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> Never submit GitLab content to Hacker News. Submission gets more credibility if a non-GitLab Hacker News community member posts it, we should focus on making

> Never submit GitLab content to Hacker News. Submission gets more credibility if a non-GitLab Hacker News community member posts it, we should focus on making our posts interesting instead of on submitting it. I appreciate this policy, it makes it clear that HN is a place to engage with the community, rather than a free advertising channel. Looking at the CEO's profile, the last time he made a submission about Gitlab was in 2018, so I'd say the policy appears to be followed.

gandalfgreybeer 5y ago
In my ideal world, most content sharing and even social media sites should be like this. Good content driving interest instead of gaming the algorithm to get clicks and views would lead to a better ecosystem of information with less noise. Although I doubt we’ll ever reach that point so I’m wondering if there are other small communities around the web that are just more quality-oriented on the content shared (I just go to niche subreddits and mostly HN)
- mooreds 5y ago
  Lobsters is a good one. (You need an invite.) And I'm a member of some slacks that are just killer in terms of content and discussion. Too bad about the memory hole.
  - d3nj4l 5y ago
    You should consider moving that slack to discord. Discord has unlimited server history for free with pretty good search. The only features you lose compared to slack are ones that are largely only useful for organisations. (If you do move it to discord, invite pls :P)
    - slimsag 5y ago
      Or Element/Matrix. It's nearly comparable to Discord these days, plus it's open source.
    - mattl 5y ago
      Discord is too associated with gamer culture which is fairly rancid.
      - coconut08 5y ago
        this is a nonsense argument. you can moderate and restrict your discord channel to enforce whatever culture you want. if you don't want bad culture infesting your channel then don't let it happen. i would still suggest people use matrix over discord, but it has nothing to do with gamer culture.
        mattl 5y ago
        Discord has a centralized profile system built around gamer culture and the idea of using a “handle” that is rightly disconnected from your identity. It has so many features designed around gaming.
        eitland 5y ago
        > Discord has a centralized profile system built around gamer culture and the idea of using a “handle” that is rightly disconnected from your identity. You make it sound like this is a bad thing? Letting people use handles has been a thing since way before modern gamer and it is probably the only right way if you want interesting people to share stuff. Some (most?) of the most civil places that exist on the internet - including HN - has pseudonymity. The only people who thrive with mandatory Real Names policies are: - people who operate under a false but real looking name anyway (trolls etc) - people who are squeaking clean by todays standards (and even not all of them because what about tomorrow or next week or next year?) - people who have nothing to lose anyway or don't realize the problem of Full Name Policies. > It has so many features designed around gaming. It works really nice for non gaming too.
        mattl 5y ago
        People should be able to be who they want in any community, making one central identity doesn’t allow that.
    - andrewzah 5y ago
      ...Can we not have more projects move to a proprietary, closed source chat system? (And one that tracks every mouse movement you make...) Zulip, Discourse, Element(formerly Riot) / Matrix all exist and are fairly nice. And of course, IRC. Searching works well for Zulip/Element.
      - ms4720 5y ago
        I miss nntp
      - OJFord 5y ago
        If they move from a different proprietary closed source chat system.. meh?
    - kergonath 5y ago
      > Discord has unlimited server history for free with pretty good search. Until they pull a Google and either make it not-free, or drop it altogether. It is difficult to have any faith in the long-term prospects of all these services that depend mostly or only on the goodwill of a company.
    - WesternWind 5y ago
      The window of time of slack eventually occluding stuff is actually one of the semi useful features of the free version.
    - mooreds 5y ago
      Hahah, thanks! They aren't my slacks to move, I'm just a member. I'd love to move them, but I'd probably suggest a forum rather than a discord. I actually wrote a piece: https://www.mooreds.com/wordpress/archives/3451 https://www.mooreds.com/wordpress/archives/3451 ( discussed on HN here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29154216 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29154216 ) about the advantages/disadvantages of various chat/discussion software options.
- colechristensen 5y ago
  Nothing wrong with posting your stuff on your own feed/group/list, but it is good practice to not spam external ones or to do so only rarely.
  - AlwaysRock 5y ago
    Or at least use an alt so it doesnt look like self promotion right? :)
KennyBlanken 5y ago
Yeah, but the takeaway is that "coordinated responses" are the norm for even a relatively small tech company and we basically can't count on any genuine social media discussions about large companies. Disclaimer: I'm not saying you-know-who does or doesn't do any of this (though other pages on their wiki do describe some of what I talk about. You can read it for yourself.) At best what looks organic isn't remotely close. "Coordinated response" is PR-speak for a company's PR team at best controlling the "message" and who delivers it, instead of half a dozen employees chiming in with "inconsistent messaging". Somewhere in-between: immediately calling/DMing certain employees known to toe the company line / have a good reputation publicly, and who are in a relevant department. It's severely disingenuous, particularly since people interpret the quick appearance as the employee being active in the community, and never will you hear the employee say "well, actually, our PR team rang my phone off the nightstand and said "shmeddit is discussing _______, please immediately get on Slack to provide a response using talking points to some comments that are coming up." At worst, it's also a company mobilizing, if necessary, a vendor who supplies an army of users (real or fake) on the platform to comment, upvote, downvote, flag, etc. They even have prearranged topics to boost/suppress, canned talking points, etc. I think the most visible evidence of this is a certain electric car company, which routinely abuses the DMCA takedown process to suppress videos that are unflattering. Google their name and "dmca video" and you can read all about it. The same technique has been used by a certain rich playboy who sucker-punched a restaurant worker while someone was recording him without him realizing it, and the video made it onto reddit. The video kept getting either removed by moderators or DMCA'd. A large number of VHNWI's/UHNWIs have standing contracts with reputation management firms for exactly that sort of action.
- Gigachad 5y ago
  Yes, almost every company has automated alerts for mentions about them on any platform. It can be a great thing and it can be abused. A great way for a company to handle social media is to clarify confusion and to answer questions but not raid every thread with defensive or astro turf content. Often people post online about their complaints about how a product or service doesn't do x when it does but they haven't found it or its newly added. When the PR team can drop in and give a quick update its quite useful.
kirso 5y ago
I wish all marketers in the world can read this...
- deleted 5y ago
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deleted 5y ago
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mooreds 5y ago
I was thinking about this policy "Never submit GitLab content to Hacker News." It makes sense on one level; of course a submission has more credibility if someone else feels like the content is compelling enough to share. But that's a bit like saying "get interviewed by the New York Times (or the Wall St Journal, your daily paper, etc) because that interview is going to have a lot of credibility". Sure, it's nice if you can do it, but most of us won't ever get interviewed (unless you're Corey Quinn[0]). On another level, the ability to self-promote (a little bit) makes HN better, because it gives everyone a reason to submit and increases the volume and depth of content. I unapologetically post content from my personal blogs and my employer that I think is valuable (you can see my submission history, of course [1]). I limit it to ~10% of my submissions. I also spend time submitting what I think are high value links and adding comments when I feel I have something to add. I won't say all my submissions have been perfect and I've definitely gotten feedback from the community over the years about some garbage submissions, but I've learned what kind of submissions spark interest and/or commentary. In other words, I'm acting like a community member, rather than someone who dumps links for traffic and runs. Of course I'd rather have someone else stumble on my sites/links and post them, but either my content isn't compelling enough (in which case the voting system will weed it out) or it isn't being discovered by people who want to share it (which is the problem allowing self-posting addresses). 0: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/17/technology/corey-quinn-amazon-aws.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/17/technology/corey-quinn-am... 1: https://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=mooreds https://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=mooreds

