5 ms·

While I thoroughly enjoyed this blog post, this seems to not be in the spirit of Hacker News: https://twitter.com/andrewchen/status/605422107028131840 https://t

by yeldarb 11y ago

While I thoroughly enjoyed this blog post, this seems to not be in the spirit of Hacker News: https://twitter.com/andrewchen/status/605422107028131840 https://twitter.com/andrewchen/status/605422107028131840 "Can I ask people to upvote my submission? No. Users should vote for a story because it's intellectually interesting, not because someone is promoting it." via https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html

minimaxir 11y ago
Upvote begging (and knowingly using the /newest trick) is pretty unethical, although fortunately uncommon in HN. I'm working on a blog post about the problem of upvote begging. Usually, it's in the minority of users, although some websites don't explicitly enforce it well. (Case in point, Product Hunt makes upvote begging part of the status quo, which compromises the integrity of the site as a whole.)
- cat9 11y ago
  It's common because the likelihood of escaping /newest on the basis of "intellectually interesting" alone is miniscule. The traffic just doesn't work that way. Solve that, and you have much more traction to complain about what people should or shouldn't be doing.
  - minimaxir 11y ago
    What? No it isn't. (See my submission history for URLs to minimaxir.com, and I have negligible influence in the tech world) Even then, two wrongs don't make a right. It comes down to luck, and sometimes it doesn't pan out. "Growth hacking" to correct bad luck is not necessarily ethical.
    - pyre 11y ago
      On the other hand, we can't act like the front page is a meritocracy either when there is a significant element of luck involved. Would be be "growth hacking" if I analyzed upvoting patterns to determine the "correct" time to make a submission to maximize the chance of hitting the front page? Don't I gain an advantage over someone that sees an interesting link and just immediately submits it to HN?
- ablation 11y ago
  I'd be interest to know if "upvote begging" actually works beyond a small amount of users who see the "beg" and know the person "begging". I'm not so sure the majority of people bother going on to a site to upvote something just because they were asked. People are extremely lazy.
  - minimaxir 11y ago
    Unfortunately, that's impossible/infeasable to prove quantitatively without access to the raw data. In the HN case, however, I've seen a number of submissions which get 10+ points in a few minutes (which will get you on the front page quickly), but the submission was on the second or third page. A quick Twitter search shows they were asking for upvotes. People are lazy, yes, but when there's monetary/reputation values tied to placement, the incentives change.
- zem 11y ago
  what /newest trick? do upvotes count for more if they're made from the new page rather than the front page? (and if so, does it track state when you click through to the comment page first, then open the article in a new tab, read it, and then upvote from the comment page?)
  - minimaxir 11y ago
    The inverse: upvotes are penalized if the voter comes from a direct link from a non-HN source (e.g. Twitter), so people direct others to vote via /newest.
    - thedufer 11y ago
      Interesting. How smart are they about this? My HN flow involves always voting from the comments page, even though I got there from the front page or /newest. Does that mean I'm triggering the penalty?
      - minimaxir 11y ago
        Edited parent post for clarity. Anecdotally, new accounts are penalized too even if they vote from /newest (to prevent blatant vote manipulation via sock puppets)
    - deleted 11y ago
      [deleted]
    - talmand 11y ago
      So, I see a submission I think is interesting and direct link it from my Twitter account; the submission is penalized on every upvote it receives through my link? That just seems like a silly thing to do. Especially since there's an obvious way around it.
      - wodenokoto 11y ago
        Wouldn't you in that case link directly to the article and not the comments section?
- ams6110 11y ago
  While vote begging has been around since the first site that supported comment voting, the "Like this on Facebook" thumb-up icon really entreched this in people's minds as a common and accepted thing to do.
josefresco 11y ago
I agree the call to action was very specific ("dear HNers"), but I think we all assume that authors promote their own writings via many channels.
- minimaxir 11y ago
  Promoting their own writing is perfectly fine. Promoting a HN submission which is likely irrelevant to said writing is not.
- moron4hire 11y ago
  It doesn't say "check out my essay" it says "upvote my essay on HN".
baddox 11y ago
Is it not reasonable in many cases to infer that the promoter isn't intending people to up vote if they're not interested in the article?
- minimaxir 11y ago
  That is not a reasonable inference, even if there wasn't an explicit call-to-action. (Otherwise, why make the comment?) This is the reason for the infamous IF YOU LIKE THIS VIDEO LIKE/SUBSCRIBE/COMMENT! phrasing that has plagued modern YouTube.
  - baddox 11y ago
    > Otherwise, why make the comment? The comment is a tweet, which ordinarily is only seen by the user's Twitter followers.
- Bjartr 11y ago
  Only if we assume all submitters only submit because of how interesting / important / relevant an the submission is, and are not influenced in their decisions by imaginary internet points, pride in getting to the front page, etc. For a sufficiently small community this assumption is fairly safe though even then not always true. As communities grow their population trends towards the average (for many characteristics) and the average human is more likely to be driven by the latter motivations than the former, at least as I understand psychology, though I would be very interested to learn otherwise. tl;dr: I think the assumption that a submitter is motivated more by wanting to make a good contribution over having their HN submission 'win' is shortsighted.
bryanlarsen 11y ago
A much more common thing to see is a link labelled "Discuss on Hacker News". I assume that this would be considered fair promotion?
rokhayakebe 11y ago
I am afraid it does not work that way in practice. I have been using HN since its inception, or very close to it, when it was all about startup news and products. Yet I rarely visit the New posts page. If everyone were like me, the front page would be static. Heck I do not even go past the first 30 links. There is a lot of great content I am sure that never makes it to the homepage because it is not getting upvoted. Asking for upvotes is unfortunately the solution to this issue until we have built systems which are intelligent enough to surface quality content even when it is not being upvoted. In theory some content should find their way into the top 5 links as soon as shared, but that is not the case. Waiting for upvotes is like saying "If you build it they will come." They won't unless you market and yell it.
- moron4hire 11y ago
  I try to go /newest on once a day, i.e. "do my duty". I don't spend a lot of time there, but I do scan through everything. I've definitely gotten to see some cool things because of it.
jonny_eh 11y ago
Isn't asking people to upvote your article is a clever "hack"?
motoboi 11y ago
Does anyone has any metric about Ad revenue on a top HN item?
buckbova 11y ago
When I see this I immediately flag the submission. This is why I left digg and reddit. The upvote circle of promotion with armies of article upvoters and comment upvoters/downvoters ruined these sites for me.

