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How to Participate in Hacker News

207 points by joshuacc 15y ago

ottbot 15y ago
To participate in HN, you basically want to be sure to point out any logical fallacies, missing citations, and any possible reference to Godwin's Law, the Streisand effect, or the Dunning–Kruger effect.
bithive123 15y ago
I know I would participate a lot more if I could reset my password. Somehow I was able to register my usual handle without providing an email address because there doesn't seem to be a way to recover it. I created this new account just to gripe about this and when this cookie finally dies I'm not sure I'm going to bother to re-register.
- tptacek 15y ago
  You can reset your password. Fill in your email in your profile.
  - bithive123 15y ago
    Is there a way to do that without being logged in?
    - Kaizyn 15y ago
      It's doubtful at best. Email PG or another site admin, they are exceptionally responsive.
  - deleted 15y ago
    [deleted]
mattdeboard 15y ago
My main nit to pick with this article is that you violated DRY principles by assigning "Water is wet" to both Person A and Person C. Only one person was required. edit: I was kidding.
tokenadult 15y ago
I particularly like this example, which the author acknowledges is extreme: "3. Be positive. "This can really be hard when smart people debate, but try it anyway. Notice the difference between: "Person A: Water is dry. "Person B: No it's not. You're full of shit. "and "Person C: Water is dry. "Person D: Not in my experience. What data have you encountered to cause you to arrive at that conclusion?" I really like those "what data have you encountered" questions. In a lot of threads, I silently upvote replies that ask people making striking, unusual, bold, or implausible claims to please provide more information. (Too many of those helpful questions, alas, never get answers. But I'll keep on upvoting follow-up questions looking for facts when I see them.) The author finishes his list of good suggestions with "10. No list is ever exhaustive, on Hacker News or anywhere else. Anyone have any more suggestions?" I'd be delighted to hear other suggestions about constructive participation on Hacker News too.
- gbog 15y ago
  Form is important too: 11. Watch your style, capitalize, proofread. 12. Avoid inside jokes, mannerisms, memes. Write for everyone, your readers may include people with very different background.
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
- jrappleye 15y ago
  This struck a chord with me as well, and reminded me of pg's 'How to Disagree': http://www.paulgraham.com/disagree.html http://www.paulgraham.com/disagree.html
- jt2190 15y ago
  I've asked some "pointed questions" and been downvoted. What I learned from this is that while some discussion threads are about questioning and learning, others are about something else... I'm not sure what exactly... Hearing what you want to hear? Maybe someone else can provide some insight.
  - Kaizyn 15y ago
zackzackzack 15y ago
1.) Most of the time I just tell stories. I am only 20 and have relatively little experience. The only thing I can really add is a well written comment that asks a question or explains something neat. 2.)The best way to participate is to go out and do something awesome. Take something you saw on the front page and mess around with it. Maybe something will happen and you make the front page. Probably it won't, but the next time it comes up, you can at least share your experience and point out the basic pitfalls. Example: I am working on extending emscripten to use dragonegg to compile fortran. It's really hard and I don't think I can do it, but next time emscripten comes up, I will know what's up and can comment on how awesome Alon is. 3.)My password for my account is zackzackzack. Yep, same as my user name. It lets me keep from getting attached to an argument or an account. If somebody can just go in and change my password, then it is pointless to really care all that much. I like contributing, but I know at any instance all the karma I built up on here could be sealed away. Edit: fortran to javascript. Google emscripten github for more info.
- Joakal 15y ago
  Security of user accounts is no joking matter. It may be hijacked for spam bots. Someone may pose as you telling stories.
  - zackzackzack 15y ago
    Spam bots are a legitimate concern to me. I'll probably start rotating passwords if I sense that something like that is happening. I don't want to hurt hacker news. And somebody could already pose as me, or you, or anybody else on here who isn't way famous (nobody could pose as pg). Anybody can be anybody else on the internet.
    - jeswin 15y ago
      As much as you got downvoted for your earlier comment, I see the point you are making. Anyone can be anyone, and if you don't care about your account the password doesn't matter. (Although it does help spammers get around the green-username badge.) In this case I can see why some people downvoted you. But otherwise, downvoting should be reserved for spam/malice and not for a differing opinion, not even for one that you totally disagree with.
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
dwynings 15y ago
Put your contact info in the "about" section of your profile (the "email" is private). Just wanted to emphasize this as it seems to confuse a lot of people.
- tikhonj 15y ago
  Yeah, this got me until somebody found my email some other way and mentioned it was difficult. The real issue is that I basically never see my profile as somebody else would see it.
  - tripzilch 15y ago
    PG might want to add the text "(not shown)" to the user profile template.
    - lancashire 15y ago
      I think a "make email visible" checkbox would clear up any confusion here.
- JoshTriplett 15y ago
  I hadn't realized that myself; I'd previously not included my email due to the presence of the separate "email" field. Just added it.
- prophetjohn 15y ago
  Yep. It both never occurred to me that my email was private, nor that someone on Hacker News would want to contact me.
- pbhjpbhj 15y ago
  Also you have to add the email obfuscated in assembler or brainfuck or with some suitably esoteric algorithm; that's the rule!
cosmez 15y ago
one of the main reasons i think people don't participate is because of the language, a lot of us are very good at reading english but are ashamed about our writing skills. Its very common to be downvoted or insulted because of that, im trying to get pass that problem right now
- dekz 15y ago
  This isn't reddit, you're not going to get downvoted for incorrect grammar or spelling. Anyone who has been on HN for a day can tell it's a multicultural environment and there are many non-native english speakers. You shouldn't hold back your participation due to insecurities on your spelling or grammar. In my experience the only downvoted posts belong in the categories of; stupid, messaged which consist only of 'haha' or 'this'; Completely offtopic; Insulting or offensive; Incorrect.' In this post I've probably used semi-colons incorrectly, this doesn't I will be downvoted because of it.
