12 ms·

Years ago, I figured that I could get lots of karma by creating an auto-submit script to submit stories from techcrunch and paulgraham.com. Best of all, if ano

by vlad 18y ago

Years ago, I figured that I could get lots of karma by creating an auto-submit script to submit stories from techcrunch and paulgraham.com. Best of all, if another auto-submit script submitted the same story a bit later, they would actually be voting up your story, so the more auto-submitters existed, the better. Sure, more competition from other scripts and users sounds like it's bad. However, I calculated that the scripter still wins because when they're the first to submit, there are even more votes than before (due to other scripters submitting a story a few seconds later and therefore voting up the original). It's better to get beaten by other scripts most of the time and make it to the front page with a bunch of upvotes in just a few minutes, than to always be the first and only submitter/upvote, most users never seeing the story. And when an article has 10 upvotes in the first few minutes, it's almost guaranteed to make the top spot on the front page, and therefore gain even more votes from real users due to the publicity and feel that others have found the article interesting. I was top 15 and wanted to get invited to Startup School again, so I didn't make the script. But since then, users have come out of nowhere to reach the top ten, accumulating karma at a dizzying pace. One of the top users has said he submits the best stories from his rss reader every day. I believe a more likely explanation is that all stories from sites that are commonly referenced on the front page are auto-submitted by a script that checks for new articles every few minutes. This was also my explanation on why so many techcrunch stories have been upvoted on news.yc--they make an easy candidate for auto-submitting: not because of story content, unfortunately, but because auto-submitting stories from sites that already appear often and that other auto-submitters might submit gives one a free set of 4-10 votes each time. I guess my point is that Hacker News is being gamed the way reddit and digg are.

