Does Hacker News Deliver Value For Startups?
awarelabs.com
awarelabs.com
200 visits is just a small slice of HN users and reflect a response to the title of the article, not the quality of the article itself.
Anecdote is not evidence, but the article wasn't compelling enough that I would be likely to upvote it - upvotes are the only thing that keeps new stories from being buried and flagging only comes into play once a recent story gets upvotes.
New articles get just one point all the time - indeed I've seen cases where a story had no votes or comments the first time it was posted only to make the front page and generate lively discussion when reposted later with a slightly different URL.
Odds are that any new article will be ignored. A conspiracy is not necessary - and since the article was buried by a lack of points and the weight of time, it's hard to believe that there was one.
Consider it editorial feedback in regards to style, timing and relevance.
I hopeI was fair in my analysis, given the data I had at hand. Still think its worth posting to Hacker News, just with a grain of sand.
I'm pragmatic, which is cool because if Hacker News is not what I said, its only a matter of time before I come around.
Reading this site exposed me to a lot of writing about entrepreneurship that was new to me. As the site has grown there has been more and more self-promotional linkbait spam, but some is pure gold and the best bits are often buried in the discussions rather than the articles. The last few years have been a financial and emotional struggle, but it's been tremendously helpful to see other people go through the same ups and downs and often be so open about what works and doesn't work for them. So I'm grateful to Paul and many of the other regular commenters here. Answering this question is a no brainer.
Discussion about a posted story is not a given, even if you get many visits from the site. Personally, I've often visited the posted links, and not been bothered to up-vote the story, let alone comment. And I've often seen stories on the front page with many up votes and no comments.
I think the OP is jumping to conclusions when he says that "Hacker News had buried my submission, precisely because it was getting rapid traction." That's a pretty strong accusation. I didn't read the post the author is referring to, but I think it's more likely that the post was just not that interesting to Hacker News readers.
I posted something yesterday not exactly critiquing YC, but presenting an alternate idea to how they should run housing for batches... that post didn't get buried because it had a different viewpoint. PG even commented in it.
Also... any reason to link "Hacker News" 12 times in your post to your old thread? IMHO it makes it looks a bit SEO spammy.
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3644751
It got a couple hundred visits from HN and, if I've found the correct submission, no votes or comments - so he's assuming there was an active discussion and it was removed and buried because of the content.
There's a simpler explanation, of course.
I have 5 submissions on Hacker News. The only one to get buried is the one that registered any significant visits in my Google Analytics.
So please be receptive to the idea, from my point of view how I could form this theory. Then put a plausible reason for why Hacker News would do this. I love knowing why, it makes me learn and be better.
All of this may just be a coincidence that the OP decided to remove the one story out of all 5. No big deal, it happens, per the OP's suggestion, I reposted still enjoy Hacker News.
I don't understand the basis here for any accusation.
Submitting an objective, or factual story is fine, but when the sole intention is to tarnish the reputation, then the "bury hatchet" comes out. I've even seen high karma members get completely banned because of submissions about Curebit and AirBnB.
When you come to one persons house, you can't argue if some ground rules are set.
Such is the reason HN thrives. Though experience has led me to reason that such behaviour is applied to anyone who sets out to tarnish someone else's reputation. Not only YC people/startups.
>I've even seen high karma members get completely banned because of submissions about Curebit and AirBnB.
Karma is not a good indicator of anything. One can easily gather "karma" by writing useless blog posts that rhyme with the general schools of thought (or thought patterns). I think karma is used here as a tool to promote valuable links that add to the conversation, rather than a tool that measures social hierarchy. Karma does not measure a poster, but the post itself. If you post anything that violates the rules (which are sensible and permissive), then you have proved, without a doubt, that you original intentions were not inline with the "belief" behind HN (information that are interesting to hackers (though inflamatory posts are not interesting)).
>When you come to one persons house, you can't argue if some ground rules are set.
We are also born with gravity wrecking havoc around the universe. What good does bad-mouthing gravity do? =)
I meant that just to underscore the point that (from my observations) PG doesn't care if you have been a long standing community member at HN. I perhaps should of said account age in the many years.
And I agree with this perspective. People who from the first line in their article set out with the intention of just sensationalizing some innocuous or accidental lapse in judgment by a startup clearly are just doing it:
>) For their own gain
>) Aren't trying to create objective discussion
>) Just want to disrupt the startups positive vibe by publishing damaging news about them.
Some things are clearly in the public interest... and should be written about, but some times I've read stories whcih are just beating a horse while it's down, and has been totally unneccessary. I totally disagreed with the way DHH handled the Curebit episode. Curebit were clearly wrong (by direct linking to assets), but the obsenities that he was throwing around so willfully on Twitter just made him appear like a kid who had had his candy stolen.
I agree with your point. A man who has written such a collection of essays cannot be a hypocrate. PG is one of the few authors that have provided insight into my own self.
But that has consequences for him: I hold him to the highest of moral standards and expect him to adhere to them. I think he will not fail to meet them.
That being said if you can glue together 500 words about how to program in clojure after waking up early at your standing desk you will have your day in the sun.