  - gbog 15y ago
    Sure, but on the other hand one should read and reread and reread again before posting.
    - Stormbringer 15y ago
      That would be easier if the reply box was bigger than the address window on an envelope. It's like the bad old days of trying to use the Eclipse IDE where most of your screen real estate is taken up with tabs and buttons and you only get a narrow 5x80 window on the world. Except that in this case instead of the screen being taken up with masses of widgets, it is consumed with vast tracts of whitespace. Good job there, PG. (Actually, if PG had anything to do with it, I suspect it is a well thought out policy which results because he doesn't like long conversations (possibly a signal to noise bias against long posts?) consider also that there is no easy way to quote the parent, which just wastes bandwidth anyway)
      - mkr-hn 15y ago
Swizec 15y ago
11. Submit good stuff. 12. Write your own good stuff and submit that. Got a long response? Write a blog, submit it. Those two have worked the best for me.
llambda 15y ago
Great list. Related side note, I was contacted today by who I can only guess was the same person, asking how to participate on HN. I sent them an email but didn't hear back. I suppose I can assume they were busy contacting a large set of users. Not that there's any harm in that. I hope they find this list instructive!
Joakal 15y ago
I think a good point is to avoid jokes, especially weak ones. They're easy and distract from the original topic(s).
- Stormbringer 15y ago
  You're full of shit.
  - gridspy 15y ago
    Interesting perspective. What data led you to that conclusion?
    - deleted 15y ago
      [deleted]
    - lukeqsee 15y ago
      The ironies that lie is this ^^ post… In all seriousness, humor on HN needs to be: 1) Actually funny; it can't an obvious pun or cliché. 2) Constructive; humor *can* convey and add to meaning. 3) Clean and nice; this should go without saying.
      - Stormbringer 15y ago
        He was also quoting from the article.
- vacri 15y ago
  HN has a really bizzare, inconsistent relationship with humour. Best to avoid it altogether.
  - Stormbringer 15y ago
    It's more that there are large numbers of people who consistently don't get humour, either for cultural reasons or deficiencies in their humour glands or whatever. On the other hand, in forums where people upvote humour, there can be mechanisms that actually are counterproductive. E.g. on Reddit where there is something serious that you are interested in, but some idiot starts a punning thread which takes off and runs for pages. Or slashdot, where a witty one line (simplistic) put down off a complex issue will recieve maximum karma, whereas a well thought out retort will struggle to break the readability threshold. Hacker News has a number of mechanisms for impeding flame-wars, and I think some of them also impede the flow of humour. No fast replies for instance slows things down, and also the depth algorithm because PG doesn't like deep threads. Another one is de-emphasising karma. If people hand out karma for being entertained, then the system 'rewards' you for being entertaining, so again people go for the slashdot style one-off witty put down. On the gripping hand, now that HN de-emphsises karma (and has weird rules about what can and cannot be down-voted), I'm much less likely to actually bother. Karma is already pointless, but rubbing our faces in it simply reduces participation. The ideal system would 'reward' well thought out replies, and I don't see the current system doing that anytime soon. On the invisible hand humour is an important part of geek culture, as are references to things such as invisible hands and gripping hands. I'm not sure why that is, but word-play and recursion (important parts of being a really clever programmer) are already pretty close to humour, or possibly even forming some of the foundations of it. Which leads me to conjecture that all of the really good programmers have a healthy sense of humour, and that implies that if hacker news is overrun with people who don't have a good sense of humour, that would indicate the ratio of good programmers here is falling. Why would that be? Perhaps because of the emphasis on money, and winning the startup lottery. The programmers who are only in it for the money tend to view themselves as more 'serious' - so I suspect they are the source of the "humourless git" demographic.
xarien 15y ago
Before reading this post, a new user should ask him/herself a question: Do I feel a need for validation? If the answer is yes, go ahead and read the suggestion along with the guidelines of how to act. If the answer is no, stop reading the suggestion after the first point: "Be yourself."
- verroq 15y ago
  This exactly. Too many people don't say what they think because they are afraid of losing internet points.
matthiasb 15y ago
"I see no need for "personas"" If you work for a company X and you are posting with your real name, you will somehow represent the company X. Whatever you say on YC is public. Be careful to not damage your company image.
- polymatter 15y ago
  This stung me really bad in my first job as a trainee developer. I made a comment on a site (slashdot I think) and foolishly put down my real name and company name. Some journalist on CNet took my comment as the official company line and included it in an article. It was picked up by investors (during what was in retrospect due diligence before the company was sold) and I got a severe reprimand from my manager for it. He let me know under no uncertain terms that were it not for my excellent work up till then he'd have fired me for that. I was never really forgiven, made to feel uncomfortable and left 6 months later when the company was sold. Now I don't exactly hide my real name, but its not easily visible. And I certainly don't disclose the company I work for. I advise any non-C level employee to do the same.
  - matthiasb 15y ago
    Sorry to hear that. I did put a disclaimer on my personal blog because I don't want to use a persona but I still have things to say ;-)
mbesto 15y ago
- Don't be discouraged at first to post if you don't think you're "following the guidelines". We all get downvoted from time to time. Especially when people first get active. - Discussions are almost always value add. Even if you adamantly oppose someone else's position. Gaining perspective is a huge value add for me personally.
kevinskii 15y ago
I never understood why people lurked so long. As a long-time lurker, I mainly visit HN to get exposed to new ideas that I know little about. This is why I don't (and shouldn't) comment very often.
- opendomain 15y ago
  I also was a long time lurker. I participated in a few comments - and then saw my karma drop for no reason I could discern. Perhaps a much more clear rules and a response when something is down voted.
- akg 15y ago
  I was a long-time lurker as well for the same reason. I do find however, that participating in the community opens up new discussions and I can further my learning by connecting with other people. It's always a learning experience to have discussions with people who are more knowledgeable about a topic or have differing opinions than your own.
