Ask HN: How to ask questions in Ask HN | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: How to ask questions in Ask HN

4 pointssamikama15 comments

Hi,

Yesterday I tried to ask a genuine question in AskHN. It was my first question here, so I may have made a mistake somewhere. I genuinely wanted to get feedback from fellow founders and hackers. So I described the problem and then I asked a questions related to it. But within seconds it was marked [flagged] and I have no idea why.

I checked the FAQ it says it may be off-topic but the purpose of the question was to seek advice and feedback from HN community, so I am not sure whether it was evaluated as off-topic or if so why.

I am not a native speaker so I used AI to fix the text and help me concisely express it since I sometime delve into details that confuses people. Was this the issue?

In short. What is the proper way to ask for advice from HN?

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I dunno, whether or not it is true, my first impression of your first question is "this is a phony question asked by somebody who is selling the answer."

Thanks for the response. I genuinely was asking this is what we built, it makes sense to me but I am having hard time to find people who would see this in customers. Who should we try to talk in companies, whether people see the issue? For us the problem is obvious, data is there but may be people do not care about it currently or not aware. If so how would the other founders overcome these challenges?

May be I over described the problem? Or was the questions made you to think it was a phony question? Or the question is so obvious it is too simple to ask?

Thanks for your response regardless.

Marketing is hard.

I think the biggest argument I've seen between sales people is "Do you sell something that will increase the customer's revenue or reduce their costs?"

For a well established business saving $1 in costs adds $1 to the bottom line whereas adding $1 in revenue also adds some cost of revenue so maybe it just ends 20 cents to the bottom line or something.

I think every business using AI is different but right now many users are in a "gold rush" phase where they don't have a rational economic model for the whole thing: they might be happy to have GPUs at all and not be worried that they have 30% utilization. Internal politics plays a big role, say my unit has a GPU cluster, I might be really possessive of it and resist sharing it with other units. For that matter I might get a big Mac Studio for my desk because then I can run any model I want that fits on it and never have to have a talk with anyone about model licenses and data privacy and token costs, none of that. From that point of view I could care less about utilization fraction and the one thing I care about is having my head.

I guess there is somebody who can say GPU compute is part of their cost of revenue and increasing the utilization fraction has a clear impact on the bottom line. That somebody probably knows a lot about cost optimization already (or thinks they know!) and might think you are bringing a tic-tac-toe master to a chess tournament! Might still be the kind of person you want to talk to just to talk to.

Thank you Paul,

That is the problem I am having. What we built is addressing all the points you mentioned, reduces costs as well as adds revenue at the same time. There is no issues with model licenses and privacy because it is still your machine. Whenever you need it, it is available to you. It should be attractive to people.

But you are making a very good point which I may have missed and in hindsight it matches some of the observations we have. `That somebody probably knows a lot about cost optimization already (or thinks they know!) and might think you are bringing a tic-tac-toe master to a chess tournament! ` I don't believe it is true but I can see people may think that and that may be my issue.

What would be the best way to overcome this? Would it be data? if so what kind of data?

Thank you Paul, your comment is great help!

It's been more than a decade since I've done sales or BD, and I'd say many people today report an experience different from I've had but...

I had a lot of luck talking to prospects on LinkedIn. I had a really good profile, an impressive academic pedigree, a good CV and backstory, built out a network of 10,000+ connections, had heavy participation in groups, started my own group, did a lot of research on prospects, wrote messages that had a high response rate, etc. My memory has to be a little selective but I can't think of anyone I wanted an audience with that I wasn't able to get.

I was in a different situation in that I was pitching something that was 10 years ahead of its time, not quite ready, something that I knew there was a hunger for in some of the largest industries and just the glimmerings of competition.

I had a similar situation: I created my first comment on Hacker News on a post, and it was almost immediately marked as "dead" (I saw this status when I requested comment data via the Hacker News API). I suspect this is spam/bot protection (blocking the first post/comment from a new user). In your case, the AI text is added as a separate trigger, but the main reason is most likely the blocking of the first post from a new user.

Thank you evtenko, this is what I thought as well, especially considering the speed of it being marked flagged. I checked FAQ and searched in the internet but didn't find any reference. I tried to see if there are any hints in the post itself but can't see anything other than [flagged] so I thought I would ask to see if I missed something, hence this question.

1. make your question attractive

2. don't make your question unattractive

Maybe some automation tool flagged the new account by mistake? I'm new here, too, just randomly guessing.

Launching something that implements your idea a good way to get meaningful feedback on something you have made.

ShowHN is a means of showing something you have implemented. Read the ShowHN guidelines.

Keep in mind tha HN is a community. Communities don’t like selfish behaviors. They have norms of participation. They have expectations of reciprocation.

Your original question is trying to receive without giving. As is this one. And this one is meta which is generally discouraged by the guidelines.

The HN community is built on intellectual curiosity not self-interest. Good luck.

Thank you brudgers,

I thought about that but what we build is a cluster management and optimization solution. It requires a cluster and I couldn't be able to find a good way to show it. Do you know any examples? I searched for it but all I can find is customer testimonials, hence chicken and egg problem. I will check ShowHN and the guidelines thanks for the pointers.

About the community, I agree and I though that the problem I have is a common among technical founders, that is the reason I asked the original question, may be sharing some discussions can be helpful for others in the same situation or we can share what worked and what didn't. Isn't this how communities built?

I am a bit puzzled on the trying to receive without giving though. How can a question give something?

I checked the FAQ, and the guidelines before posting. I couldn't associate my original question or this one violating any of the or the guidelines.

Are there any other links/guidelines for the posts. For example, I don't know what you mean by a meta post.

For me intellectual curiosity means learning. That doesn't necessarily mean only technical though. I have spent enough time to learn about the technology and science, perhaps that is the reason I find the answer to the question I asked more intriguing than most technical or scientific questions most people have.

Thank you for your response. I appreciate it.

I am a bit puzzled on the trying to receive without giving though. How can a question give something?

If you don’t believe it can, don’t ask it.

Again, HN is a community.

It is already built.

The very best posts here make me think. A good question can do that. On HN, it's about the most precious gift you can give someone. There have even been posts that I disagreed with that I upvoted, because they made me think.

I don’t disagree.

To me, this question here is pretty much in service of the original question which was a drive-by-solve-my-business-problem-for-free that got flagged (probably for being a drive-by-solve-my-business-problem-for-free).

And of course the question here is meta and then used as a platform to pursue solve-my-business-problem-for-free.

Maybe some automation tool flagged it by mistake

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