gandalfgreybeer 5y ago

In my ideal world, most content sharing and even social media sites should be like this. Good content driving interest instead of gaming the algorithm to get clicks and views would lead to a better ecosystem of information with less noise. Although I doubt we’ll ever reach that point so I’m wondering if there are other small communities around the web that are just more quality-oriented on the content shared (I just go to niche subreddits and mostly HN)

mooreds 5y ago
Lobsters is a good one. (You need an invite.) And I'm a member of some slacks that are just killer in terms of content and discussion. Too bad about the memory hole.
- d3nj4l 5y ago
  You should consider moving that slack to discord. Discord has unlimited server history for free with pretty good search. The only features you lose compared to slack are ones that are largely only useful for organisations. (If you do move it to discord, invite pls :P)
  - slimsag 5y ago
    Or Element/Matrix. It's nearly comparable to Discord these days, plus it's open source.
  - mattl 5y ago
    Discord is too associated with gamer culture which is fairly rancid.
    - coconut08 5y ago
      this is a nonsense argument. you can moderate and restrict your discord channel to enforce whatever culture you want. if you don't want bad culture infesting your channel then don't let it happen. i would still suggest people use matrix over discord, but it has nothing to do with gamer culture.
      - mattl 5y ago
        Discord has a centralized profile system built around gamer culture and the idea of using a “handle” that is rightly disconnected from your identity. It has so many features designed around gaming.
        eitland 5y ago
        > Discord has a centralized profile system built around gamer culture and the idea of using a “handle” that is rightly disconnected from your identity. You make it sound like this is a bad thing? Letting people use handles has been a thing since way before modern gamer and it is probably the only right way if you want interesting people to share stuff. Some (most?) of the most civil places that exist on the internet - including HN - has pseudonymity. The only people who thrive with mandatory Real Names policies are: - people who operate under a false but real looking name anyway (trolls etc) - people who are squeaking clean by todays standards (and even not all of them because what about tomorrow or next week or next year?) - people who have nothing to lose anyway or don't realize the problem of Full Name Policies. > It has so many features designed around gaming. It works really nice for non gaming too.
        mattl 5y ago
        People should be able to be who they want in any community, making one central identity doesn’t allow that.
  - andrewzah 5y ago
    ...Can we not have more projects move to a proprietary, closed source chat system? (And one that tracks every mouse movement you make...) Zulip, Discourse, Element(formerly Riot) / Matrix all exist and are fairly nice. And of course, IRC. Searching works well for Zulip/Element.
    - ms4720 5y ago
      I miss nntp
    - OJFord 5y ago
      If they move from a different proprietary closed source chat system.. meh?
  - kergonath 5y ago
    > Discord has unlimited server history for free with pretty good search. Until they pull a Google and either make it not-free, or drop it altogether. It is difficult to have any faith in the long-term prospects of all these services that depend mostly or only on the goodwill of a company.
  - WesternWind 5y ago
    The window of time of slack eventually occluding stuff is actually one of the semi useful features of the free version.
  - mooreds 5y ago
    Hahah, thanks! They aren't my slacks to move, I'm just a member. I'd love to move them, but I'd probably suggest a forum rather than a discord. I actually wrote a piece: https://www.mooreds.com/wordpress/archives/3451 https://www.mooreds.com/wordpress/archives/3451 ( discussed on HN here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29154216 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29154216 ) about the advantages/disadvantages of various chat/discussion software options.
colechristensen 5y ago
Nothing wrong with posting your stuff on your own feed/group/list, but it is good practice to not spam external ones or to do so only rarely.
- AlwaysRock 5y ago
  Or at least use an alt so it doesnt look like self promotion right? :)