pork 15y ago
What a well-timed post, particularly since reading a bizarre takeover of another thread by a single person who comes off as a bit paranoid: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3420845 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3420845
- Maciek416 15y ago
  Thanks for the link.. I find that thread kind of fascinating, not because of anything in particular about the original comment, but because somehow the person causing so much trouble managed to convince a large number of HN posters to jump in and try to reason with him. Usually it hasn't progressed so far. I think it helps that somehow he got to this point with hundreds of points in karma and has some to burn.
  - pork 15y ago
    I was initially a little worried because he was showing signs of being a paranoid schizophrenic, but then I remembered that I was on the Internet and probably shouldn't be surprised.
rubidium 15y ago
" Best article: I'm nothing until the Hacker News community comments on me." Well, sometimes the article is better than the discussion. Sometimes the discussion is better than the article. In my experience, the trivial articles sometimes have the best discussions, and the best articles seem to often have trivial discussions. It'd be fun to get a list of best HN discussions (highest karma average per comment perhaps) ... anyone know how to do that?
- wallflower 15y ago
  > It'd be fun to get a list of best HN discussions (highest karma average per comment perhaps) The now-discontinued SearchYC database had top lists but not the particular metric you want. It doesn't show up in the Google cache or archive.org's Wayback Machine (http://top.searchyc.com http://top.searchyc.com) In my opinion, I think some of the best HN discussions have been/are the ones with hundreds of comments, with divergent threads and replies. They are usually sparked by a fairly controversial topic. I can't think of an example right now. However, this API to the HN corpus might be able to get you the data you want (not sure how current it is): http://api.ihackernews.com http://api.ihackernews.com
Tsagadai 15y ago
I've been a long time lurker here. I lurked for several months before creating an account and then I lurked quite a bit longer before participating. Groups of intelligent people are intimidating at first but please don't hold back if you have something to add to a discussion. New voices are incredibly important for preventing groups from merely becoming echochambers for established members. I especially agree with the original article's point about talking about your work. If you are doing something interesting, please share it. I'm always keen to read about amazing hacks and unique projects and I'm sure many others are too. I'm very slow at writing up my own projects, so I probably should spend more time doing that. If you are working on something that feels like reinventing a wheel for a company that has a core philosophy of Not Invented Here, share that too. I'm sure many of us have been there once and could give you some advice on ways to improve your situation (even reinventing wheels can be done to a high standard and be great practice coding), empathetic support or perhaps a way out into another job. I implore you, dear lurking readers, participate. Edit: fixed some pre-coffee writing.
- polymatter 15y ago
  As a long time lurker, let me try to encourage you to write up your projects. Even if they seem mundane or pointlessly obscure. Not only is writing a fantastically important skill to level up, and the very act of writing about them will help your thinking, but the buzz and help you can get from the community can spur you on further. And now I need to go practice what I preach ...
- ranebo 15y ago
  I'm generally happy lurking, and I can lurk with the best of them (see 4 years / 35 karma :-)) To be honest I just don't have the time to comment often and karma (in a HN sense) means nothing to me. My way of giving back to the community happens more in real life (aka meatspace, though I hate that term),more recently it's the connections I've made through HN and iOS meetups here in Tokyo that are the most valuable to me. I'm genuinely interested in what people are working on and people seem to find my work situation a lot more interesting than I had thought they would (I actually thought that when I introduced myself at my first HN meetup everyone would groan "Oh not another iOS dev"). Anyway my 2 cents for the year.
DanielBMarkham 15y ago
Here's another suggestion: flag sparingly. A lot of long-time HN'ers are frustrated at the "flag patrols" -- people of one group who don't like such-and-such author and flag them and their submissions. I've heard several people complain to me about having normal articles flagged and I've done my share of complaining. Don't be the guy who takes out your personal grudges in the form of flagging. Let the votes work. The system will not work with punitive flagging. My policy is that I flag only when I'm convinced an article is going to take the board off the rails. That's a tough call anymore. With a large enough audience, people get emotional just about anything. But remember that HackerNews is defined the most by what the people don't do. They don't comment if they don't have something interesting to say, they don't flag unless absolutely necessary, they don't criticize unless it's in the spirit of discovery, they don't vote down unless it's really a trivial comment. Do less and you'll enjoy it more. With the crowd as large as it is, I'm starting to see good comment X which has ten sub-comments, nine of which either didn't understand the main comment or don't understand the issue yet want to score karma points by making somewhat snarky remarks. We all need to fight that tendency. We do that by doing less.
- r00fus 15y ago
  Moderation should be approached like web security - any feature has potential exploits. Expect the flag patrols and bury brigades because if you allow folks to downrate or flag, someone will abuse it. You know, the only site that had moderation pretty much figured out (meaning: signal to noise ratio is much better than rest of internet) for over a decade was Slashdot. Making the system both resilient to attack as well as usable for it's intended function is not straightforward or easy. Hey, I hear that Malda is looking for work... I'd hire someone like him or a Wikipedia veteran.
  - irunbackwards 15y ago
    Haha, "Bury Brigade" ... cute.
- blantonl 15y ago
  I've been on HackerNews for a little over 2 years, and in that time I don't believe I've ever flagged any submission. I guess I've always thought that the voting process would always take it's course. Curious, if pg is reading this, how often does the flag link generate real actions on submissions?
shasta 15y ago
Am I the only one who gets tired of the first sentence of so many replies being along the lines of "I understand where you're coming from and I respect you as a person, but..."? Be respectful, but if you disagree, just disagree. Don't patronize.
