Formatting problems with your Kindle books? We can help:
Because I'm a long-time member of this community who has a bootstrapped company dealing with Kindle formatting, and because it was appropriate to this thread? People were complaining about the book's formatting.
Honestly, people on this site aren't the target market in any case, as anyone with a bit of tech skills can likely create the correct HTML and XML files, but you never know.
Actual spammers tend to repeat the same thing over and over, as well. I rarely mention LW in my comments here.
PS
David, I suspect many HNers are like me - interested in reading the book, no Kindle. I tried the "Cloud reader" but am stuck giving amazon a valid serial number of the Kindle I don't own.
so, is Google right in telling me you cannot use cloud reader without at least one Kindle purchase? (Have not dared brave the Amazon tech support line)
edit - about third rewrite - cannot make the thing about "please say you are bootstrapping HNer" sound anything other than snarky - apologies.
Perhaps this is a requirement for new accounts?
Disclaimer: I have no skin in the LW game. They're a good service. I would recommend them to anyone who is publishing to Kindle. Saves hours of time and costs very little to use.
Why wouldn't new users want to participate here? HN has a fantastic community. What isn't there to like?
If the average new user just started doing what they do on other similar sites, HN wouldn't be a "fantastic community" for long.
The content at that time was luckily quite interesting, but both website appeared to report the same articles. After a week sight seeing on both, I concluded that HN was usually of better quality than reddit. I think that articles on reddit tend to cover more trivial subjects than on HN, making for an easier, more casual reading, which is usually not what I'm looking for.
I want to participate because I would like to be part of a community of 'doers'. And every time I participate and post something, I'm at risk of getting my face slapped and hell-banned by the readers, which makes for a harsh but effective learning experience.
Welcome aboard.
I'm pretty sure I discovered HN as a source in Pulse and found myself hooked on the frequent stories relating to what I would call "real tech", descriptions of actual engineering challenges and solutions.
That's a rare thing as the majority of sites and communities are "passive" in their topics.
It actually took me a while to recognize HN as more than a news feed.
I'm not sure what drove me to actually participate since I generally try to avoid reading, much less posting comments anywhere.
I remember HN was mostly populated by developers and so far I've found what I was looking for: more civility and interesting technical discussions. It caters less directly to my specific interests (I'm a game developer), but I'm still reading.
user: davidw, created: 2016 days ago, karma: 28646
user: pc86, created: 11 days ago, karma: 20
I really don't mean to be a jerk, but a few quick suggestions:
1. Do a little research before you comment. Check out http://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=davidw to see that davidw is one of hn's oldest and most respected members.
2. A referral does not necessarily = spam. We love to hear about cool stuff, especially when it was developed by one of us.
3. Language like "downvoted into oblivion" is (a) a lame cliche, (b) an unnecessarily nasty attack, (c) the attitude we're all trying to avoid here on hn, (d) all of the above. Lighten up. Please.
Welcome aboard, pc86. Looking forward to hearing great things from you.
Well said. I've been keeping an eye on Liberwriter for a long time, and I eventually plan to use it.
Yeah, you and everyone else[0]. Karma doesn't make someone respected (quite the opposite in some cases), sharing good information does[1]. When you have the space, at least tell us how it works, what the challenges are and how to fix them. Would probably convert better too. Wouldn't be very nice if everyone with a relevant startup and high enough karma would start posting spammy oneliners.
[1] Example: "Hey, getting x1 and x2 to work correctly is hard. My startup fixes that by doing y1 and y2, using z. I wrote this up on our blog last month, check it out at ..."
Sharing good information often leads to high karma. I'm not sure where you're opposite comment comes from, a quick look at [1] shows that out of the top 15, I would consider ten very highly respected in the community and people who share good information. The other five names I don't recognize myself, but that certainly doesn't mean that they're not also highly respected or people who share good information.
But otherwise, I agree with you. Without more context, the comment you are referring really just is spam.