Share buttons - yes they're effective, I've measured the conversion rate on different sites and it's proved worthy to have them. Here's a good article about share buttons - http://socialmouths.com/blog/2012/05/08/social-media-buttons...
Then I feel that you are contributing to the dilution of the value of the site.
I imagine there are plenty of brilliant and interesting people on the internet that are not aware of HN, but could contribute nicely if they became members here.
This "age elitism" issue is wearying. It happens in other places too (SomethingAwful, for example, went through a hilariously horrible period where the year you registered was the most important part of your post).
But this is supposedly an intellectual forum, not a comedy forum. Grow up and stop thinking the number of days since joining makes you better than someone else.
(Yes, I joined after you. I am also diluting this forum. Get off my lawn.)
What does mean something is intent, and telling people how to exploit HN brings in people intending to ... exploit HN!
It's a shitty trend and it's why we get so much generic-startup-story garbage from startups who've decided to make us their studio audience.
My problem is not the new guy. It's that he says he found non-HN readers and, in so many words, said "fill up their page with stuff".
He didn't say "join HN and hang around for a while".
He said: "Get your page on the top of HN".
Those aren't the same things.
> He said: "Get your page on the top of HN".
Fair enough, I see what you are saying. Sorry for the rant, it's early and the coffee is still settling in. =)
On the flip side, bringing hacker news to the attention of the mass could have also a positive effect especially if these people can contribute relevant and good content.
Additionally I feel that HN has a good algorithm to stop most of the people who wouldn't be a good fit anyway. Posting a post on HN and then getting people to vote won't get you to the front page (and if it does, getting dropped off it is pretty easy if the content you posted is not relevant).
> Posting a post on HN and then getting people to vote won't get you to the front page (and if it does, getting dropped off it is pretty easy if the content you posted is not relevant).
If there's too much spam, those brave netizens who patrol the windswept frontier of /newest don't get time to look at what is actually good.
They start upvoting on headlines.
I don't know how they feel about it, but I sometimes feel that visiting /newest to vote / flag stuff is a kind of civic duty. For the good of all of us (except the ones who are dead).
Because the answer for your question is easy: Posting useful things.
And as far as I know, that's the only way to get enough upvotes to appear even on the first page.
Judging by the comments at the bottom of this discussion, I think I see a growing trend.
Cheers for the insight.