- delluminatus 15y ago
  I disagree -- or, I did. See, in real life, courtesy and avoiding criticism is the most effective way to start a discussion without resulting in an argument. However, I've concluded that on the Internet there is no such thing as a good discussion (oh no, a universal statement! Well, let's say there aren't very many good discussions). Perhaps this is due to the vast amount of research material easily accessible to online debaters -- there is no incentive to work together with another individual to come to a conclusion, since the conclusions can be more easily found elsewhere. Instead, people write things like my diatribe here to "correct" perceived mistakes in others' statements but in the end someone is right and the other is wrong and compromise basically never occurs. In such a situation, the best thing you can do is make sure that you're the person who is right. Whether you couch your opinion in pandering terms or you state it harshly, the only thing that seems to matter is correctness. It's no longer worth my time to continually attempt to be polite and kind in internet discussion. tl;dr you're right about that.
  - icebraining 15y ago
    Places like Ward Cunningham's Wiki or LtU seem to have good discussions as a rule, but I agree that they aren't all that common.
- polymatter 15y ago
  I agree in the sense that's the way I prefer communication. Direct and to the point. But when I'm dealing with non-techies, I see a use to preface any opinion or question with some sort of disclaimer of that sort. I do this in order to lessen the probability that they take offence to what I say and then become uncommunicative. On more than one occasion, I thought we were having a productive conversation about their problems with the software and I find out (when they inexplicably become angry) that they thought I was insinuating their incompetence or lack of intelligence or something. I think the terse, abrupt style that I and many other techies prefer, comes across as needlessly insensitive to non-techies and we need to be mindful of that if we want to allow them to contribute to this community. (We do like teachers, accountants and shopkeepers commenting on startups in education, finance and retail, right?) Not to the extent of prefacing everything with patronizing verbiage, but to be mindful not to be too abrupt. Because many people take that as being disrespectful (in my understanding).
angrycoder 15y ago
my suggestions: 1) When a major event occurs that isn't directly related to technology, don't post comments to the effect "I thought this was hacker news, not reddit". This will ALWAYS get you downvoted and nothing good will come of the discussion. 2) When someone makes a detailed post that you don't agree with, don't down vote it, respond. 3) This is just me speaking for myself, but the only comments I really find useful and thought provoking are the ones that expound on or contradict the original story with your own personal experiences. 4) Nobody here cares if you don't like the font or styling used in the article. Likewise if the page doesn't work in chromefox version2079. Email the owner of the article. Besides, you are a nerd, you already have 4 other browsers installed and know how to use readability. 5) don't be afraid to post funny or terse insightful comments, but make sure they are funny or insightful first.
- hessenwolf 15y ago
  4) HN is a really good place for feedback, which trying to get online is often like drawing blood from a stone. People will say what they think of my site/article, because it is easy - they already have a HN account and are used to commenting. Without reference, I say I see a lot that the authors respond and update the original article based on HN comments.
6ren 15y ago
> If you have a theory about something but aren't too sure, fine. Just say so. > And most of all, please never start a sentence with, "It seems to me...". Many of us already get too much of that from our PHBs. Could you expand on this please? I've always interpreted "It seems to me..." as "I have a theory but I'm not certain".
mhartl 15y ago
2. Participate! I often participate, but when I don't it's usually for a simple reason: downvotes sting. This is so important that I would add it as a corollary to "9. Be nice": 9a. Use downvotes sparingly. I and my poor primate brain will thank you.
- rimantas 15y ago
  > when I don't it's usually for a simple reason: > downvotes sting They do. But recently I am trying to use it as an opportunity to learn not to care too much what do random (or semi-random) people think about your opinion. Yep, someone will downvote. Not a big deal it is not like someone is hitting you on the head.I don't mean one should ignore all downvotes because sometimes it is healthy to think why are you really downvoted, but quite often downovtes come as a result of knee-jerk reaction, group-think or because someone just does not like you. That's another thing to learn: resist the urge to write "I know I will be downvoted for this". If you write this (of follow-up comment "why am I being downvoted?") you will be, by me, at least :)
  - mhartl 15y ago
    I agree. Alas, my poor primate brain is often not so easily assuaged. But your attitude of viewing downvotes as an opportunity is very much in line with Stoic philosophy—an attitude, I think, worth cultivating.
- zem 15y ago
  the lack of a "red envelope" is offputting too - i very definitely find myself participating more in fora with comment reply notifications. unless i've just missed it altogether, all hn has is the rather clunky process of scanning your comment page to see if anything has garnered a new reply.
  - mhartl 15y ago
    That's probably by design; it helps keep old conversations from going on forever.
nl 15y ago
My number 1 tip is to check your comments for replies (see that "threads" link in the menu bar). Often someone will ask you a question, and unless you check you will never know.
tjmc 15y ago
Another suggestion - try to avoid reinforcing group think or popular memes. It's a form of karma whoring that just encourages narrow thinking and prevents the discussion of new ideas. There's really nothing to say about software patents at this point that hasn't been said many times before. In some ways this is an extension to the guideline of not introducing flamewar topics, but even less interesting as pretty much everyone agrees.
Spoom 15y ago
Thanks for those article. I'm trying HN at the suggestion of a colleague, having been a longtime participant in the Slashdot community. It's a bit intimidating as a noob here, but I think that's just because I'm not used to the higher signal to noise ratio (though /.'s moderation system does a very good job with what it has). I'll still probably lurk more as I get used to the community. It's great to say "participate!" but there is something to be said for understanding the people with which one is talking as well.
chorola 15y ago
Shame for my lurk so long! : )