by yeldarb 11y ago

minimaxir 11y ago

Upvote begging (and knowingly using the /newest trick) is pretty unethical, although fortunately uncommon in HN. I'm working on a blog post about the problem of upvote begging. Usually, it's in the minority of users, although some websites don't explicitly enforce it well. (Case in point, Product Hunt makes upvote begging part of the status quo, which compromises the integrity of the site as a whole.)

cat9 11y ago
It's common because the likelihood of escaping /newest on the basis of "intellectually interesting" alone is miniscule. The traffic just doesn't work that way. Solve that, and you have much more traction to complain about what people should or shouldn't be doing.
- minimaxir 11y ago
  What? No it isn't. (See my submission history for URLs to minimaxir.com, and I have negligible influence in the tech world) Even then, two wrongs don't make a right. It comes down to luck, and sometimes it doesn't pan out. "Growth hacking" to correct bad luck is not necessarily ethical.
  - pyre 11y ago
    On the other hand, we can't act like the front page is a meritocracy either when there is a significant element of luck involved. Would be be "growth hacking" if I analyzed upvoting patterns to determine the "correct" time to make a submission to maximize the chance of hitting the front page? Don't I gain an advantage over someone that sees an interesting link and just immediately submits it to HN?
ablation 11y ago
I'd be interest to know if "upvote begging" actually works beyond a small amount of users who see the "beg" and know the person "begging". I'm not so sure the majority of people bother going on to a site to upvote something just because they were asked. People are extremely lazy.
- minimaxir 11y ago
  Unfortunately, that's impossible/infeasable to prove quantitatively without access to the raw data. In the HN case, however, I've seen a number of submissions which get 10+ points in a few minutes (which will get you on the front page quickly), but the submission was on the second or third page. A quick Twitter search shows they were asking for upvotes. People are lazy, yes, but when there's monetary/reputation values tied to placement, the incentives change.
zem 11y ago
what /newest trick? do upvotes count for more if they're made from the new page rather than the front page? (and if so, does it track state when you click through to the comment page first, then open the article in a new tab, read it, and then upvote from the comment page?)
- minimaxir 11y ago
  The inverse: upvotes are penalized if the voter comes from a direct link from a non-HN source (e.g. Twitter), so people direct others to vote via /newest.
  - thedufer 11y ago
    Interesting. How smart are they about this? My HN flow involves always voting from the comments page, even though I got there from the front page or /newest. Does that mean I'm triggering the penalty?
    - minimaxir 11y ago
      Edited parent post for clarity. Anecdotally, new accounts are penalized too even if they vote from /newest (to prevent blatant vote manipulation via sock puppets)
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
  - talmand 11y ago
    So, I see a submission I think is interesting and direct link it from my Twitter account; the submission is penalized on every upvote it receives through my link? That just seems like a silly thing to do. Especially since there's an obvious way around it.
    - wodenokoto 11y ago
      Wouldn't you in that case link directly to the article and not the comments section?
ams6110 11y ago
While vote begging has been around since the first site that supported comment voting, the "Like this on Facebook" thumb-up icon really entreched this in people's minds as a common and accepted thing to do.

