a day from it, so I think it's totally okay.
I'm not crazy about bit.ly either in principle (for the reasons that you said) but again, the OP is definitely within his rights to use that service if he wants. Redirect links can be used for tracking purposes, for convenience, or very honestly for increasing one's conversions rates. Even in the latter case, I fail to see a problem with it.
If you don't like the content, ignore it (and if it's bona fide spam, then flag it by all means). If you like the content, but not the conditions under which it is provided, use AdBlock and don't click on the links. Screaming "spam" every time "commercial-ish" blog entries are posted is uncharacteristic and unbecoming of a community of entrepreneurs.
A post I would like to see is how a minimal amount of search engine knowledge + Google analytics can help you more than a $1188/year on an SEO app.
The whole purpose of the site was to take things you were already recommending to each other, write up a comprehensive review, put all the information available in one place, and then provide links to get it if you want. The article clearly states that you can do this without using the tool. It also states you can use the tool for free.
The purpose of HN, last I checked, was for people to try out different things and share them with each other. I don't mind criticism. If you have it, bring it. I criticize people all of the time. I want to do better. Please tell me how I'm screwing up.
But when you criticize somebody, the point is to help them make their work better. I am doing this to help the community. If you don't like it, tell me what I can do to help the community in a better way. You want more of a warning about outgoing links? Fine. You want free ebooks reviewed? Fine. You want step-by-step instructions on how to use tools that startups use? Fine. Don't want any kind of commercial activity? Fine, go ahead and suggest it, but I'm going to tell you to go climb a tree. But don't just throw out snarky comments and imply things that aren't true about somebody's else's character and reason for doing something. That really sucks.
I have thought about the proper tone for my reviews for some time, and I posted a long blog article about my ethics and what appeared on hn-books or not ( http://www.whattofix.com/blog/archives/2011/02/media-morals-...) To summarize, I only talk about things you guys already use and like, and I only choose things that have a great reputation in the community. That means that there aren't going to be many negative reviews. That doesn't mean I'm pumping, or pitching, or anything else. I'm simply sharing. It is the nature of the site to collect the best of the best.
This thing is a hobby for me. Last I checked, there's a voting system right up top there for things on HN you don't like. So use it. Why so much ugliness? We're supposed to be helping each other. I post something in good faith and folks tell me I'm using bit.ly to hide affiliate links? That I'm reviewing a tool so I can "pitch" it? Come on, guys. We can do better than this.
I use bit.ly links to get real-time tracking. Is there another way to do that? If so, I'm happy to change. Nobody is trying to trick anybody into anything.
If you'd like, how about a big notice at the top of the page that lets people know all links are referral links? There's already one on the main page. Would that make you feel better?
EDIT: I've updated all the pages to include a notice about all the outbound links. Since I still haven't heard anything as far as how to replace the real-time tracking bit.ly offers, it stays in there.
As far as the lack of comments, several HN'ers I know don't comment on SEO on here any more. People just get too irrational about it.
And I should have known better than to feed the comment trolls.
So if I post a link on Twitter, and then one on Facebook, and then one on HN? Bit.ly allows me to see which people are coming from where, how quickly, and what percentages of readers are getting any use from the links on the site. All at the same time.
I had already looked at Google (way too slow) and MixPanel (also too slow)
Somebody emailed me with some product -- clicky? Never heard of it before. I guess there are others?
I need to do some more research on what's out there. I had no idea bit.ly bothered people so much. To me it was an easy, free option that gave me cool real-time graphs. Aside from "breaking the internet", whatever that means, what's not to like? Honestly I still don't get it, but I'm happy to find something else.