207 points by joshuacc 15y ago

To participate in HN, you basically want to be sure to point out any logical fallacies, missing citations, and any possible reference to Godwin's Law, the Streisand effect, or the Dunning–Kruger effect.

bithive123 15y ago

I know I would participate a lot more if I could reset my password. Somehow I was able to register my usual handle without providing an email address because there doesn't seem to be a way to recover it. I created this new account just to gripe about this and when this cookie finally dies I'm not sure I'm going to bother to re-register.

tptacek 15y ago
You can reset your password. Fill in your email in your profile.
- bithive123 15y ago
  Is there a way to do that without being logged in?
  - Kaizyn 15y ago
    It's doubtful at best. Email PG or another site admin, they are exceptionally responsive.
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]

mattdeboard 15y ago

My main nit to pick with this article is that you violated DRY principles by assigning "Water is wet" to both Person A and Person C. Only one person was required. edit: I was kidding.

tokenadult 15y ago

I particularly like this example, which the author acknowledges is extreme: "3. Be positive. "This can really be hard when smart people debate, but try it anyway. Notice the difference between: "Person A: Water is dry. "Person B: No it's not. You're full of shit. "and "Person C: Water is dry. "Person D: Not in my experience. What data have you encountered to cause you to arrive at that conclusion?" I really like those "what data have you encountered" questions. In a lot of threads, I silently upvote replies that ask people making striking, unusual, bold, or implausible claims to please provide more information. (Too many of those helpful questions, alas, never get answers. But I'll keep on upvoting follow-up questions looking for facts when I see them.) The author finishes his list of good suggestions with "10. No list is ever exhaustive, on Hacker News or anywhere else. Anyone have any more suggestions?" I'd be delighted to hear other suggestions about constructive participation on Hacker News too.

gbog 15y ago
Form is important too: 11. Watch your style, capitalize, proofread. 12. Avoid inside jokes, mannerisms, memes. Write for everyone, your readers may include people with very different background.
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
jrappleye 15y ago
This struck a chord with me as well, and reminded me of pg's 'How to Disagree': http://www.paulgraham.com/disagree.html http://www.paulgraham.com/disagree.html
jt2190 15y ago
I've asked some "pointed questions" and been downvoted. What I learned from this is that while some discussion threads are about questioning and learning, others are about something else... I'm not sure what exactly... Hearing what you want to hear? Maybe someone else can provide some insight.
- Kaizyn 15y ago

zackzackzack 15y ago

1.) Most of the time I just tell stories. I am only 20 and have relatively little experience. The only thing I can really add is a well written comment that asks a question or explains something neat. 2.)The best way to participate is to go out and do something awesome. Take something you saw on the front page and mess around with it. Maybe something will happen and you make the front page. Probably it won't, but the next time it comes up, you can at least share your experience and point out the basic pitfalls. Example: I am working on extending emscripten to use dragonegg to compile fortran. It's really hard and I don't think I can do it, but next time emscripten comes up, I will know what's up and can comment on how awesome Alon is. 3.)My password for my account is zackzackzack. Yep, same as my user name. It lets me keep from getting attached to an argument or an account. If somebody can just go in and change my password, then it is pointless to really care all that much. I like contributing, but I know at any instance all the karma I built up on here could be sealed away. Edit: fortran to javascript. Google emscripten github for more info.

Joakal 15y ago
Security of user accounts is no joking matter. It may be hijacked for spam bots. Someone may pose as you telling stories.
- zackzackzack 15y ago
  Spam bots are a legitimate concern to me. I'll probably start rotating passwords if I sense that something like that is happening. I don't want to hurt hacker news. And somebody could already pose as me, or you, or anybody else on here who isn't way famous (nobody could pose as pg). Anybody can be anybody else on the internet.
  - jeswin 15y ago
    As much as you got downvoted for your earlier comment, I see the point you are making. Anyone can be anyone, and if you don't care about your account the password doesn't matter. (Although it does help spammers get around the green-username badge.) In this case I can see why some people downvoted you. But otherwise, downvoting should be reserved for spam/malice and not for a differing opinion, not even for one that you totally disagree with.

deleted 15y ago

[deleted]

dwynings 15y ago

Put your contact info in the "about" section of your profile (the "email" is private). Just wanted to emphasize this as it seems to confuse a lot of people.

tikhonj 15y ago
Yeah, this got me until somebody found my email some other way and mentioned it was difficult. The real issue is that I basically never see my profile as somebody else would see it.
- tripzilch 15y ago
  PG might want to add the text "(not shown)" to the user profile template.
  - lancashire 15y ago
    I think a "make email visible" checkbox would clear up any confusion here.
JoshTriplett 15y ago
I hadn't realized that myself; I'd previously not included my email due to the presence of the separate "email" field. Just added it.
prophetjohn 15y ago
Yep. It both never occurred to me that my email was private, nor that someone on Hacker News would want to contact me.
pbhjpbhj 15y ago
Also you have to add the email obfuscated in assembler or brainfuck or with some suitably esoteric algorithm; that's the rule!

