What happens when you're #1 on Hacker News for a day
levels.io
levels.io
I believe you are wrong about dismissing that top comment in the other post as snarky, negative and useless. That comment has a lot of very useful information from someone who appears to have been doing the Thailand thing longer than you have.
1) Thai law was brought up a number of times and you do appear to be violating it. This is probably something that needs to be said.
2) You mention how cheap it is while he believes its more expensive, but you may have gotten a good deal or stayed in areas that others wouldn't want to. It's your experience vs his; I see no reason to dismiss him as 'snark'.
3) He shares a number of anecdotes (sex workers, etc) that differ from your anecdotes. Thailand is a big place, you can both be right, and the more information the better.
[1] https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/hackernew/lgoghlnd...
But generally I agree, as a reader the critical comments are often the more useful ones. Shortcomings of a post, pointers to existing products that already do what a given product does better (or at least differently), etc. are all useful things to know, even if I don't always agree with them. Whereas congratulations and statements of agreement are rarely that informative, unless they come with additional information expanding on the original post.
Part of the trickiness, imo, is that HN comments occupy an odd in-between space, between blog comments (which are clearly responding to the author on their own blog), and third-party mailing-list discussions about an article from outside the mailing list (which are typically not addressed to the author, and are for the benefit of the discussants).
Apparently whenever someone writes something that the author disagrees with, it is automatically categorized as snark.
> One of the annoying parts of this article was that the author dismissed the comment as "non-factual" without providing any evidence or explanation.
He didn't dismiss the comment as non-factual without providing any evidence or explanation. If read carefully, he:
* stated the other commenters called it out as non-factual (it appears at least one commenter did do that[1])
* claimed half of the dispute could be attributed to not reading the post carefully
* provided an example of where the top comment was mistaken or misread (commenter focused on Bangkok when the original story explicitly stated Bangkok was a bad place to live)
* offered up an example of a comment that he believed to be factual (the second-to-the-top one[1])
> Apparently whenever someone writes something that the author disagrees with, it is automatically categorized as snark.
No, it isn't. But this sentence here—where an author's attentions are sarcastically and baselessly mischaracterized off of a misreading (or lack of reading?) of his or her post would definitely qualify as snark.
>He didn't merely dismiss the comment.
In his article, he only mentioned that he and many others felt that the comment was inaccurate. That doesn't constitute evidence or explanation. If you are stating something as a position in an article, it makes sense to present at least a modicum of support for that position within the article itself. Sure, you can cite sources, but in this case, his citation amounts to "some other people said that the statement I'm about to make is correct."
If it was simply stated, then it could have read something like this:
"Thailand has a number of issues, of which cost of loving is the main problem. Etc."
> Before your pop your Macbook Air in a backpack, read my points.
> Yes, you can live in a concrete block with plastic furniture and eat noodles on the street every day.
> Once you're sick of your local noodle vendor you'll find food prices quite high as well.
> If you can stomach the local swill (think Budweiser without the quality control) knock yourself out.
> When you're sick of taking taxis and the BTS/MRT, have fun buying a car at 50% - 300% above US prices.
> If you really want to fake it here it means constantly traveling in and out of the country.
> To not do it properly means breaking the law in a country where you most likely don't speak the language. Have fun with that.
> If it's not someone you've known for a decade then, well, good luck with that.
I think it's worthwhile quoting the HN guidelines, because they are simple to follow and increase the quality if discussions here:
Be civil. Don't say things you wouldn't say in a face to face conversation.
When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names. E.g. "That is an idiotic thing to say; 1 + 1 is 2, not 3" can be shortened to "1 + 1 is 2, not 3." [1]
Point of order here: he never used the word "useless". He also didn't dismiss the post for being negative (he said "I’m not against negative top comments per se but they should at least be factual").
> 1) Thai law was brought up a number of times and you do appear to be violating it. This is probably something that needs to be said.
You're definitely right at least in part: the law should be mentioned. People shouldn't be heading to Thailand without understanding the immigration laws beforehand.
But I don't think accusations that the author is violating the law need to be said. Unless the commenter is a lawyer who specializes in Thai immigration, he or she is simply not qualified to make that assessment. For all we know as readers, he could've unintentionally omitted or oversimplified parts of his above-the-board visa process.
> 2) You mention how cheap it is while he believes its more expensive, but you may have gotten a good deal or stayed in areas that others wouldn't want to.
