3 ms·

The sick incentives of online publishing

1 points by imartin2k 11y ago

Just a short comment on something I noticed: Yesterday, this article scored hundreds of votes on HN: http://www.factmag.com/2016/02/11/soundcloud-financial-report-44m-losses/ The article was based on a news which two days earlier had been covered by multiple outlets, among them Hypebot, the FT, and Music Ally. What made the Factmag article different from the other ones, apart from that it was published 2 days later and did not do more than summarizing the news others already had been reporting? Factmag used the most dramatic headline imaginable, emphasizing an allegedly existing existential threat to SoundCloud. Considering that the article dominated the HN frontpage for many hours it must have received quite a handsome number of visitors (not even factoring in all the subsequent sharing which happens after an article hits the HN top spot). This is a prime example for the sick state of online publishing. The incentives are completely skewed. Putting a more negative spin on an old story should not be rewarded like that. This situation needs to be fixed.

DrScump 11y ago
The HN posting that you're complaining about getting the attention was the earliest one posted. Are you saying you prefer that dupes get more votes than the first posting on a given topic?
- imartin2k 11y ago
  Indeed, theoretically the fault is that no one (including me) posted one of the earlier articles about the news. But, from a quality focus, yes, I think if there clearly are better and earlier posts about the same news, with the same (or in that case, more comprehensive information, like e.g. Music Ally's post), HN would benefit from actually not surfacing the clickbaity, dramatic rewrite that was published 2 days later. It is also clearly stated in the submission guidelines: "Please submit the original source. If a post reports on something found on another site, submit the latter. " In that case, this rule was broken, and that behavior was rewarded.

1 points by imartin2k 11y ago

DrScump 11y ago

The HN posting that you're complaining about getting the attention was the earliest one posted. Are you saying you prefer that dupes get more votes than the first posting on a given topic?

imartin2k 11y ago
Indeed, theoretically the fault is that no one (including me) posted one of the earlier articles about the news. But, from a quality focus, yes, I think if there clearly are better and earlier posts about the same news, with the same (or in that case, more comprehensive information, like e.g. Music Ally's post), HN would benefit from actually not surfacing the clickbaity, dramatic rewrite that was published 2 days later. It is also clearly stated in the submission guidelines: "Please submit the original source. If a post reports on something found on another site, submit the latter. " In that case, this rule was broken, and that behavior was rewarded.