cosmez 15y ago

one of the main reasons i think people don't participate is because of the language, a lot of us are very good at reading english but are ashamed about our writing skills. Its very common to be downvoted or insulted because of that, im trying to get pass that problem right now

dekz 15y ago
This isn't reddit, you're not going to get downvoted for incorrect grammar or spelling. Anyone who has been on HN for a day can tell it's a multicultural environment and there are many non-native english speakers. You shouldn't hold back your participation due to insecurities on your spelling or grammar. In my experience the only downvoted posts belong in the categories of; stupid, messaged which consist only of 'haha' or 'this'; Completely offtopic; Insulting or offensive; Incorrect.' In this post I've probably used semi-colons incorrectly, this doesn't I will be downvoted because of it.
- gbog 15y ago
  Sure, but on the other hand one should read and reread and reread again before posting.
  - Stormbringer 15y ago
    That would be easier if the reply box was bigger than the address window on an envelope. It's like the bad old days of trying to use the Eclipse IDE where most of your screen real estate is taken up with tabs and buttons and you only get a narrow 5x80 window on the world. Except that in this case instead of the screen being taken up with masses of widgets, it is consumed with vast tracts of whitespace. Good job there, PG. (Actually, if PG had anything to do with it, I suspect it is a well thought out policy which results because he doesn't like long conversations (possibly a signal to noise bias against long posts?) consider also that there is no easy way to quote the parent, which just wastes bandwidth anyway)
    - mkr-hn 15y ago

Swizec 15y ago

11. Submit good stuff. 12. Write your own good stuff and submit that. Got a long response? Write a blog, submit it. Those two have worked the best for me.

llambda 15y ago

Great list. Related side note, I was contacted today by who I can only guess was the same person, asking how to participate on HN. I sent them an email but didn't hear back. I suppose I can assume they were busy contacting a large set of users. Not that there's any harm in that. I hope they find this list instructive!

Joakal 15y ago

I think a good point is to avoid jokes, especially weak ones. They're easy and distract from the original topic(s).

Stormbringer 15y ago
You're full of shit.
- gridspy 15y ago
  Interesting perspective. What data led you to that conclusion?
  - deleted 15y ago
    [deleted]
  - lukeqsee 15y ago
    The ironies that lie is this ^^ post… In all seriousness, humor on HN needs to be: 1) Actually funny; it can't an obvious pun or cliché. 2) Constructive; humor *can* convey and add to meaning. 3) Clean and nice; this should go without saying.
    - Stormbringer 15y ago
      He was also quoting from the article.
vacri 15y ago
HN has a really bizzare, inconsistent relationship with humour. Best to avoid it altogether.
- Stormbringer 15y ago
  It's more that there are large numbers of people who consistently don't get humour, either for cultural reasons or deficiencies in their humour glands or whatever. On the other hand, in forums where people upvote humour, there can be mechanisms that actually are counterproductive. E.g. on Reddit where there is something serious that you are interested in, but some idiot starts a punning thread which takes off and runs for pages. Or slashdot, where a witty one line (simplistic) put down off a complex issue will recieve maximum karma, whereas a well thought out retort will struggle to break the readability threshold. Hacker News has a number of mechanisms for impeding flame-wars, and I think some of them also impede the flow of humour. No fast replies for instance slows things down, and also the depth algorithm because PG doesn't like deep threads. Another one is de-emphasising karma. If people hand out karma for being entertained, then the system 'rewards' you for being entertaining, so again people go for the slashdot style one-off witty put down. On the gripping hand, now that HN de-emphsises karma (and has weird rules about what can and cannot be down-voted), I'm much less likely to actually bother. Karma is already pointless, but rubbing our faces in it simply reduces participation. The ideal system would 'reward' well thought out replies, and I don't see the current system doing that anytime soon. On the invisible hand humour is an important part of geek culture, as are references to things such as invisible hands and gripping hands. I'm not sure why that is, but word-play and recursion (important parts of being a really clever programmer) are already pretty close to humour, or possibly even forming some of the foundations of it. Which leads me to conjecture that all of the really good programmers have a healthy sense of humour, and that implies that if hacker news is overrun with people who don't have a good sense of humour, that would indicate the ratio of good programmers here is falling. Why would that be? Perhaps because of the emphasis on money, and winning the startup lottery. The programmers who are only in it for the money tend to view themselves as more 'serious' - so I suspect they are the source of the "humourless git" demographic.

xarien 15y ago

Before reading this post, a new user should ask him/herself a question: Do I feel a need for validation? If the answer is yes, go ahead and read the suggestion along with the guidelines of how to act. If the answer is no, stop reading the suggestion after the first point: "Be yourself."

verroq 15y ago
This exactly. Too many people don't say what they think because they are afraid of losing internet points.

matthiasb 15y ago

"I see no need for "personas"" If you work for a company X and you are posting with your real name, you will somehow represent the company X. Whatever you say on YC is public. Be careful to not damage your company image.

polymatter 15y ago
This stung me really bad in my first job as a trainee developer. I made a comment on a site (slashdot I think) and foolishly put down my real name and company name. Some journalist on CNet took my comment as the official company line and included it in an article. It was picked up by investors (during what was in retrospect due diligence before the company was sold) and I got a severe reprimand from my manager for it. He let me know under no uncertain terms that were it not for my excellent work up till then he'd have fired me for that. I was never really forgiven, made to feel uncomfortable and left 6 months later when the company was sold. Now I don't exactly hide my real name, but its not easily visible. And I certainly don't disclose the company I work for. I advise any non-C level employee to do the same.
- matthiasb 15y ago
  Sorry to hear that. I did put a disclaimer on my personal blog because I don't want to use a persona but I still have things to say ;-)

mbesto 15y ago

- Don't be discouraged at first to post if you don't think you're "following the guidelines". We all get downvoted from time to time. Especially when people first get active. - Discussions are almost always value add. Even if you adamantly oppose someone else's position. Gaining perspective is a huge value add for me personally.

kevinskii 15y ago

I never understood why people lurked so long. As a long-time lurker, I mainly visit HN to get exposed to new ideas that I know little about. This is why I don't (and shouldn't) comment very often.