aneesh 18y ago
"I guess my point is that Hacker News is being gamed the way reddit and digg are." Only if you think the "game" is to accumulate karma. For me, the submissions are merely seeds around which insightful discussions grow.
- kwamenum86 18y ago
  There is a tangible reward for people who have the most karma though.
  - paulgb 18y ago
    There is? What is it?
  - tptacek 18y ago
    No there isn't.
    - deleted 18y ago
      [deleted]
  - kwamenum86 18y ago
    I remember reading that top karma earners get invited to startup school...I can't find that anywhere. But here is something close: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=136837 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=136837 Karma is taken into account when you apply. That is incentive enough to attempt to game HN.
  - pg 18y ago
    Sort of. Consistently making smart comments carries a lot of weight in getting an invitation to YC interviews. It was the deciding factor for at least 3 people we funded: danielha, alexwg, and one other I probably can't disclose because they're not launched yet. It's not simply a function of karma, though, but whether we recognize the username as someone who seems smart.
pg 18y ago
I know most of the highest karma users and I'm pretty sure they're not using scripts. I also have lots of code watching voting patterns (e.g. for voting rings) and though it's common for a user to submit many stories from one site, the evidence suggests nearly all of them are doing it to drive traffic, not game karma.
- cperciva 18y ago
  though it's common for a user to submit many stories from one site... Hmm, looks like 15 of my 21 submissions have been from my blog. ... the evidence suggests nearly all of them are doing it to drive traffic... Ouch. Any chance that I can convince you that I honestly think that the articles I submit are of interest to hackers? After all, I don't submit all of my blog posts here... just almost all.
  - pg 18y ago
    Don't worry, there's nothing wrong with submitting your own stuff. It's only a problem if it's offtopic.
  - raganwald 18y ago
    I submit my own posts from time to time, and I've only had one killed (to my knowledge). And that one was easily explained: somebody else had beaten me to submitting my own post with a slightly different URL!
- user 18y ago
  > most of the highest karma users Ones who post articles from PG.
edw519 18y ago
I guess my point is that Hacker News is being gamed the way reddit and digg are. What a sad thought. "Gaming" hacker news to get invited to Startup School. Here's an idea: Why not just be yourself. Contribute what you can. Take what you need. Make a few friends along the way. And learn a thing or two that may change your life. I can't think of a better place to do it. Karma is a very minor byproduct. What you and this community become is the real payoff. But like a planted seed, you may just have to wait a while before you see that result.
- danw 18y ago
  The trouble is a lot of good stuff slips through the new page unnoticed unless you post at the right time or get a friend to bump it. I find just as many tasty links from new as I do the homepage. Perhaps the homepage could shuffle in a few random new unvoted posts too?
- run4yourlives 18y ago
  I think I read that sentence as being the opposite as you did, i.e. He didn't game HN because he wanted to get invited again, even though he almost did.
  - vlad 18y ago
    Correct. While I was working actively on my software, my brain focused on the best ways to do X or Y in the fastest time using a software application. In other words, writing something to make me more productive or more time efficient, even if it wasn't something that would be sellable. If it saved me time, then I could therefore use that time to code something I could sell. So I let my brain wander around the karma concept and that's what I came up with (a long time ago). But no, I decided not to do it. One corollary to that is by not having done it, all I can do is write a post on news.yc. But that does not mean that it should be confused with the act of actually doing it. Another corollary is that maybe doing it wouldn't have been a bad idea. If karma is the measure of value, and users enjoy the stories, maybe developing an algorithm that automatically submits stories to news.yc (and judges how users vote on it to then submit better stories, the way a human might) would actually be something Paul loves, and the first release of such an app, of course, could basically submit everything indiscriminately to start with.
physcab 18y ago
I'd like to offer my perspective as a relatively new HN user. First, I stumbled upon Hacker News by searching for information related to angel and vc investing. I found Y Combinator naturally. As I was reading the application (just to see what the process entailed), I read one line about how good applicants come from HN. My impression at the time was that applications were screened for high karma points--even though I had no idea how a karma point was earned. So to be perfectly honest, for the first few weeks I was obsessed with Hacker News. I spent A LOT of time on this site, before I came to the conclusion that Mr. Graham noted. It took a while for me to realize the TRUE value of this site: a civilized discussion forum where I could meet other people just like me and learn from their experiences. But I also noticed competition in the comments section that has left me a bit turned off. Sometimes I feel like people are trying to prove something, by unnecessarily down-voting a good comment or arguing just for the sake of arguing. I think the sum of my newbie experience has been good. Nothing is perfect. I have certainly learned a TON about the start-up scene, hacking, and just this forum in general.
- gstar 18y ago
  I wouldn't read too much into how other people behave on here. I'm argumentative, rambling and usually off-topic, and most likely to satisfy my requirement for cognitive dissonance, I've carefully ignored my karma so that my personality on HN isn't beholden to my karma score. Obvious results, I might add!
yters 18y ago
I'm sure someone's created a bot by now that posts all the top stories in reoccurring patterns amongst all the social news sites. With that plus your idea I'd call it the bot of infinite karma.

by vlad 18y ago

aneesh 18y ago

"I guess my point is that Hacker News is being gamed the way reddit and digg are." Only if you think the "game" is to accumulate karma. For me, the submissions are merely seeds around which insightful discussions grow.

kwamenum86 18y ago
There is a tangible reward for people who have the most karma though.
- paulgb 18y ago
  There is? What is it?
- tptacek 18y ago
  No there isn't.
  - deleted 18y ago
    [deleted]
- kwamenum86 18y ago
  I remember reading that top karma earners get invited to startup school...I can't find that anywhere. But here is something close: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=136837 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=136837 Karma is taken into account when you apply. That is incentive enough to attempt to game HN.
- pg 18y ago
  Sort of. Consistently making smart comments carries a lot of weight in getting an invitation to YC interviews. It was the deciding factor for at least 3 people we funded: danielha, alexwg, and one other I probably can't disclose because they're not launched yet. It's not simply a function of karma, though, but whether we recognize the username as someone who seems smart.

pg 18y ago

I know most of the highest karma users and I'm pretty sure they're not using scripts. I also have lots of code watching voting patterns (e.g. for voting rings) and though it's common for a user to submit many stories from one site, the evidence suggests nearly all of them are doing it to drive traffic, not game karma.

