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19 Comments

My last post got to #2 on HN and then flagged

I just wrote a new blog post and put it on HN. And for the first time it got flagged!

It got traction really quickly and hit #2 with 15 upvotes. I didn't ask for any votes so it was organic. Then a few angry comments came in at once. Two calling it stupid (one later edited), two saying it was rambling and one calling it condescending (my goal had been to be encouraging 😬).

number 2

What do you do in cases like this? Revise the article? Delete it before more people get upset? Or just continue on as before?

  1. 4

    My gut feeling is that your title unintentionally triggered some thoughts of being lesser programmers in some web developers and their hurt feelings caused them to hit flag.

    1. 2

      Yeah, the post made it back to the 2nd page of HN and got a lot more upvotes. One of the commenters said this:

      I thought this was going to be another blog about how Javascript isn't a real programming language and web apps are cancer.

      It's not.

      It's actually a very nice article about the BAFTA acceptance speech that John Carmack gave.

      I do hear sometimes from programmers who are kind of sad that they don't have the opportunity to write game engines from scratch like I did and have it matter or make an impact...

      here's where some perspective really helps - I can remember when I was a teenager, I thought I had missed the Golden Age of 8-bit Apple 2 gaming, that I was never going to be Richard Garriott...time went by, and I got to make my own marks in things after that. And, in that time, I also see so many opportunities that have come by.

      The 90s PC wave was great - I was happy to be there, and I'm glad I took a swing and knocked one out of the park with that. But since then, we've seen mobile games, and web games, and free-to-play games, the Steam revolution...and now virtual reality. And all of these are amazing!

      So, yeah, the opportunities that I had aren't there for people today - but there are new and better ones. And personally, I'm more excited about these than anything that's come before. So, thank you very much for this honor, but I'm just getting started.

      -John Carmack (BAFTA acceptance speech)

      It's pretty clear now that people were both upvoting and flagging based on the title.

  2. 2

    I don't know a lot about HN but my understanding is that the title of the post really does matter a lot and I can see why it might trigger people.

    That said, I'm a fan. I like your title and I like the content of the post. I wouldn't take it down or change it just because you upset a few people. Quite the opposite. Write more stuff like that.

    I don't necessarily agree with everything you said but I do see your point. I'd love to see more discussion around this topic because the way to move forward is to talk about this stuff.

    Being a game dev John Carmack is definitely one of my heroes. I have some of his quotes on my wall :)

  3. 2

    I don't see anything wrong with your blog post per-se. If I was to guess, and I'm not saying I agree with this, but I'd guess it was flagged as promotion which according to the HN guidelines is discouraged.

    https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

    Let me also add being #2 on HN doesn't mean anything. HN has some formula like ranking = points / pow(timeSincePost, 2) so almost anything can hit #2 for a moment. I'm not trying to take away from your accomplishment, just pointing out that seeing your post at #2 could mean (a) it's popular or (b) good timing before timeSincePost got slightly bigger.

    1. 0

      Do you know how large the units for the timeSincePost are?

      1. 1

        I do not know what units timeSincePost is, nor do I know if it's raised to the power of 2 vs 1.2 or 5.6 or whatever, I just know that they use some formula such that topics start near the top and need more and more votes to keep them there over time.

        1. 0

          If it's a small unit, like seconds then it wouldn't cause posts to jump so suddenly. But if it's 10 minute increments or something like that, then it will be a lot more turbulent.

  4. 2

    Sorry for stupid question but what does "flagged" mean?

    1. 0

      Flagged means users clicked on a "flag" link. If enough people click it, the post gets removed from the front page. It's generally for spam, topics not relevant to the site, etc.

      1. 2

        Oh got it, thank you. Feel sorry for you then =\

  5. 1

    @alchemist hey there! This is super interesting. So I guess you've been on HN for a while now, right? My team launched a product a few months ago and I'm wondering what's the best strategy to get featured. Mind sharing some tips? Is the account that's posting relevant?

    Thanks :)

    1. 0

      I haven't been posting this blog for long, but I've been on HN reading stories and comments for quite a while. That's probably why a large % of my submissions hit the front page.

      I think the main thing is to actually spend time there and get a feel for the community. It's just like any large-ish subreddit. There are things they tend to like, things they tend to dislike an other things they're divided about. There's a set of dominant "HN user worldviews" as well as those of its mods (which aren't necessarily the same).

      The main thing to be part of and understand the community. The fastest way to have a frustrating experience is to do a low-effort self-promotional drive-by.

      Is the account that's posting relevant?

      Yes, if people recognize the handle. Generally, it's the content that matters more.

  6. 1

    Sometimes you just get haters. Have HN help you! It's not fair

  7. 1

    You can send an email to [email protected] and tell them what happened. Hopefully, they will help you out

    1. 1

      Second this. Has helped me in the past.

  8. 1

    try again. can’t see what was wrong in the first place... good to have an opinion. did it give you some new customers?

    1. 1

      There's no business model on that site. It's just a blog, so the goal is more to generate ideas, increase luck surface area, etc.

      I did try again after a bit of revising, though and it's done better this time.

      1. 1

        but, it's a lead-gen, right? so, hopefully it brings new customers? do you track this with some analytics?

        1. 0

          It's not lead gen for anything I'm doing now. It's actually just a blog!

          In theory I could get some customers for one of my projects, from it, but the only one I've even mentioned from the blog is the (very niche) site connected to this account, so there have been zero people moving from blog subscriber to customer on that project.

          I haven't blogged about Elixir itself there, just work experiences.

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