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How to Hack Hacker News

ineptech 8y ago
Somewhat different from my idea of how to get to the front page of Hacker News (from http://ineptech.com/index.html?blog&post=20 http://ineptech.com/index.html?blog&post=20): * Use a plainly wrong headline which you intend to weasel out of in the body of the essay (e.g. "Why Javascript is lower-level than Assembly", "Mobile is dead") * Any "<app> in <techology>" project that hasn't been done yet (e.g. "Building a reverse-Polish calculator in Rust", "Show HN: Umud, the first MUD client for Urbit") * Devise a variant on an obscure technology or algorithm and give it a quirky name (e.g. "Soda-can steganography", "Homomorphic hashing the Monty Python way") * Vague counter-intuitive advice for startup founders (e.g. "Raising your valuation through the power of song", "How beating my children saved my B round")
- craftyguy 8y ago
  so basically: use a clickbaity title
- RugnirViking 8y ago
  To be honest most of those articles look like something I want to read. Especially soda-can steganography.
tj-teej 8y ago
"These queries reveal that Github, the New York Times, and Medium are the sources the Hacker News community trusts the most." I agree it says something about how HN regards the NYT; but isn't saying Github or Medium are "sources the community trusts" like saying paper is a source someone trusts because they get their knowledge from books?
- mikestew 8y ago
  In the case of Medium, it says essentially that right on the tin. Because, you know, the medium is not the message.
  - craftyguy 8y ago
    I always interpreted the name as being "it (the content) is not high quality, or low quality, it's medium quality"
  - muzz 8y ago
    Maybe it has multiple meanings, but I thought medium referred to the length of content. As opposed to short form (Twitter) or long form (articles, papers, etc)
jenoer 8y ago
This article has been posted 4 hours too early.
anotherevan 8y ago
Normally, the trick to getting on the front page of Hacker News is to submit an article about Hacker News, but we're all a bit distracted by the GDPR at the moment...
darth_mastah 8y ago
The author draws conclusions based on a sample dataset of 4000 submissions, whereas currently there are 2,962,457 submissions (stories, askHN and showHN combined). Seems a bit risky at best, unless the sample was designed in a very clever way.

Somewhat different from my idea of how to get to the front page of Hacker News (from http://ineptech.com/index.html?blog&post=20 http://ineptech.com/index.html?blog&post=20): * Use a plainly wrong headline which you intend to weasel out of in the body of the essay (e.g. "Why Javascript is lower-level than Assembly", "Mobile is dead") * Any "<app> in <techology>" project that hasn't been done yet (e.g. "Building a reverse-Polish calculator in Rust", "Show HN: Umud, the first MUD client for Urbit") * Devise a variant on an obscure technology or algorithm and give it a quirky name (e.g. "Soda-can steganography", "Homomorphic hashing the Monty Python way") * Vague counter-intuitive advice for startup founders (e.g. "Raising your valuation through the power of song", "How beating my children saved my B round")

craftyguy 8y ago
so basically: use a clickbaity title
RugnirViking 8y ago
To be honest most of those articles look like something I want to read. Especially soda-can steganography.

tj-teej 8y ago

"These queries reveal that Github, the New York Times, and Medium are the sources the Hacker News community trusts the most." I agree it says something about how HN regards the NYT; but isn't saying Github or Medium are "sources the community trusts" like saying paper is a source someone trusts because they get their knowledge from books?

mikestew 8y ago
In the case of Medium, it says essentially that right on the tin. Because, you know, the medium is not the message.
- craftyguy 8y ago
  I always interpreted the name as being "it (the content) is not high quality, or low quality, it's medium quality"
- muzz 8y ago
  Maybe it has multiple meanings, but I thought medium referred to the length of content. As opposed to short form (Twitter) or long form (articles, papers, etc)

jenoer 8y ago

This article has been posted 4 hours too early.

anotherevan 8y ago

Normally, the trick to getting on the front page of Hacker News is to submit an article about Hacker News, but we're all a bit distracted by the GDPR at the moment...

darth_mastah 8y ago

The author draws conclusions based on a sample dataset of 4000 submissions, whereas currently there are 2,962,457 submissions (stories, askHN and showHN combined). Seems a bit risky at best, unless the sample was designed in a very clever way.