josefresco 11y ago

I agree the call to action was very specific ("dear HNers"), but I think we all assume that authors promote their own writings via many channels.

minimaxir 11y ago
Promoting their own writing is perfectly fine. Promoting a HN submission which is likely irrelevant to said writing is not.
moron4hire 11y ago
It doesn't say "check out my essay" it says "upvote my essay on HN".

baddox 11y ago

Is it not reasonable in many cases to infer that the promoter isn't intending people to up vote if they're not interested in the article?

minimaxir 11y ago
That is not a reasonable inference, even if there wasn't an explicit call-to-action. (Otherwise, why make the comment?) This is the reason for the infamous IF YOU LIKE THIS VIDEO LIKE/SUBSCRIBE/COMMENT! phrasing that has plagued modern YouTube.
- baddox 11y ago
  > Otherwise, why make the comment? The comment is a tweet, which ordinarily is only seen by the user's Twitter followers.
Bjartr 11y ago
Only if we assume all submitters only submit because of how interesting / important / relevant an the submission is, and are not influenced in their decisions by imaginary internet points, pride in getting to the front page, etc. For a sufficiently small community this assumption is fairly safe though even then not always true. As communities grow their population trends towards the average (for many characteristics) and the average human is more likely to be driven by the latter motivations than the former, at least as I understand psychology, though I would be very interested to learn otherwise. tl;dr: I think the assumption that a submitter is motivated more by wanting to make a good contribution over having their HN submission 'win' is shortsighted.

bryanlarsen 11y ago

A much more common thing to see is a link labelled "Discuss on Hacker News". I assume that this would be considered fair promotion?

rokhayakebe 11y ago

I am afraid it does not work that way in practice. I have been using HN since its inception, or very close to it, when it was all about startup news and products. Yet I rarely visit the New posts page. If everyone were like me, the front page would be static. Heck I do not even go past the first 30 links. There is a lot of great content I am sure that never makes it to the homepage because it is not getting upvoted. Asking for upvotes is unfortunately the solution to this issue until we have built systems which are intelligent enough to surface quality content even when it is not being upvoted. In theory some content should find their way into the top 5 links as soon as shared, but that is not the case. Waiting for upvotes is like saying "If you build it they will come." They won't unless you market and yell it.

moron4hire 11y ago
I try to go /newest on once a day, i.e. "do my duty". I don't spend a lot of time there, but I do scan through everything. I've definitely gotten to see some cool things because of it.

jonny_eh 11y ago

Isn't asking people to upvote your article is a clever "hack"?

motoboi 11y ago

Does anyone has any metric about Ad revenue on a top HN item?

buckbova 11y ago

When I see this I immediately flag the submission. This is why I left digg and reddit. The upvote circle of promotion with armies of article upvoters and comment upvoters/downvoters ruined these sites for me.