cperciva 18y ago
though it's common for a user to submit many stories from one site... Hmm, looks like 15 of my 21 submissions have been from my blog. ... the evidence suggests nearly all of them are doing it to drive traffic... Ouch. Any chance that I can convince you that I honestly think that the articles I submit are of interest to hackers? After all, I don't submit all of my blog posts here... just almost all.
- pg 18y ago
  Don't worry, there's nothing wrong with submitting your own stuff. It's only a problem if it's offtopic.
- raganwald 18y ago
  I submit my own posts from time to time, and I've only had one killed (to my knowledge). And that one was easily explained: somebody else had beaten me to submitting my own post with a slightly different URL!
user 18y ago
> most of the highest karma users Ones who post articles from PG.

edw519 18y ago

I guess my point is that Hacker News is being gamed the way reddit and digg are. What a sad thought. "Gaming" hacker news to get invited to Startup School. Here's an idea: Why not just be yourself. Contribute what you can. Take what you need. Make a few friends along the way. And learn a thing or two that may change your life. I can't think of a better place to do it. Karma is a very minor byproduct. What you and this community become is the real payoff. But like a planted seed, you may just have to wait a while before you see that result.

danw 18y ago
The trouble is a lot of good stuff slips through the new page unnoticed unless you post at the right time or get a friend to bump it. I find just as many tasty links from new as I do the homepage. Perhaps the homepage could shuffle in a few random new unvoted posts too?
run4yourlives 18y ago
I think I read that sentence as being the opposite as you did, i.e. He didn't game HN because he wanted to get invited again, even though he almost did.
- vlad 18y ago
  Correct. While I was working actively on my software, my brain focused on the best ways to do X or Y in the fastest time using a software application. In other words, writing something to make me more productive or more time efficient, even if it wasn't something that would be sellable. If it saved me time, then I could therefore use that time to code something I could sell. So I let my brain wander around the karma concept and that's what I came up with (a long time ago). But no, I decided not to do it. One corollary to that is by not having done it, all I can do is write a post on news.yc. But that does not mean that it should be confused with the act of actually doing it. Another corollary is that maybe doing it wouldn't have been a bad idea. If karma is the measure of value, and users enjoy the stories, maybe developing an algorithm that automatically submits stories to news.yc (and judges how users vote on it to then submit better stories, the way a human might) would actually be something Paul loves, and the first release of such an app, of course, could basically submit everything indiscriminately to start with.

physcab 18y ago

I'd like to offer my perspective as a relatively new HN user. First, I stumbled upon Hacker News by searching for information related to angel and vc investing. I found Y Combinator naturally. As I was reading the application (just to see what the process entailed), I read one line about how good applicants come from HN. My impression at the time was that applications were screened for high karma points--even though I had no idea how a karma point was earned. So to be perfectly honest, for the first few weeks I was obsessed with Hacker News. I spent A LOT of time on this site, before I came to the conclusion that Mr. Graham noted. It took a while for me to realize the TRUE value of this site: a civilized discussion forum where I could meet other people just like me and learn from their experiences. But I also noticed competition in the comments section that has left me a bit turned off. Sometimes I feel like people are trying to prove something, by unnecessarily down-voting a good comment or arguing just for the sake of arguing. I think the sum of my newbie experience has been good. Nothing is perfect. I have certainly learned a TON about the start-up scene, hacking, and just this forum in general.

gstar 18y ago
I wouldn't read too much into how other people behave on here. I'm argumentative, rambling and usually off-topic, and most likely to satisfy my requirement for cognitive dissonance, I've carefully ignored my karma so that my personality on HN isn't beholden to my karma score. Obvious results, I might add!

yters 18y ago

I'm sure someone's created a bot by now that posts all the top stories in reoccurring patterns amongst all the social news sites. With that plus your idea I'd call it the bot of infinite karma.