5 ms·

You´ve not been social engineered - you´ve received a post that was personalised for you. I don´t write to gain twitter followers - I really don´t care - but in

You´ve not been social engineered - you´ve received a post that was personalised for you. I don´t write to gain twitter followers - I really don´t care - but in order to test my theory, I needed some type of metric, and that seemed like a relevant one. My further posts are no longer going to be manipulated in that manner -- well, till I think of something interesting to try out again. The only difference between what I did and what lifehacker or any such site does is that I explained afterwards. (Sorry about the weird apostrophe, I got a new macbook and it has a strange keyboard).

rinich 17y ago
You´ve not been social engineered - you´ve received a post that was personalised for you. It was personalized for us? So you're saying: In the process of creating the post, you designed it in ways that would appeal to the sorts of individuals that frequent Hacker News? That sounds... a little like... social... engineering. Wikipedia: Social engineering is the act of manipulating people into performing actions. We can get pedantic, but Jacques accused you of doing exactly what you're doing.
- maxklein 17y ago
  Alright, you are technically right. Which is the right kind of right.
  - rinich 17y ago
    The phrase "technically right" implies you think I'm wrong in some other way. Yet here you've said specifically that your goal is to manipulate people and then reveal how they're being manipulated. So, you're socially engineering people. Thanks to this one article, everything you attempt to write from now on will be hounded by people criticizing you and calling out manipulation. You're Max Klein the con man. If you're sincere about your goal that won't deter you, but don't kid yourself into thinking the locals here will be a fan. I'm ambivalent, myself; what you purport to do is what a thousand marketers have written about before you. What do you have to say that has not been said and critiqued before? If you're really committed to writing something interesting, that's a question you need to answer. If your goal is just fameballing, then expect fame, but fame's not as fun as it looks.
    - jacquesm 17y ago
      > You're Max Klein the con man I think that's a little strong.
      - rinich 17y ago
        That's not how I think personally. I'm curious to see how this plays out myself. That said, I remember how vicious Hacker News got back when Valleywag was allowed on this site. Hell, look at how they get about TechCrunch's style of journalism. People don't like being told they've been manipulated, and they hold grudges. When somebody goes out of their way to tell an entire community that they've been manipulated, that community isn't going to be happy with the person who pointed it out. Hopefully, Max, you're not offended by my choice of language? I didn't mean to deride you with it. It was more a warning that to an angry group there's little difference between a would-be magician and a shyster.
        maxklein 17y ago
        I'm not offended - I welcome it. My aim in the blog is deconstruction, and if I ever wrote gossip or poor rumours, I'd stop. If I ever did manipulate for whatever reason, I would always tell it afterwards. It's not safe reading in that manner - I may decide to experiment with the people reading.
        rinich 17y ago
        Fair enough! I'm interested in seeing what you do next.
        hussong 17y ago
        That's not how I think personally. I'm curious to see how this plays out myself. Wait, are you trying to social engineer readers here into thinking Max is a con man?
jacquesm 17y ago
> You´ve not been social engineered - you´ve received a post that was personalised for you. That's your interpretation, mine is different. You've used your reputation to get me to visit your site, specifically not the text of those links. You've written interesting stuff in the past and I wondered what this was about. (edit: reputation+title = click, reputation alone or title alone would probably not have been a click, but that's after the fact). > My further posts are no longer going to be manipulated in that manner So you say. > well, till I think of something interesting to try out again. See, that's what I mean. You've abused your reputation in order to do your experiment, and you've succeeded in your goal. Now I'm going to be more wary, and will think twice before I click, no matter how enticing the title. In fact, the more enticing the title the less chance that I'll click because that will make it more likely that you are pulling another stunt. > The only difference between what I did and what lifehacker or any such site does is that I explained afterwards. A good magician never explains his tricks to the audience. I know that that is a fine line here, but even though I'm sure you have good intentions and you are in a way making up for tricking people by explaining it I can't help the feelings that it creates. Trust is a fragile thing, and in some sense you have broken that trust. You've taken 'link bait' or 'title bait' one step further and created 'article bait'. That's an achievement in its own right, and I find it quite impressive that you managed to pull this off but at the same time you've shown yourself more than willing and capable of doing this with intent. > I don´t write to gain twitter followers No, but you write "My aim in both cases was to increase my name recognition. I wanted the right people to be aware of "Max Klein". " If twitter followers are a measure of that then we can use that to gauge your success and effectively you were trying to gain a following. That's what social engineering is all about. It's a hacker term for getting people to do what they otherwise would not do by outsmarting them. That's not limited to getting passwords over the phone by pretending to be the sysadmin.
- maxklein 17y ago
  There are a lot of blogs there talking about tech and talking about money. I could join their ranks and just write the same stuff I write here. But I choose not to. What I want to write is a meta blog. A blog where the things I write to pull people to my site are further explained and analysed. Like getting traffic by writing an article about how to get traffic and in that article analysing the traffic the article itself would get. That is the experiment I want to do. Yes, unfortunately, you are my test subject, and it is your choice if you choose to participate or not, but I think it will be interesting. So I am the magician explaining and analysing my tricks. Not everyone likes that - some just want to see the magic.