The author explicitly mentions avoiding Bangkok in his article. The comment in question focused primarily on his experiences in Bangkok. The top commenter was calling him out on something the author agrees with and could've been avoided had the commenter read a bit more carefully.
> 3) He shares a number of anecdotes (sex workers, etc) that differ from your anecdotes. Thailand is a big place, you can both be right, and the more information the better.
Mere disagreement while providing anecdotes is fine and should be expected in a discussion forum. But that's not all the top commenter did. He couched his differing anecdotal experiences with snarky one-liners that imply the author had no idea what he was talking about:
> Before your pop your Macbook Air in a backpack, read my points.
> Yes, you can live in a concrete block with plastic furniture and eat noodles on the street every day.
> Once you're sick of your local noodle vendor you'll find food prices quite high as well.
> If you can stomach the local swill (think Budweiser without the quality control) knock yourself out.
> When you're sick of taking taxis and the BTS/MRT, have fun buying a car at 50% - 300% above US prices.
> If you really want to fake it here it means constantly traveling in and out of the country.
> To not do it properly means breaking the law in a country where you most likely don't speak the language. Have fun with that.
> If it's not someone you've known for a decade then, well, good luck with that.
Those sentences are snark: sarcastic and snide assertions that do little more than to point out how much the author doesn't know when compared to the commenter. They're not needed, or they could've been phrased much more neutrally, if the goal is merely to compare and contrast two expatriate experiences in Thailand. There were a number of commenters who did do that:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6541708
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6542114
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6540371
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6540640
I agree with the author's sentiment that it's a shame none of them rose higher than the top comment.
Reply with information, sources, or personal experiences, and try to put them out there with a little less venom. I get that it takes more time, and no one can expect that from everyone, but if the goal really is to educate and transfer wisdom, there has to be an understanding that it's not easy to do that and that couching the rhetoric with sarcasm is antithetical to the cause.
When I read the comments I want information and opinions. I don't want to have to contend with aggression and condescension.
I know that's all a bit starry eyed, and that there are few things that are absolute, this among them, but by and large that's how I feel about this sort of thing.
But as for my original point, I would always trust the snarker in this case over the harmonious river crab: based on my experience, the former's information is actually more useful than the latter's. Call it an imperfect generalization.
I'm amenable to the idea that it's got its place and that it can be useful. I just wonder how often it's useful compared to how often it's used.
To me it's a matter of figuring out whether or not you're really trying to educate as many people as you can, and which delivery method is most powerful for that goal. I think you can accomplish that without attacking someone else. Of course there's the idea that emotional responses can catalyze a more poignant memory, and as you say, draw more attention to your point.
shrug
And this is why I drink.
edit: (in reference to the response below) I should say that I've abstracted away from the concrete post that triggered all of this. Either way, this is the kind of dialogue I like. You can disagree on some things, get something out of it, and never have to get in anyone's face)
I'm not sure if it is fair to say the commenter was "attacking someone" unless they were spewing out ad hominems, of which I didn't see any.
This. A thousand times this.
There are always arguments about thick and thin skin, but I can't find any value in being so snide about something.
I look at HN comments because I'm looking for balance and additional information, not to find someone trying to be That Guy, and prove how much more he knows than the initial author.
I value the content HN has in the way of articles posted and comments made, but the amount of vitriol I see is really disconcerting. I can stomach it, try to soak up the info and move on, but it's so unnecessary and rarely adds anything to the conversation.
I also should say that I totally get the impulse. I even half typed a sarcastic admonition at the end of this and then backspaced because it would have done nothing to add to the point.
So I plan on doing that more often, now.
You really have no idea how much of a time sink HN really is. If I said it took a fair portion of my day, it would be the biggest understatement of the year.
Love from everyone who reads Hacker News
From my perspective there is simply nothing there(2), and 5 seconds looking at a static page is just not enough information for me to make a decision. That decision is not just to give you my email address, but to "sign-up", which is a huge step too far.
At the very least I need a "find out more" option, and I'd need that without having to give you my email address or other details.
You clearly write very well, so why not tell the Tubelytics story underneath the landing page. Let me scroll down and read the story, see the screenshots, hear about the use cases and experience the success stories.
By the time people get to the end they should know what the product is, how awesome it will be for them to use it, how much it costs and whether or not they will buy.