opendomain 15y ago
I also was a long time lurker. I participated in a few comments - and then saw my karma drop for no reason I could discern. Perhaps a much more clear rules and a response when something is down voted.
akg 15y ago
I was a long-time lurker as well for the same reason. I do find however, that participating in the community opens up new discussions and I can further my learning by connecting with other people. It's always a learning experience to have discussions with people who are more knowledgeable about a topic or have differing opinions than your own.

pork 15y ago

What a well-timed post, particularly since reading a bizarre takeover of another thread by a single person who comes off as a bit paranoid: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3420845 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3420845

Maciek416 15y ago
Thanks for the link.. I find that thread kind of fascinating, not because of anything in particular about the original comment, but because somehow the person causing so much trouble managed to convince a large number of HN posters to jump in and try to reason with him. Usually it hasn't progressed so far. I think it helps that somehow he got to this point with hundreds of points in karma and has some to burn.
- pork 15y ago
  I was initially a little worried because he was showing signs of being a paranoid schizophrenic, but then I remembered that I was on the Internet and probably shouldn't be surprised.

rubidium 15y ago

" Best article: I'm nothing until the Hacker News community comments on me." Well, sometimes the article is better than the discussion. Sometimes the discussion is better than the article. In my experience, the trivial articles sometimes have the best discussions, and the best articles seem to often have trivial discussions. It'd be fun to get a list of best HN discussions (highest karma average per comment perhaps) ... anyone know how to do that?

wallflower 15y ago
> It'd be fun to get a list of best HN discussions (highest karma average per comment perhaps) The now-discontinued SearchYC database had top lists but not the particular metric you want. It doesn't show up in the Google cache or archive.org's Wayback Machine (http://top.searchyc.com http://top.searchyc.com) In my opinion, I think some of the best HN discussions have been/are the ones with hundreds of comments, with divergent threads and replies. They are usually sparked by a fairly controversial topic. I can't think of an example right now. However, this API to the HN corpus might be able to get you the data you want (not sure how current it is): http://api.ihackernews.com http://api.ihackernews.com

Tsagadai 15y ago

I've been a long time lurker here. I lurked for several months before creating an account and then I lurked quite a bit longer before participating. Groups of intelligent people are intimidating at first but please don't hold back if you have something to add to a discussion. New voices are incredibly important for preventing groups from merely becoming echochambers for established members. I especially agree with the original article's point about talking about your work. If you are doing something interesting, please share it. I'm always keen to read about amazing hacks and unique projects and I'm sure many others are too. I'm very slow at writing up my own projects, so I probably should spend more time doing that. If you are working on something that feels like reinventing a wheel for a company that has a core philosophy of Not Invented Here, share that too. I'm sure many of us have been there once and could give you some advice on ways to improve your situation (even reinventing wheels can be done to a high standard and be great practice coding), empathetic support or perhaps a way out into another job. I implore you, dear lurking readers, participate. Edit: fixed some pre-coffee writing.

polymatter 15y ago
As a long time lurker, let me try to encourage you to write up your projects. Even if they seem mundane or pointlessly obscure. Not only is writing a fantastically important skill to level up, and the very act of writing about them will help your thinking, but the buzz and help you can get from the community can spur you on further. And now I need to go practice what I preach ...
ranebo 15y ago
I'm generally happy lurking, and I can lurk with the best of them (see 4 years / 35 karma :-)) To be honest I just don't have the time to comment often and karma (in a HN sense) means nothing to me. My way of giving back to the community happens more in real life (aka meatspace, though I hate that term),more recently it's the connections I've made through HN and iOS meetups here in Tokyo that are the most valuable to me. I'm genuinely interested in what people are working on and people seem to find my work situation a lot more interesting than I had thought they would (I actually thought that when I introduced myself at my first HN meetup everyone would groan "Oh not another iOS dev"). Anyway my 2 cents for the year.

DanielBMarkham 15y ago

Here's another suggestion: flag sparingly. A lot of long-time HN'ers are frustrated at the "flag patrols" -- people of one group who don't like such-and-such author and flag them and their submissions. I've heard several people complain to me about having normal articles flagged and I've done my share of complaining. Don't be the guy who takes out your personal grudges in the form of flagging. Let the votes work. The system will not work with punitive flagging. My policy is that I flag only when I'm convinced an article is going to take the board off the rails. That's a tough call anymore. With a large enough audience, people get emotional just about anything. But remember that HackerNews is defined the most by what the people don't do. They don't comment if they don't have something interesting to say, they don't flag unless absolutely necessary, they don't criticize unless it's in the spirit of discovery, they don't vote down unless it's really a trivial comment. Do less and you'll enjoy it more. With the crowd as large as it is, I'm starting to see good comment X which has ten sub-comments, nine of which either didn't understand the main comment or don't understand the issue yet want to score karma points by making somewhat snarky remarks. We all need to fight that tendency. We do that by doing less.

r00fus 15y ago
Moderation should be approached like web security - any feature has potential exploits. Expect the flag patrols and bury brigades because if you allow folks to downrate or flag, someone will abuse it. You know, the only site that had moderation pretty much figured out (meaning: signal to noise ratio is much better than rest of internet) for over a decade was Slashdot. Making the system both resilient to attack as well as usable for it's intended function is not straightforward or easy. Hey, I hear that Malda is looking for work... I'd hire someone like him or a Wikipedia veteran.
- irunbackwards 15y ago
  Haha, "Bury Brigade" ... cute.
blantonl 15y ago
I've been on HackerNews for a little over 2 years, and in that time I don't believe I've ever flagged any submission. I guess I've always thought that the voting process would always take it's course. Curious, if pg is reading this, how often does the flag link generate real actions on submissions?

