Why you can't trust what you read on IH
Lately the Developers group here on Indie Hackers has been victim of vote manipulation to increase traffic on one of those garbage websites that just targets SEO holes with 0 content behind.
I'm not going to directly link any post not to drive up traffic, but if you look thru the accounts all of them only shared contents of that website.
https://www.indiehackers.com/ramkumar1
https://www.indiehackers.com/krushil_koshti
https://www.indiehackers.com/rahulkoshti
https://www.indiehackers.com/ramlal12
https://www.indiehackers.com/general_inf
(and some others)
And if you look at the content you will find things like this post on: "Best keyboards for programming in 2021"
What is this?
😡😡
You know what is the worst part here is?
Because we are all so busy "building and audience" and "giving value" that we are creating engagement with posts like this, without even thinking or actually reading the article.
I understand how people get caught into engaging with this kind of post, but it just shows that you can't trust everything you read online, specially in small communities like this that are easy to vote to manipulate.
Additionally, I wonder how could this have happened on Indie Hackers. I always thought we had quite good moderation, but apparently not. I'm not even saying anti-vote manipulation algorithms, since those are quite tricky sometimes.
This worries because if this sloppy website was able to manipulate his way into the top posts while being EXTREMELY obvious. I can just imagine all the opportunities that could be properly exploited by better indie hackers and to boost their projects.
PS: The original title was "Vte-manpulation: Why you can't trust what you read on IH" but that was blocking me from post for some reason
Thank you for bringing this up - I have a similar story to share. Since months in the Landing Page Feedback group there are some individuals who will sign-up - contribute 0 value to the community and just ask for feedback on their landing page.
Each post follows the same structure, basically copy paste with a different URL and the same closing message.
I am a moderator - luckily - I have the tools to send these motherfudgers back to the spam universe they came from, but I am not gonna lie I have been thinking about the same way as you did in the post.
Spam and vote manipulation are terrible and need to be addressed ASAP!
Maintaining a community is not an easy task. Thank you for your contribution.
Totally agree. And I’ve no idea these posts have been picked up on daily newsletter, which drastically affect the quality of newsletter. What do you think? @orliesaurus
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Thank you and YUP ! Exactly!
Great points. I've noticed the same thing lately.
Some ideas:
1. "Lift the bar" a little bit in terms of users having to earn their right in order to be able to post links / vote.
2. Add additional time constraints (ie. at least x days old)
3. Automatically hide a post / block the account after certain threshold of reports has been reached. Which could be reversed by an admin, of course. Instead of the other way around.
+1 to "life the bar" a little bit
+1 to lifting the bar.... and all of your other recommendations. @csallen, any thoughts?
Yeah I tend to agree with 1. I've noticed many accounts that are recently created and just post a bunch of self-promotional posts with links, not even contribute any comments. Seems like a "points" threshold before you can post a direct link would help a lot.
I think allowing new users to post a text post would probably be fine, as the spammers at least need to put in some effort to convince users to click their spammy link, rather than just have click-bait titles.
So... Reddit?
I understand IH has features similar to Reddit, but Reddit is the wrong way to go for a community of this size. The manipulation of all those systems is easy and the threshold of actually gaining seniority to be able to interact would turn off a lot of new people.
Accountability has to be coded from the start and not just lazily slapped on, but maybe a town hall to throw ideas out and see what sticks would be the better course of action first.
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This is definitely worth floating to @csallen because, wow, yeah, this is just so spammy.
Well I already reported the accounts, but I guess no one has looked at it yet.
Definitely the right point and thanks as well to bring this up.
I've been on IH for 10 months now and used to check it out daily. But lately - speaking of the last 3 months - I rarely open the site and even more rarely read any article, apart from yours now.
My impression is also that IH has become pretty clickbaitish, so did Medium.com which I also left. Unfortunately it's always the same: a cool site like IH gets started, gets traction due to honest people and honest content. After a while, when the site becomes too famous the shit starts rolling in.
And I hate these articles so much ...."how I made 4-figure in 3 months with xyz..." and not telling that he/she already has spent 3 years on building his damn audience. But, I got tired of asking them....
I keep building...don't want to waste time on it.
Again, thanks for your post, it's true!!
Yeah it is sad. I'm actually thinking about shutting down my saas company due to it not only costing me craploads of money but also the fact that nobody signs up for my products. I seem to fail at every dream I try to turn into reality. Really sad many years I put into web development and still have zero success. I'm starting to lose motivation and seem to have zero success even after spending five years in the field. Very sad.
@sewellstephens, I'm a long time lurker and decided to sign up just to make this comment.
Don't give up. You're young and already have a lot more prowess than most professionals (including myself) did at your age.
Deciding to launch one SaaS business, let alone two at 15 already puts you in the 1% and this a commendable achievement, which will yield you an array of opportunities when you're 18/20/25/30. You just aren't aware of them yet.
Should you be bold enough to try something new, give yourself longer timeframes to work on your companies.
With time, and consistency in work, as well trial & error, new knowledge, new skills etc - you'll learn a valuable lesson that committing to your project, and giving yourself the space to develop them without inordinate amounts of pressure, will yield the success you're after.
You may not achieve it this week, this month or even this year, but you will eventually.
To me - It hurts seeing someone in the beginning of their career, be so hard on themselves & demotivated, amongst the messages of success from various people.
I know what that's like, as I skipped uni / college to join a digital marketing agency when I was 18, and had entire businesses relying on me to produce leads via SEO & PPC, when I had no idea how businesses were actually run.
Regardless, take the effort not to compare yourself to their stories.
Without scrutiny, remember that these individuals may be lying about their revenue figures, they may have the luxury of working with a team, they may have larger amounts of capital to utilise or years of experience as an advantage.
