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I don't understand how you've concluded that the reward for writing code is lower than the reward for HN comments. I get paid lots and lots of money to write co

I don't understand how you've concluded that the reward for writing code is lower than the reward for HN comments. I get paid lots and lots of money to write code. So far, I haven't seen much return on the time I've invested into HN comments, except in terms of the internet points you mentioned. The going conversion rate for those to dollars is around infinity:zero.

josh2600 13y ago
And yet you can't buy HN karma with money, so the inverse is also true. What motivates one person over another might be imaginary points or real dollars.
jsnell 13y ago
Exactly. And it's not just about being paid to write code for your job. My open source contributions have had orders of magnitude bigger effects than writing on Usenet or commenting on forums. - I made some of my best friends through working on projects in the same open source ecosystem. - I attribute some of my best jobs to having built some reputation from OSS. Would I have gotten through Google interviews if one of the interviewers hadn't been a user and a fan of one of my projects? I'm pretty sure it, and having a long term public track record must have helped some. - What little internet fame I have (and it is very little) is all purely attributable to coding something, releasing it, and then writing about it. - I still get a kick out of looking at some old code I've written every now and then (like old Perl Golf entries). Every now and then I'll get to tell a good debugging war story to friends, or swapping stories with them about cool things we've coded lately. Boasting about the cool forum posts... Yeah, not so much. And Hacker News? I don't think I've have had one business lead (which didn't pan out) as a result of a comment, but haven't interacted with a poster outside of HN otherwise. There's no reason to believe my HN karma will ever matter for anything. I guess it's nice to cross the downvote threshold.
k3n 13y ago
I think you need to keep his earlier words in mind: > So suppose this wonderful community has been a great help to you over the years, and you’re trying to figure out how you can help out around the clubhouse. In other words, what's the most effective way to be charitable and give back to the community? > The going conversion rate for those to dollars is around infinity:zero. That's arguable IMO. I'm not saying it's a straightforward payout, but I don't think they're not worthless, either. Hiring managers and recruiters will attempt to look up your profiles (if you haven't provided any), and having a stellar reputation within a community is assuredly not a bad thing. While it may not net you a larger offer, it might serve as a tie-breaker if nothing else (especially if the other candidate has a lot of negatives associated with their online profiles).

josh2600 13y ago

And yet you can't buy HN karma with money, so the inverse is also true. What motivates one person over another might be imaginary points or real dollars.

jsnell 13y ago

Exactly. And it's not just about being paid to write code for your job. My open source contributions have had orders of magnitude bigger effects than writing on Usenet or commenting on forums. - I made some of my best friends through working on projects in the same open source ecosystem. - I attribute some of my best jobs to having built some reputation from OSS. Would I have gotten through Google interviews if one of the interviewers hadn't been a user and a fan of one of my projects? I'm pretty sure it, and having a long term public track record must have helped some. - What little internet fame I have (and it is very little) is all purely attributable to coding something, releasing it, and then writing about it. - I still get a kick out of looking at some old code I've written every now and then (like old Perl Golf entries). Every now and then I'll get to tell a good debugging war story to friends, or swapping stories with them about cool things we've coded lately. Boasting about the cool forum posts... Yeah, not so much. And Hacker News? I don't think I've have had one business lead (which didn't pan out) as a result of a comment, but haven't interacted with a poster outside of HN otherwise. There's no reason to believe my HN karma will ever matter for anything. I guess it's nice to cross the downvote threshold.

k3n 13y ago

I think you need to keep his earlier words in mind: > So suppose this wonderful community has been a great help to you over the years, and you’re trying to figure out how you can help out around the clubhouse. In other words, what's the most effective way to be charitable and give back to the community? > The going conversion rate for those to dollars is around infinity:zero. That's arguable IMO. I'm not saying it's a straightforward payout, but I don't think they're not worthless, either. Hiring managers and recruiters will attempt to look up your profiles (if you haven't provided any), and having a stellar reputation within a community is assuredly not a bad thing. While it may not net you a larger offer, it might serve as a tie-breaker if nothing else (especially if the other candidate has a lot of negatives associated with their online profiles).