4 ms·

As a non-technical, first time entrepreneur I am finding it difficult to add value to HN. I have been lurking for ~6 months, a member for 1 month and I made my

As a non-technical, first time entrepreneur I am finding it difficult to add value to HN. I have been lurking for ~6 months, a member for 1 month and I made my first post yesterday. With that said, I have learned a ton here and HN is easily the best resource I have ever found on any subject. edit: Potential solution: require participation in other user's RMS before you can post your own RMS. Even though I am non technical and don't have much entrepreneurial experience, I can still give an opinion from the view of a customer.

qeorge 16y ago
If one makes a habit of participating in RMS threads and giving thoughtful feedback, I'm sure the karma threshold would take care of itself. Good idea.
dkokelley 16y ago
Surely you have a background in something unique or interesting, that others here don't have. At the very least, you have your perspective. I don't think it's difficult to provide insightful, valuable content to HN, in both submissions and comments. I've noticed that the topics here tend to rotate over time (meaning one week is all hard core programming, and the next week is boot strapping). Also, check out the new section, where the submissions tend to be more varied (in my experience). Find a topic or two that you have something to contribute to and comment on it.
- natep 16y ago
  (not grandparent, but similar situation) I've been here for a while, and I think it is difficult to participate at a level that gets lots of karma. I limit by intake of HN with the "Hacker News 100" feed, so that you all can filter my content for me (I'm going to miss good articles anyways, so I might as well not miss the popular ones). This also means that most things have already been said, or the conversation is dead, and even if I asked a great question, I wouldn't get a response. This hasn't really bothered me, until the average karma/post started getting shown, which showed me that I get upvotes on less than half the things I say. Now that pg is also pointing out the correlation between new accounts and undesirables, I'm worried about...something (not sure what).
momotomo 16y ago
You could definitely add value, even from the perspective that in a generally technical community, you have a non-technical perspective. If you are generally clever and motivated, there's few situations where you won't have input. Even asking well structure questions to learn on a topic is a good contribution, and can help people out.
natep 16y ago
Your potential solution might work, but I think it allows for the kind of spammy comments the Android App store gets a lot > Awesome App! 5 stars! Get paid apps 100% free from xyz.com!

qeorge 16y ago

If one makes a habit of participating in RMS threads and giving thoughtful feedback, I'm sure the karma threshold would take care of itself. Good idea.

dkokelley 16y ago

Surely you have a background in something unique or interesting, that others here don't have. At the very least, you have your perspective. I don't think it's difficult to provide insightful, valuable content to HN, in both submissions and comments. I've noticed that the topics here tend to rotate over time (meaning one week is all hard core programming, and the next week is boot strapping). Also, check out the new section, where the submissions tend to be more varied (in my experience). Find a topic or two that you have something to contribute to and comment on it.

natep 16y ago
(not grandparent, but similar situation) I've been here for a while, and I think it is difficult to participate at a level that gets lots of karma. I limit by intake of HN with the "Hacker News 100" feed, so that you all can filter my content for me (I'm going to miss good articles anyways, so I might as well not miss the popular ones). This also means that most things have already been said, or the conversation is dead, and even if I asked a great question, I wouldn't get a response. This hasn't really bothered me, until the average karma/post started getting shown, which showed me that I get upvotes on less than half the things I say. Now that pg is also pointing out the correlation between new accounts and undesirables, I'm worried about...something (not sure what).

momotomo 16y ago

You could definitely add value, even from the perspective that in a generally technical community, you have a non-technical perspective. If you are generally clever and motivated, there's few situations where you won't have input. Even asking well structure questions to learn on a topic is a good contribution, and can help people out.

natep 16y ago

Your potential solution might work, but I think it allows for the kind of spammy comments the Android App store gets a lot > Awesome App! 5 stars! Get paid apps 100% free from xyz.com!