I Came, I Saw, I Commented: Was It Worth It? | Hacker News Reader

I Came, I Saw, I Commented: Was It Worth It?

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20 pointsfjabre6 comments

It raises an interesting question in my mind about the merits of conversing here on HN (where you're more likely to begin a conversation) v leaving your thoughts on a linked blog.

I know some HNers do both [1], which presumably has the benefit of acknowledging the source OP at the source, and also participating in our community locally. Is that worth it?

[1] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=837930

No, I find it annoying (although I can't speak for the community as a whole) when people try to draw such attention to their websites and very rarely click on links to blogs and personal websites on blog or social news comments. If I find a person's comment insightful, then I click on their username, visit the sites they blog on/have made/twitter, and see if they're worth subscribing to.

So you prefer main stream media like TechCrunch, NYT, Wired etc. instead of sites and blogs by regular people? Why don't you just use an RSS reader then?

IMHO one of the best things about social news sites is that you get sources you wouldn't otherwise find. HN tends to copy Digg where only a few sources get attention while other get ignored altogether.

I guess what I'm saying is that it feels forced when someone promotes their own blog in a comment, especially on a popular story. But I will read their blog if I like their comment and possibly subscribe to it. Perhaps the best way to increase traffic is to not call attention to yourself and just write and post insightful stuff on HN. This will naturally get people to click on your username and go to your bio where most have their blog linked.

I prefer to converse on HN as I can follow the discussion easier and the quality of responses is much higher than out there in the wild. Unless of course I want to talk to the blog owner. Commenting twice (the same thing) is cross posting to me.

Any market for a web service that generates paid comments via tools similar to what spam marketers use and possibly Mechanical Turk for premium packages?

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