
The sick incentives of online publishing - imartin2k
Just a short comment on something I noticed: Yesterday, this article scored hundreds of votes on HN: http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.factmag.com&#x2F;2016&#x2F;02&#x2F;11&#x2F;soundcloud-financial-report-44m-losses&#x2F;<p>The article was based on a news which two days earlier had been covered by multiple outlets, among them Hypebot, the FT, and Music Ally.<p>What made the Factmag article different from the other ones, apart from that it was published 2 days later and did not do more than summarizing the news others already had been reporting? Factmag used the most dramatic headline imaginable, emphasizing an allegedly existing existential threat to SoundCloud.<p>Considering that the article dominated the HN frontpage for many hours it must have received quite a handsome number of visitors (not even factoring in all the subsequent sharing which happens after an article hits the HN top spot).<p>This is a prime example for the sick state of online publishing. The incentives are completely skewed. Putting a more negative spin on an old story should not be rewarded like that.<p>This situation needs to be fixed.
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DrScump
The HN posting that you're complaining about getting the attention was the
_earliest_ one posted. Are you saying you prefer that _dupes_ get more votes
than the first posting on a given topic?

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imartin2k
Indeed, theoretically the fault is that no one (including me) posted one of
the earlier articles about the news.

But, from a quality focus, yes, I think if there clearly are better and
earlier posts about the same news, with the same (or in that case, more
comprehensive information, like e.g. Music Ally's post), HN would benefit from
actually not surfacing the clickbaity, dramatic rewrite that was published 2
days later.

It is also clearly stated in the submission guidelines: "Please submit the
original source. If a post reports on something found on another site, submit
the latter. "

In that case, this rule was broken, and that behavior was rewarded.

