

Ask HN: When will the first HN account appear on eBay? - tantadruj

In the times of World of Warcraft, virtual power positions quickly appeared on eBay and high point user accounts reached up to $2K.<p>Hacker News has its own karma based system, which gives high karma users a power to create destinies of stories and also users.<p>Since first page HN listing with an interesting title can generate 2000+ UQ visits in 6 hours to a specific target group, this definitely has some commercial value.<p>We've seen bots that automatically submit influencer blog posts to HN to gain karma. There are some Chinese farmers on HN which are building their karma to impress pg for YC submissions.<p>When will the first HN account appear on eBay? Or will it be single upvotes sold to generate long term income for farmers? Do you think this is already happening undercover?
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pg
"Hacker News has its own karma based system, which gives high karma users a
power to create destinies of stories and also users."

HN karma gives high karma users a power to change the color of the top bar
when they're logged in.

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limmeau
The rewards of owning a high-karma account are limited. You don't get to
upvote a frontpage item more than once (or do you? not at 780). Your comments
may receive an occasional fanboy upvote, but that only creates more karma and
doesn't shift the visibility of your message by a large amount.

So in conclusion, I don't think HN accounts will be traded much. Perhaps more
if the frequency of "free invites to our beta service for HNers with 1000+
karma"-promotions increases.

~~~
bmelton
While you still only get to upvote once, as I understand it, that vote counts
more than once based on your karma.

Regardless, while you might get high karma values based only on article
submissions, that isn't going to impress anybody. When PG is looking at your
HN account, he's almost certainly looking for insightful _comments_ , vs. just
a high karma score.

It's really hard to farm out quality comments to somebody else, and have it
matter at the same time.

~~~
pmjordan
_as I understand it, that vote counts more than once based on your karma._

Unless there's been a recent change, each vote has the same weight unless it
triggers voting ring detection.

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tptacek

        All: Who controls the British crown?
             Who keeps the metric system down?
             We do!  We do!
    
       Karl: Who leaves Atlantis off the maps?
      Lenny: Who keeps the Martians under wraps?
      Alien: We do!  We do!
    
        All: Who holds back the electric car?
             Who makes Steve Gutenberg a star?
             We do!  We do!
    
      Skinner: Who robs cavefish of their sight?
        Homer: Who rigs every Oscar night?
    
      We do! WE DO!

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TuxPirate
We have been maintaining a set of HN accounts used to rank stories on the
first page and it has been a valuable asset in gathering instant attention of
a fairly large amount of users in a short amount of time.

Works, as opposed to what some people suggested in some comments.

~~~
tantadruj
I knew it :) Thx for being sincere.

~~~
TuxPirate
I'm such a good liar.. On the internet.

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rms
I had thought about doing this for a while and giving the money to charity so
that pg would look bad for banning me, but was convinced that it was more
valuable to have my HN account. I think right now I'd value my Hacker News
account around $5k, so would probably sell for $5k or more to the charity of
my choice.

It's not my karma points that allows me to get things on the front page, but
my intimate knowledge of the Hacker News ecosystem and voting process. The
bonus I receive for having a possibly recognizable username is minimal.

As far as I know, Hacker News is the last reach of the social web that has not
been hijacked by people selling votes. But I'm probably wrong.

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JoeCortopassi
Meta-threads like this are a perfect illustration of how HN is declining. It
does nothing to motivate/inspire hackers and startups. Instead we waste time
up-voting/discussing things that have no relevance to real life. If someone
wants to waste money buying an account based on "Karma", let them. Karma =
nothing in real life

~~~
dwwoelfel
Someone could sell their HN account in real life.

"Relevance to real life" is not a good indicator of a submission's suitability
for HN. The Minecraft CPU has less relevance to real life than this
submission, but a Minecraft CPU definitely deserves the front page.

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mihar
Should happen soon because people are attracted to power by nature. Let's wait
and see what kind of valuation one HN karma point gets.

~~~
rokgregoric
My bet would be more like $0.01 and a $100 for a 1000 point account.

~~~
franze
why the jump in valuation at 1000?

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hcho
When the price of a high karma account becomes attractive to the owner. So,
probably never.

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rf45
Wouldn't there be an escrow problem ?

~~~
tantadruj
I don't think so, because this can be done over a cup of coffee. Everybody is
in the Bay Area anyways :)

~~~
dwwoelfel
Will someone please explain why this has been voted down so far. I could
understand a 0 or -1, but in this case, I don't understand what warrants
another downvote when it is already at -4.

