4 ms·

Eh, I'm of two minds here. 1) sure, there was effort put into this and it likely wouldn't have been made w/out affiliate links, so clearly there's value provid

Eh, I'm of two minds here. 1) sure, there was effort put into this and it likely wouldn't have been made w/out affiliate links, so clearly there's value provided. 2) it's pretty clear that a list like this is going to underrepresent books where an amazon link is less likely --- superior free alternatives to the books listed in some cases. Using affiliate links (and, as far as I can tell, only undisclosed affiliate links) suggests that getting an accurate "top 30" wasn't the highest priority. So the affiliate links are a signal of intent, and intent affects accuracy in this case. But the list wouldn't have been written otherwise. "You've figured out a way to post native content advertising to Hacker News" would be the equally uncharitable counterpoint to your mock quote.

irremediable 11y ago
> it's pretty clear that a list like this is going to underrepresent books where an amazon link is less likely But the list was explicitly generated from Amazon links... wasn't that always going to be the case?
- grayclhn 11y ago
  Yes, definitely. But that was a choice. There are tons of smart reasons to choose to generate the list from Amazon links, and one of them appears to have been, "because we know that they can be tagged with affiliate links."
  - gkst 11y ago
    As mentioned in the post Amazon is often the goto website for linking books, I've never seen a link to Barnes and Noble on HN, Reddit or the like. I took care to make clear that this is a limited sample and didn't claim generalizability anywhere in the post. Tagging the links was a conscious decision, but I do think that the approach of looking for Amazon links provides more insight than any other domain/online store.
    - grayclhn 11y ago
      Probably. Labeling the links could make things less ambiguous, though. Either, "This website is supported by affiliate links" under the links to amazon. Or "I did this for fun but won't be able to host it w/out support. Please consider using this affiliate link to help out" and then providing both. It's not super clear from the website whether this is something you did primarily to learn about data analysis, learn about HN's book recommendations, or to make money. Any of those is fine! But the motivation is likely to influence the outcome (even unintentionally) and it's something that could be made more clear.
      - gkst 11y ago
        I see the case for having a disclosure section that informs about affiliate links and don't mind adding that. But quite frankly, everyone who knows about affiliate programs can see that the links to Amazon contain that tag. No redirects or whatever fishy techniques I've seen to hide that.

irremediable 11y ago

> it's pretty clear that a list like this is going to underrepresent books where an amazon link is less likely But the list was explicitly generated from Amazon links... wasn't that always going to be the case?

grayclhn 11y ago
Yes, definitely. But that was a choice. There are tons of smart reasons to choose to generate the list from Amazon links, and one of them appears to have been, "because we know that they can be tagged with affiliate links."
- gkst 11y ago
  As mentioned in the post Amazon is often the goto website for linking books, I've never seen a link to Barnes and Noble on HN, Reddit or the like. I took care to make clear that this is a limited sample and didn't claim generalizability anywhere in the post. Tagging the links was a conscious decision, but I do think that the approach of looking for Amazon links provides more insight than any other domain/online store.
  - grayclhn 11y ago
    Probably. Labeling the links could make things less ambiguous, though. Either, "This website is supported by affiliate links" under the links to amazon. Or "I did this for fun but won't be able to host it w/out support. Please consider using this affiliate link to help out" and then providing both. It's not super clear from the website whether this is something you did primarily to learn about data analysis, learn about HN's book recommendations, or to make money. Any of those is fine! But the motivation is likely to influence the outcome (even unintentionally) and it's something that could be made more clear.
    - gkst 11y ago
      I see the case for having a disclosure section that informs about affiliate links and don't mind adding that. But quite frankly, everyone who knows about affiliate programs can see that the links to Amazon contain that tag. No redirects or whatever fishy techniques I've seen to hide that.