

Why Credibility Matters - dshipper
http://dshipper.posterous.com/45460668

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transmit101
I strongly disagree with this.

I've been reading HN for years, and often don't pay much attention to who has
written or posted the articles. I just scan down, click on whatever catches my
attention, and read.

I'd hesitate to say that social factors _never_ come into play, but generally
I don't think I pre-judge material based on the credentials of the author. If
an author makes a good point, then I will recognise that, whether it's a
celebrated blogger or somebody I've never heard of.

My own, rather limited, blogging experience backs this up. I've had a number
of my own blog posts rank highly on HN and Reddit, but I don't doubt that 99%
of the people who read and up-voted them had never heard of me.

A couple of things which could have affected it:

* the title was much snappier 2nd time around

* sometimes just simple timing/luck plays a big part, e.g. getting those 4-5 early votes which gets an article on the front page

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dshipper
Hey thanks for your thoughts. I definitely agree that I don't necessarily look
at the author's name to decide whether I like the article enough to upvote it
- that's not really the point I was trying to make (I guess I didn't make it
clear enough.)

What I was trying to say is that when you come from a position of credibility
which is not necessarily based upon the fact that people recognize your name,
it makes people more likely to listen to what you have to say. While that
point may seem obvious, I think the subtle part is that you can position what
you write or what you produce to highlight the fact that you are a credible
source. In essence, what I'm trying to get at is that beyond a snappy title,
and blind luck, there are small changes that you can make to how you position
what you produce to make it more likely to succeed. Enhancing your visibility
and credibility is one of them.

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erehweb
Agreed that credibility / name recognition is important, but not sure this
particular example shows that - I've had a couple of popular articles on HN
and absolutely no credibility :) Think it's more a question of finding the
right audience - there's stuff I've put on HN that has sunk with FB friends
and vice versa.

~~~
dshipper
Definitely marketing and finding an audience plays a part in it, but I don't
think that you can find that market without some degree of credibility. In
looking at your posts it's clear that you have a high degree of experience in
this field just from the first couple paragraphs of your post. You don't
necessarily have to build credibility by name recognition - demonstrating an
expansive knowledgebase works too.