shasta 15y ago

Am I the only one who gets tired of the first sentence of so many replies being along the lines of "I understand where you're coming from and I respect you as a person, but..."? Be respectful, but if you disagree, just disagree. Don't patronize.

delluminatus 15y ago
I disagree -- or, I did. See, in real life, courtesy and avoiding criticism is the most effective way to start a discussion without resulting in an argument. However, I've concluded that on the Internet there is no such thing as a good discussion (oh no, a universal statement! Well, let's say there aren't very many good discussions). Perhaps this is due to the vast amount of research material easily accessible to online debaters -- there is no incentive to work together with another individual to come to a conclusion, since the conclusions can be more easily found elsewhere. Instead, people write things like my diatribe here to "correct" perceived mistakes in others' statements but in the end someone is right and the other is wrong and compromise basically never occurs. In such a situation, the best thing you can do is make sure that you're the person who is right. Whether you couch your opinion in pandering terms or you state it harshly, the only thing that seems to matter is correctness. It's no longer worth my time to continually attempt to be polite and kind in internet discussion. tl;dr you're right about that.
- icebraining 15y ago
  Places like Ward Cunningham's Wiki or LtU seem to have good discussions as a rule, but I agree that they aren't all that common.
polymatter 15y ago
I agree in the sense that's the way I prefer communication. Direct and to the point. But when I'm dealing with non-techies, I see a use to preface any opinion or question with some sort of disclaimer of that sort. I do this in order to lessen the probability that they take offence to what I say and then become uncommunicative. On more than one occasion, I thought we were having a productive conversation about their problems with the software and I find out (when they inexplicably become angry) that they thought I was insinuating their incompetence or lack of intelligence or something. I think the terse, abrupt style that I and many other techies prefer, comes across as needlessly insensitive to non-techies and we need to be mindful of that if we want to allow them to contribute to this community. (We do like teachers, accountants and shopkeepers commenting on startups in education, finance and retail, right?) Not to the extent of prefacing everything with patronizing verbiage, but to be mindful not to be too abrupt. Because many people take that as being disrespectful (in my understanding).

angrycoder 15y ago

my suggestions: 1) When a major event occurs that isn't directly related to technology, don't post comments to the effect "I thought this was hacker news, not reddit". This will ALWAYS get you downvoted and nothing good will come of the discussion. 2) When someone makes a detailed post that you don't agree with, don't down vote it, respond. 3) This is just me speaking for myself, but the only comments I really find useful and thought provoking are the ones that expound on or contradict the original story with your own personal experiences. 4) Nobody here cares if you don't like the font or styling used in the article. Likewise if the page doesn't work in chromefox version2079. Email the owner of the article. Besides, you are a nerd, you already have 4 other browsers installed and know how to use readability. 5) don't be afraid to post funny or terse insightful comments, but make sure they are funny or insightful first.

hessenwolf 15y ago
4) HN is a really good place for feedback, which trying to get online is often like drawing blood from a stone. People will say what they think of my site/article, because it is easy - they already have a HN account and are used to commenting. Without reference, I say I see a lot that the authors respond and update the original article based on HN comments.

6ren 15y ago

> If you have a theory about something but aren't too sure, fine. Just say so. > And most of all, please never start a sentence with, "It seems to me...". Many of us already get too much of that from our PHBs. Could you expand on this please? I've always interpreted "It seems to me..." as "I have a theory but I'm not certain".

mhartl 15y ago

2. Participate! I often participate, but when I don't it's usually for a simple reason: downvotes sting. This is so important that I would add it as a corollary to "9. Be nice": 9a. Use downvotes sparingly. I and my poor primate brain will thank you.

rimantas 15y ago
> when I don't it's usually for a simple reason: > downvotes sting They do. But recently I am trying to use it as an opportunity to learn not to care too much what do random (or semi-random) people think about your opinion. Yep, someone will downvote. Not a big deal it is not like someone is hitting you on the head.I don't mean one should ignore all downvotes because sometimes it is healthy to think why are you really downvoted, but quite often downovtes come as a result of knee-jerk reaction, group-think or because someone just does not like you. That's another thing to learn: resist the urge to write "I know I will be downvoted for this". If you write this (of follow-up comment "why am I being downvoted?") you will be, by me, at least :)
- mhartl 15y ago
  I agree. Alas, my poor primate brain is often not so easily assuaged. But your attitude of viewing downvotes as an opportunity is very much in line with Stoic philosophy—an attitude, I think, worth cultivating.
zem 15y ago
the lack of a "red envelope" is offputting too - i very definitely find myself participating more in fora with comment reply notifications. unless i've just missed it altogether, all hn has is the rather clunky process of scanning your comment page to see if anything has garnered a new reply.
- mhartl 15y ago
  That's probably by design; it helps keep old conversations from going on forever.

nl 15y ago

My number 1 tip is to check your comments for replies (see that "threads" link in the menu bar). Often someone will ask you a question, and unless you check you will never know.

tjmc 15y ago

Another suggestion - try to avoid reinforcing group think or popular memes. It's a form of karma whoring that just encourages narrow thinking and prevents the discussion of new ideas. There's really nothing to say about software patents at this point that hasn't been said many times before. In some ways this is an extension to the guideline of not introducing flamewar topics, but even less interesting as pretty much everyone agrees.

Spoom 15y ago

Thanks for those article. I'm trying HN at the suggestion of a colleague, having been a longtime participant in the Slashdot community. It's a bit intimidating as a noob here, but I think that's just because I'm not used to the higher signal to noise ratio (though /.'s moderation system does a very good job with what it has). I'll still probably lurk more as I get used to the community. It's great to say "participate!" but there is something to be said for understanding the people with which one is talking as well.

chorola 15y ago

Shame for my lurk so long! : )