(Advanced) Ideally I could play with the product and even set it up with my youtube videos(3) without logging in, and once I experience the product then I can save the data by creating an account and, more likely, pay you.
So rather than not getting an email, perhaps there is a better way to get a paid sign-up.
(1) https://tubelytics.com (2) I'm OSX Safari with flash block on (3) I'm not a target customer
I have a Rackspace 256mb ram slice hosting Wordpress. No caching at all, none.
I also run, on the same server, a teamspeak server for a friend that still plays games.
I peaked at 290 simultaneous people reading my post. Teamspeak server was still working fine.
These numbers tell me I’ll have to completely change
the landing page as it’s not converting well.
[1] 15,000 uniques led to just 78 trials, 1 paid customer
But i don't think a lot of HN people have YouTube video's so important, they would pay for tracking it.
I could be wrong though :)
I'm not complaining—even if percentages go down, signups go up—but the lesson I've taken away is that, while HN traffic is nice, it's flash-in-the-pan stuff, and not something I should pursue as a primary strategy. I think I can get better bang-for-the-buck focusing on other things, and if my work occasionally catches HN's eye, all the better.
2. I agree with your point about the standard top comment on most Hacker News posts being contrarian. It can be very annoying, but having a strong dissenting voice also helps keep BS posts in check. I have noticed a lot more jokes as the top comments within posts though. I'm not sure if that's good or BSD. The first example that comes mind is a post titled 'You have a 0.000007% chance of becoming a billionaire'. The top rated comment was the common Reddit joke 'So you're saying I have a chance'.
It's funny how all moms are the same. Hilarious!!!
31.64% Macintosh 24.01% iOS 22.29% Windows 13.93% Android 6.95% Linux
That's ~55% on Apple browsers and at least 65% on Webkit (if you assume everyone on Mac, iOS and Android is on Chrome/Safari).
My guess is that if you said "Look at what I built that took 15 years" that would peak people's interest.
Along those lines many things that appear on HN are really of the same quality as HN comments (just an opinion nothing particularly special) but since they appear as a post people focus on them and a discussion ensues and they get voted up more than the same exact thing appearing in a thread.
It's all about timing. You can write a rockstar post and have it ignored one day, then resubmit it 4 times and finally get on the front page with 14,000 unique visitors in 24 hours.
Just keep submitting your story.
2) HN is unpredictable and some luck is involved. If you get a couple of up votes from people early, you are more likely to get more clicks from the /new page, which leads to more upvotes... Social proof, kind of.
It reads like a case of minimizing dissonance. In other words, it seems the author is attempting to rationalize away another person's viewpoint, by simply characterizing it as snark.
Some more probable explanations why the comment made it to #1, could have been:
- It felt authentic. "I've lived and built two companies in Thailand over the last 14 years."
- The answer expressed a contrary viewpoint, giving HN readers a more balanced view of the topic.
As much flak as HN gets, I have found that it's the best source of traffic. My post yesterday about building a desk stayed at #2 for half a day and I got about 20,000 views with an average time of 40 seconds. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6566643
I made it last year. I needed some feedback and early adopters, it was great to kick start small community. Also my project changed name and that post made it #1 result on Google in 3 weeks. There was handful of serious job offers as direct result of that post, last one 3 months latter.
It has been year since my last post on HN. My project is stable-enough, I have some pilot customers, and even made first profit this month. On other side I have only 50 twitter followers and no invitations to conferences. So I will probably hit HN again in a few weeks :-)
It's very well designed, has interesting content and it's easy to just read the next article.
It's probably one of the best blogs i've ever met (excellent place for your links (at the end of your article for a follow-up story).
And, you have converted me to the panda show. Great music!
So congrats and nice job :)
PS. You didn't convert a lot of your users, because it had nothing to do with Tubelytics. It was an awesome read, but probably missed your core audience attention :-) (personal opinion though).
I think however we as founders can easily get focused on tracking metrics that in the end amount to fairly trivial things. They help us make changes around the margins, which can payoff big or just be small gains.
I think what he did was a good exercise, however the whole post, analyze, post thing though is a tad navel gazing for my tastes.
Good work !
_________
150+ points on HN 170+ comments on HN
280+ points on HN 90+ comments on HN
The sequel has ~2x upvotes, plus a better karma/comment ratio as well...
Would you be interested in doing a talk on all this at the next Beercamp at Punspace?