
Ask HN: What do you think of self-promotion on HN? - dan_sim
When I write something about something, I'm  always tempted to submit it on HN. Is it a bad idea? Do you consider it being promotion for loosers? Should I wait (and hope) that someone else will submit it?
======
DanielBMarkham
Dude.

You're on a board ran by somebody who wrote books and articles about hacking.
Every time any of us posts, we're helping somebody else self-promote somewhere
down the road.

Life is self-promotion. I can't read a zillion articles looking for you. If
you write something we might like, go for it. I want to read it.

I'd much rather have people write and submit their own article than the usual
crap we get where one famous person writes something (usually a rant) and the
crowd gathers around and cheers. Celebrity does not equal potential relevance
-- you might have great ideas to submit on subject X that we'll never hear
about unless you submit.

In fact, given my druthers, I'd limit the number of articles we could see from
famous writers to only so many per week. After a while, it all starts to look
like so much noise. Fresh voices welcome.

------
bprater
If it is relevant to hackers, submit it. And then let the 'upmod' gods do
their thing.

~~~
pg
Yes, it's ok to submit your own stuff. If you get to the point where you've
submitted 20 things and none of them got any upvotes, though, you may want to
start to be more selective.

------
sidsavara
I think it depends, but I have no problem with self submission (disclaimer -
I've submitted 2 articles myself from my site in the past 6 months, one
today).

I would prefer others submit them, but until the community is large enough and
my site's following also large enough, I'll submit my own content if I think
it is good and relevant to HN. I tend to err on the side of caution though,
since HN is a pretty tight and specific community.

------
kirse
_When I write something about something, I'm always tempted to submit it on
HN. Is it a bad idea?_

Please do. I would much rather read what you have to say and provide some
advice than read yet another frikkin' article on how Obama's new toilet is now
Internet-capable and just cleared for top-secret access by the NSA.

Ask-HN posts are often some of best threads on this site:
<http://top.searchyc.com/commented>

------
noodle
if i were to write something i felt would be relevant and quality, i'd self-
promote.

but it would have to be specifically high quality and relevant. all else would
not be submitted.

~~~
dan_sim
The problem is that I only write things that are high quality and relevant ;)

~~~
noodle
don't we all :)

------
puzzle-out
All the world's a stage, even hacker news. Go for it - it will get downmoded
if its junk, as hacker news is one of the few bullshit freezones left.

~~~
Hexstream
Submissions can't get downmodded...

~~~
ericlavigne
Submissions can be downmodded. This ability is limited to senior members of
the community, as measured by karma score. When you are logged in, your karma
score is in parentheses next to your user name, upper right corner of the
screen.

~~~
rms
urban legend

~~~
lg
virtual community legend?

------
sirsean
I've tried it a few times. Submitted an article I thought would be interesting
to people (along the lines of "check out this small program and talk about its
virtues/problems"), especially compared to the steady stream of "I'm said ...
this is why ... boo hoo" articles that had become prevalent.

I'd say don't get discouraged when the articles you submit gets no upvotes and
Google Analytics tells you that nobody even clicked the link. I wish I could
follow that advice.

But there's probably no problem with submitting your own stuff.

~~~
rw
The no-one-noticing-good-submissions is seemingly a huge problem here and I
think working on fixing that will make HN much better. I emailed PG a few
months ago with some ideas I had about how to quantitatively measure
submission and discussion quality, but he did not respond. I'll forgive him
though, he's been making babies and startups :)

~~~
fub4r
Most submissions are probably good but I guess only a small percentage of
users click the new link, and then they can only read a small percentage of
submissions and up vote only an even smaller percentage of those. It would be
easy for a great submission to fall through the cracks.

~~~
sirsean
That's definitely true, and I'm sure it happens a lot.

What's weird to me, then, is the frequency of crappy submissions getting
enough upvotes to hit the front page while the inevitable good submissions
slip through. (This, obviously, is bigger than my own submissions, which I'm
not particularly interested in seeing on the front page given that I've
already seen them -- I'd like to see all the good submissions, and less of the
crap.)

------
pclark
the main reason I'm still here is because of the "review my stuff" posts.

~~~
brlewis
A big reason my site got this nice writeup is because of the "review my stuff"
posts here: [http://www.louisgray.com/live/2009/01/our-doings-you-
upload-...](http://www.louisgray.com/live/2009/01/our-doings-you-upload-
moment-they.html)

Can you believe the site they describe is the same one people tore apart here
two years ago?

------
nickfox
I love your question, it's wonderfully circular...

------
gravitycop
_When I write something about something, I'm always tempted to submit it on
HN._

It says in the guidelines to do just that:
<http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html>

_If you want to add initial commentary on the link, write a blog post about it
and submit that instead._

------
anatoli
If you don't self promote in some way, how will anyone know you're writing
something somewhere. :)

Seriously, though, I think this is where the voting comes in and the community
will decide if the article is interesting or not.

------
sh1mmer
Nobody else will promote you until you promote yourself. If other people on HN
don't read your blog or use your product you won't ever make it on here unless
you kick start it yourself. Once other people are aware of what you are doing,
you'll probably need to self-promote less.

Remember the golden rule, _if you give people stuff that's relevant to them,
you are giving them something of value_ It's ok to promote yourself if you do
that. If you aren't you are spamming.

------
siong1987
Hey, it is like Ask HN post. If you think that you are asking a cool question,
then, just submit it like you do like now.

Most importantly, you get no penalty on submitting lame stories.(I am not
saying that your stories are lame.) And, that's why there are no "down vote"
button for stories submission.

------
froo
I wholeheartedly support the idea of people self promoting if the articles are
of relevance to HN readers.

If I find the article is interesting, I really couldn't care less who
submitted it, I'll upvote it anyway. The only time I actually look at the
usernames is in the comments anyway.

------
sh1mmer
Actually point in case, it was Paul who submitted his story about
"Communicating with code" which currently has about 120 upvotes. Paul is
pretty well known in this community but no-one has a problem with him self-
submitting.

------
known
Unless you submit you will not 'unlearn'. Unlearning is very difficult process
altogether.

------
baddox
I think I'm awesome.