KennyBlanken 5y ago

Yeah, but the takeaway is that "coordinated responses" are the norm for even a relatively small tech company and we basically can't count on any genuine social media discussions about large companies. Disclaimer: I'm not saying you-know-who does or doesn't do any of this (though other pages on their wiki do describe some of what I talk about. You can read it for yourself.) At best what looks organic isn't remotely close. "Coordinated response" is PR-speak for a company's PR team at best controlling the "message" and who delivers it, instead of half a dozen employees chiming in with "inconsistent messaging". Somewhere in-between: immediately calling/DMing certain employees known to toe the company line / have a good reputation publicly, and who are in a relevant department. It's severely disingenuous, particularly since people interpret the quick appearance as the employee being active in the community, and never will you hear the employee say "well, actually, our PR team rang my phone off the nightstand and said "shmeddit is discussing _______, please immediately get on Slack to provide a response using talking points to some comments that are coming up." At worst, it's also a company mobilizing, if necessary, a vendor who supplies an army of users (real or fake) on the platform to comment, upvote, downvote, flag, etc. They even have prearranged topics to boost/suppress, canned talking points, etc. I think the most visible evidence of this is a certain electric car company, which routinely abuses the DMCA takedown process to suppress videos that are unflattering. Google their name and "dmca video" and you can read all about it. The same technique has been used by a certain rich playboy who sucker-punched a restaurant worker while someone was recording him without him realizing it, and the video made it onto reddit. The video kept getting either removed by moderators or DMCA'd. A large number of VHNWI's/UHNWIs have standing contracts with reputation management firms for exactly that sort of action.

Gigachad 5y ago
Yes, almost every company has automated alerts for mentions about them on any platform. It can be a great thing and it can be abused. A great way for a company to handle social media is to clarify confusion and to answer questions but not raid every thread with defensive or astro turf content. Often people post online about their complaints about how a product or service doesn't do x when it does but they haven't found it or its newly added. When the PR team can drop in and give a quick update its quite useful.

kirso 5y ago

I wish all marketers in the world can read this...

deleted 5y ago
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deleted 5y ago

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mooreds 5y ago

I was thinking about this policy "Never submit GitLab content to Hacker News." It makes sense on one level; of course a submission has more credibility if someone else feels like the content is compelling enough to share. But that's a bit like saying "get interviewed by the New York Times (or the Wall St Journal, your daily paper, etc) because that interview is going to have a lot of credibility". Sure, it's nice if you can do it, but most of us won't ever get interviewed (unless you're Corey Quinn[0]). On another level, the ability to self-promote (a little bit) makes HN better, because it gives everyone a reason to submit and increases the volume and depth of content. I unapologetically post content from my personal blogs and my employer that I think is valuable (you can see my submission history, of course [1]). I limit it to ~10% of my submissions. I also spend time submitting what I think are high value links and adding comments when I feel I have something to add. I won't say all my submissions have been perfect and I've definitely gotten feedback from the community over the years about some garbage submissions, but I've learned what kind of submissions spark interest and/or commentary. In other words, I'm acting like a community member, rather than someone who dumps links for traffic and runs. Of course I'd rather have someone else stumble on my sites/links and post them, but either my content isn't compelling enough (in which case the voting system will weed it out) or it isn't being discovered by people who want to share it (which is the problem allowing self-posting addresses). 0: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/17/technology/corey-quinn-amazon-aws.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/17/technology/corey-quinn-am... 1: https://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=mooreds https://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=mooreds