Hacker News Reader

Comment by dvt | Hacker News Reader

To be fair, it's pretty easy to get top-10 on HN. Heck, I "gamed" the system myself a few times. In other words, yeah, I think a lot of Hacker News is bullshit.

Clever "retro" hacks will always gain traction (building a widget out of old vacuum cleaners), anything socio-psychological will usually get traction (dating apps, blog posts about loneliness), anything on advanced math/physics/logic will usually get traction (probably because it makes people feel smart, even though it's not accessible to like 99%), anything tangential to philosophy will get traction (again, makes people feel smart).

I really do miss when HN was a bunch of scrappy entrepreneurs that tried to build stuff. With all that said, it's still the best community left on the internet. At least it tries to abide by the principle of charity, and flame wars/trolling is highly frowned upon. Dang and everyone else does a very admirable job of keeping everyone in line.

View on HN

> anything on advanced math/physics/logic will usually get traction (probably because it makes people feel smart, even though it's not accessible to like 99%)

I think these posts are popular because they generate meaningful discussion. More often than not, I learn more from the comments than I do from the article itself, because people will talk about their own experiences, point to resources that helped them, etc.. I don't see this as a bad thing at all--it's one of the primary reasons I visit HN.

Personally, I couldn't care less about the entrepreneurship side of HN. But that's the beauty of sites like this--everyone upvotes what they're interested, and more than one topic can occupy the front page at once. You click on what you like to read, I'll click on what I like to read. It's great!

Your handle dates to 2012. If you read regularly, you've basically been studying HN for about 8 years.

It's 'easy' if you know how to do it. Many people actively try to figure it out and can't readily pull it off.

It's a system. If you know how the system works, you can get somewhat reliable results. That's not necessarily the same as "gaming" the system.

Anecdata caveat and all that, I agree with your views. If I think about how I've used HN in 2020, it is primarily the Octal iphone app and I default to the "Show HN" filter as a workaround.

Also, how long was it #1, and how much meaning should be ascribed to that? I visit HN typically several times a day, and haven't seen that blog before.

>"retro" hacks, socio-psychological, advanced math/physics/logic, anything tangential to philosophy

These are all examples of bullshit?

No, but I think they're examples of things that automatically pass through the "HN filter" -- a lot of times they aren't BS, but it's certainly fishy (and, incidentally, that's how the GPT-3 blog made it through).

> probably because it makes people feel smart, even though it's not accessible to like 99%

Yup, count me as one of them. Hask me anything.

Plus anyone first with The News. Any latest Elon Musk achievement, latest Apple announcement, or death of a famous person. Any of these will be 1000-2000 points.

Don't forget anything bashing Apple, MS, Uber, or any of the startup unicorns. Haters love to hate.

Alternative, charitable interpretation: their big stumbles offer the best, clearest lessons for technical owners and managers; stands to reason they get a lot of attention.

Don't forget posts about psychedelic drugs.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com