rinich 17y ago

You´ve not been social engineered - you´ve received a post that was personalised for you. It was personalized for us? So you're saying: In the process of creating the post, you designed it in ways that would appeal to the sorts of individuals that frequent Hacker News? That sounds... a little like... social... engineering. Wikipedia: Social engineering is the act of manipulating people into performing actions. We can get pedantic, but Jacques accused you of doing exactly what you're doing.

maxklein 17y ago
Alright, you are technically right. Which is the right kind of right.
- rinich 17y ago
  The phrase "technically right" implies you think I'm wrong in some other way. Yet here you've said specifically that your goal is to manipulate people and then reveal how they're being manipulated. So, you're socially engineering people. Thanks to this one article, everything you attempt to write from now on will be hounded by people criticizing you and calling out manipulation. You're Max Klein the con man. If you're sincere about your goal that won't deter you, but don't kid yourself into thinking the locals here will be a fan. I'm ambivalent, myself; what you purport to do is what a thousand marketers have written about before you. What do you have to say that has not been said and critiqued before? If you're really committed to writing something interesting, that's a question you need to answer. If your goal is just fameballing, then expect fame, but fame's not as fun as it looks.
  - jacquesm 17y ago
    > You're Max Klein the con man I think that's a little strong.
    - rinich 17y ago
      That's not how I think personally. I'm curious to see how this plays out myself. That said, I remember how vicious Hacker News got back when Valleywag was allowed on this site. Hell, look at how they get about TechCrunch's style of journalism. People don't like being told they've been manipulated, and they hold grudges. When somebody goes out of their way to tell an entire community that they've been manipulated, that community isn't going to be happy with the person who pointed it out. Hopefully, Max, you're not offended by my choice of language? I didn't mean to deride you with it. It was more a warning that to an angry group there's little difference between a would-be magician and a shyster.
      - maxklein 17y ago
        I'm not offended - I welcome it. My aim in the blog is deconstruction, and if I ever wrote gossip or poor rumours, I'd stop. If I ever did manipulate for whatever reason, I would always tell it afterwards. It's not safe reading in that manner - I may decide to experiment with the people reading.
        rinich 17y ago
        Fair enough! I'm interested in seeing what you do next.
      - hussong 17y ago
        That's not how I think personally. I'm curious to see how this plays out myself. Wait, are you trying to social engineer readers here into thinking Max is a con man?

jacquesm 17y ago

> You´ve not been social engineered - you´ve received a post that was personalised for you. That's your interpretation, mine is different. You've used your reputation to get me to visit your site, specifically not the text of those links. You've written interesting stuff in the past and I wondered what this was about. (edit: reputation+title = click, reputation alone or title alone would probably not have been a click, but that's after the fact). > My further posts are no longer going to be manipulated in that manner So you say. > well, till I think of something interesting to try out again. See, that's what I mean. You've abused your reputation in order to do your experiment, and you've succeeded in your goal. Now I'm going to be more wary, and will think twice before I click, no matter how enticing the title. In fact, the more enticing the title the less chance that I'll click because that will make it more likely that you are pulling another stunt. > The only difference between what I did and what lifehacker or any such site does is that I explained afterwards. A good magician never explains his tricks to the audience. I know that that is a fine line here, but even though I'm sure you have good intentions and you are in a way making up for tricking people by explaining it I can't help the feelings that it creates. Trust is a fragile thing, and in some sense you have broken that trust. You've taken 'link bait' or 'title bait' one step further and created 'article bait'. That's an achievement in its own right, and I find it quite impressive that you managed to pull this off but at the same time you've shown yourself more than willing and capable of doing this with intent. > I don´t write to gain twitter followers No, but you write "My aim in both cases was to increase my name recognition. I wanted the right people to be aware of "Max Klein". " If twitter followers are a measure of that then we can use that to gauge your success and effectively you were trying to gain a following. That's what social engineering is all about. It's a hacker term for getting people to do what they otherwise would not do by outsmarting them. That's not limited to getting passwords over the phone by pretending to be the sysadmin.

maxklein 17y ago
There are a lot of blogs there talking about tech and talking about money. I could join their ranks and just write the same stuff I write here. But I choose not to. What I want to write is a meta blog. A blog where the things I write to pull people to my site are further explained and analysed. Like getting traffic by writing an article about how to get traffic and in that article analysing the traffic the article itself would get. That is the experiment I want to do. Yes, unfortunately, you are my test subject, and it is your choice if you choose to participate or not, but I think it will be interesting. So I am the magician explaining and analysing my tricks. Not everyone likes that - some just want to see the magic.