Tell/Ask HN: Hit my 1,500 karma points goal What's your HN karma story?
What stories or comments did you submit, that really stood out here on HN, and helped push you over the edge into karma point bliss? What's your HN karma point story?
My personal karma point journey has been full of ups and downs. I started off by reading HN everyday to get a better understanding of the community culture and type of stories that are likely to make waves with other members. Didn't think it would be wise to jump in head first without first testing the water.
For me it started off slowly. My first 25 stories didn't attract much attention in the form of karma, but I learned a lot about what I needed to be submitting (or, if you prefer, what shouldn't be submitted). It's so hard to tell sometimes as I've submitted stories I thought would never go hot, that did, and vice versa.
The first story that ended up helping me reach 1,500 pts. was political related:
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2158654
It netted me 44 pts., but no comments :(
The next story that stood out and helped me gain traction was search engine related:
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2168382
This time I reached 117 pts., this time though, the story got 28 comments. :)
Pretty good, but I thought I could do better. The next story I submitted that stood out was acquisition related:
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2171704
I consider this story my first successful submission to HN. It received 84 pts. and 69 comments. Now we're talking.
The next successful story that helped me was PR and branding related:
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2171963
This time the submission got 166 pts. and 187 comments. I was utterly astonished at how much attention the submission received. This was the first story that helped me realize the potential of the HN community and got me hooked. But, could I keep the momentum going?
Unfortunately, I couldn't. The next story that stood out and helped was startup related.
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2174524
It received 109 pts. and 68 comments. Not quite as high as the last one, but I didn't give up.
The next example is technology / web standards related:
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2174711
Again, it didn't quite get as hot as some of the others, but stood out nonetheless. This story got 81 pts. and 26 comments.
The next story example was funding related:
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2175971
Again, not impressive compared to some of the others. This one got 40 pts. and 19 comments. I was beginning to think I would never reach some of the high numbers of previous examples, but didn't give up.
The next example took quite awhile from the last one, but finally my persistence started paying off again. This particular story was technology related:
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2270624
Not super impressive, but it got 56 pts. and 18 comments. Things were looking up!
The last two examples are from the past week. The first is startup / technology related and the second is entrepreneur / business related:
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2276285
This one has so far received 55 pts. and 19 comments.
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2276539
The second example has received 123 pts. and 30 comments so far.
There you have it! My HN submissions and karma point story. There were many stories that received under 40 pts., but I left them out because they didn't really stand out to me (not to say they didn't help along the way, even the 1 point stories add up).
As it stands I've submitted 385 stories in 40 days, and achieved roughly 1,500 karma points in return.
So, what have I learned so far from all of this?
1). Be sure to take some time and really get to know a community before you dive in and start submitting garbage stories. If you need to, read for a month straight before you submit a single thing.
2). You need quality sources to get points and comments on HN. Bottom line, if you're sources aren't up to par with the community expectations, your stories will not achieve much visibility, and you'll likely not get many pts. or comments.
3). Never give up. Even if you submit 100 stories in a row that get little to no recognition in the community, be sure you keep trying. you never know what has the potential to go hot unless you try different story types from different sources. If I had given up the first time I got discouraged, I would never have reached my first goal. Which brings me to the next lesson.
4). Play around with different type of stories. If you noticed from my examples above, very few stories that helped me reach my goal were of the same genre. It's fairly balanced. Out of the 10 examples I mentioned, 8 of them were from different genres. The types of stories that helped me were: political, search, acquisition, PR / branding, startup, tech / web standards, business / entrepreneur and funding related. The two that doubled were tech and startup related.
5). Comment and click on other stories, not just your own. Don't just submit it and forget it. It's important to give back if you hope to receive. Afterall, karma is a system where beneficial effects are derived from past beneficial actions and harmful effects from past harmful actions. The whole point is to do good if you expect good things to happen in return. On the web, and in communities, it's very important to remember that the conversation should never be one sided.