You're bootstrapping two companies without these advantages, hence the need for a longer timespan to learn & develop as a person, and as a success story.
I've been working in digital marketing since I was 17 & have been working in videography since I was 25.
If you ever need any advice when it comes to digital marketing, business or video, give me a dm. I would be happy to help you, for no reason, other than the satisfaction of knowing it may keep you going & potentially help you achieve the success you're after.
Keep at it Sewell.
Wow, this is a good reply! 👍
I'd recommend reading The Mom Test. The title is shitty but its content is great. It will teach you how to build something that people actually want.
If you feel you're losing motivation, slow down, take a rest but DO NOT STOP. Adapt your sites, change them in a way so they can fly on autopilot. Maybe there is just missing one last piece to get it rolling and you just don't see the piece yet because you are too close to it. Take a step back but don't leave it or stop it. Time will come for it when time is ready for it.
In 2012 I have been reading an article in a newspaper about investing using certificates. At this time I've been working for a music label and got infected by the question how artists can make money again having this thing called "digitization" which we experienced in tape trading music, downloading it, sharing it and finally today streaming it. The question to its core was: Economic theory teaches that the value of a good increases with its scarcity. A bottle of water has another value when standing in the desert than standing in front of a lake. Thanks to digitization, a good (in this case music) can be reproduced an infinite number of times, without losing any quality. The first copy sounds as brilliant as the billionth one. So think of it, What is the value of a good that is infinitely available? Most important question, how can one nevertheless create value again?
It took me 10 years to find the solution, write a book about it, finally started to learn coding (I'm 40 now, started at 39). I literally read the whole german version of Wikipedia to find the solution, to find this one last missing piece. I couldn't find it because time wasn't ready yet. (Back those days streaming wasn't as big as it is today.) That was the missing piece. So I put it aside - NOTE I didn't stop, I put it aside. The seed, this core question, kept my brain awake, I kept thinking and thinking and reading, and searching. I spent 1 entire year, 8 hours a day, bringing this idea to paper, writing a book. (I had enough time back then as I was traveling Latin America, and stopping by in Brazil for 2 years, taking a rest from traveling to work on my idea).
And you know what, I will also get this app started one day. Why? Because I stick to it, I keep moving. One day at a faster pace, the other day at slower pace, but I do have a pace at all. In the german speaking part of Europe we have this expression "The mills of justice grind slowly, but they grind." Start running, If you are not aware of the incredible power that's hidden in the word pace (and patience).
So, take a rest, step back for a while. Feed your brain with other interesting stuff. Your brain will thank you with new ideas, new entrepreneurial spirit, more creativity. Always remember, creativity doesn't come from talent but is the result of combining knowledge.
Also dislike the clickbait titles but I think it's part of the journey of participating on IH.
When I was new to IH, every "$10k MRR in 5 months" post sounded extremely exciting and I was convinced it had to be full of knowledge.
Nowadays I don't even read those posts except if I am friends with the author.
I am turned off by the "$10k MRR in 5 months" titles as well. They are too formulaic, often deceptive, and rarely helpful.
There is still value in this community though. I just avoid those kinds of posts - they are all basically the same.
106% spot on.
Ironic lol
I noticed these too spam posts too.
Currently 5 out of the 20 posts on the front page are from this domain! Content moderation is incredibly difficult but I wonder if IH can blacklist domains?
Yeah, what scares me is if it's this easy to bot accounts here, one could easily just game the system to promote more serious products, and not only one single domain.
Thank you for addressing the issue and raising awareness on the topic.
Moderation aside, IH users gotta have a look at the content that is being shown before commenting or upvoting this kind of content if we don't want to see it invading the top pages.
Wish I could vote this up more. Time to call out the bullshit artists - especially those Courtland has interviewed. People who lie, lie through their teeth. Because they are protecting their livelihood - and throwing people under buses.
Can we just get real for a minute and recognize that this "transparency" that some are oh-so-sure we owe the world is utter bullshit?
Those comments on posts are spam too, just a different type of.
I wonder whether Indie Hackers has any kind of automatic spam or abuse filters at all. The impression is the site mostly relies on manual flagging, which doesn't scale.
I think when we flag a post, there's just a message sent to the admins of IH and they probably take action manually. But these folks seem to have gone.....
Indeed not scalable.
yikes!
Also looking at the daily newsletter, many "link" only post or stuffs like this.
Thanks for raising
quiet sad, literally.
Unfortunately IH doesn't let you block people
I don't want to sound like a jerk, but for everyone complaining about the lack of moderation or how poor it is, why not step up and offer to help Courtland and Channing with moderating the site? Offer your time to be a mod instead of criticizing how poorly Courtland and the mods are doing to moderate the posts.
Some ideas given sound good on the surface (ie lift the bar before allowing to post, increase time as a member before posting, etc) but these have the negative affect of locking out new members from posting great questions or successes just as they find the site.
I'd personally hate to see IH become more like Reddit where you need certain number of XP (ie karma) before you are allowed to post something - you lose out on a large number of contributors when they are most excited to contribute: as soon as they find a community of like-minded people who might be able to help them get past a hurdle they are facing at the moment.
I hate spam post as much as anyone, but I've never noticed enough to bother me on IH. I think Courtland and his team have done an excellent job shielding the community from BS posts. And I think if users have an issue with an uptick in perceived spam, then they should offer their time to moderate the forum before criticizing the owner of the community.
</unpopular_opinion>
I was never made aware there was a need for additional moderation, and probably lots of other folks also didn't know.
I'm sure lots of us here would volunteer.
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yes, true, since @rosiesherry left it got worse and worse.
....Rosie is posting on LinkedIn now