
Ask HN: How do you gain reputation on Hacker News?  - mydpy
Hi everyone,<p>I've been lingering around the site for a few months now, and I've submitted a few articles / blog posts that I have found interesting. However, they seem to get few views. It is mostly chance which posts become popular and get a lot of views? Is it a function of timing? Do you gain reputation by commenting on posts?<p>Just trying to get a better idea for how to engage well with the community here. Any ideas are appreciated.
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brudgers
I'm going to go a bit against the grain. The way to gain karma is to entertain
your audience.

Like any performance, timing plays a role, quality plays a role, and luck
should not be discounted.

However, one should not mistake what passes for entertainment on other
websites for what people want from HN and are likely to reward. In general, HN
expects accuracy and rewards insight and good writing. It definitely punishes
trying to create inside jokes and exclusionary cliques (see PG's essay about
high school).

So long as it is of high caliber, wit may be rewarded. The same is true to a
lesser extent of sarcasm and even snark. My personal rules of thumb are: snark
only if what I have to say is emotionally important enough to take the
downvotes and karma hit in stride; avoid sarcasm in general; and if I am not
sure something is really witty to forgo posting it.

With any type of comment, I am willing to delete it if it isn't going to
accomplish my goal or add to the community...and yes, sometimes my ego is at
odds with what adds to the community. Hopefully, that is less and less the
case.

As far as submissions, I have had my most success with more technical articles
and blogs, less with opinion pieces. Largely, getting a good article to the
front page is a matter of luck for me.

~~~
mydpy
I was active on GameFAQs forums when I was a lot younger and I remember being
turned off from all the trolling and flame wars people insist on promoting. As
I finish my graduate studies, I'm looking for a mature community to share my
interests and find new ways to be motivated.

Entertaining writing is hard. It's difficult to conveys my thoughts correctly
through text, especially when humor is involved; timing translates awkwardly
in prose.

I will take your suggestion to heart and shoot for quality over quantity in my
activity here. I think once I finish with school I'll have more time to work
on things I care about, and I'll want to share them with others. I really look
forward to that point.

~~~
brudgers
I don't suggest taking "entertaining" as synonymous with "humorous." Non-
fiction books, sad films, and football matches are all entertaining for some
people. Entertain the HN audience by delivering the sort of thing they like -
well considered insights and technical information.

Nor is the reference to timing implying comedic timing...except in a general
sense of delivering your ideas when the audience is likely to be prepared in
the right way to appreciate them. This fleshes out to when and where one
comments - before HN became kinder, gentler, and larger, early snark on a
rising thread was often worth a few points. Well considered comments on a
recent popular thread will often do better than those delivered otherwise.

Timing requires understanding the audience or perhaps having a model of that
portion you wish to reach. Writing for someone is a good first step toward
being entertaining.

~~~
mydpy
Hi brudgers,

I looked at your profile and wanted to ask you about your architecture career.
Throughout high school I wanted to be an architect and my initial major in
college was architecture. I switched to computer science because I liked the
concept of building and felt the hierarchical nature of the field would
involve lots of ladder climbing before I designed anything. What has your
experience been like?

If you would rather e-mail, that works for me too. mylesdanielbaker@gmail.com

------
shanelja
I can't address submissions, but I can however address posts:

The unfortunate problem with this is that often, there is no direct link
between comment quality and the amount of karma you receive for posting it as
several walls must first be breached before your comment is even seen.

Firstly, the quality of the article in question is the most important outside
factor, if it is a fluff piece, apart from several posts about it being a
fluff piece there will rarely be a fair amount of visitors to the comments
section, whereas well written, high quality articles tend to drag a crowd,
curious to know what their peers have to say of the subject in question.

Secondly, the position of your comment in the comments section can be a
massive boundary, you will find that often, the comment at the top has the
most replies, this has a direct correlation to it's position of course, people
tend to read what the see first (and to reach the top, it must have been up-
voted, leading you to believe it will add value to the thread) although, the
more cynical side in me wants to believe that some people post on high placed
comments simply to farm karma with their yes-man comments.

After being seen, there is the length of your comment, people bore easily and
if your comment isn't interesting (to the person reading in particular) from
the first instance then they will move on without properly absorbing your
opinion.

After gaining the initial traction to be read, then and only then is the
quality of your comment going to become a variable in the equation of how much
karma you will receive.

~~~
mydpy
Thanks for the nice response. I am still looking for my creative niche and I'm
not sure if writing / blogging is what best captures my interests. I
appreciate the dynamics of timing, and the serendipity of Internet forums, but
that doesn't stop me from getting depressed when one of my favorite posts
don't get viewed.

------
orangethirty
Hacker News is broken into many sub-segments. Everything you submit will catch
the attention of a given demographic here. If you want to become popular, then
address a common issue among demographics. Though "popularity" is not what you
should seek. Be a valuable member of the community. Online _and_ offline. Be a
friend, a collegue, or just a hacker. Praise their successes, ignore their
failures, help them cure their pain. Only then will you be, not only a
valuable and reputable member of hacker news, but a valuable and reputable
member of society. :)

------
lsiebert
Don't try to gain karma. Your phrasing in this title is going to ill serve
you.

Repost this as what you seem to have intended, asking how to engage with the
community.

Now, for anyone who is here to learn how to game karma, I'd like to convey the
following:

Karma is an abstract way to show quality, a way to organize discussion on HN
to prioritize valuable information and people with insight. It is not an end
to itself, except maybe as an ego boost. Oh, I guess at some point you can
down vote posts, but seriously, karma is a tool intended to benefit the
community, not a measure of your value as a person, or your skills as a
developer or entrepreneur.

Try to add to the community; Add your insight and knowledge, up vote good
quality comments and posts that are interesting, and trust the community.
Attempting to game karma detracts value from the community. You are better
than that. We are all better than that. And if you do that, the karma will
come.

~~~
mydpy
I hope I don't convey any selfish motivations for posting this topic.
Honestly, I'm trying to find a venue for me to discuss my interests.

One of the dimensions of my work I want to expand is my mastery over specific
subject matter. It's tough to find a colloquial yet masterful community forum
for discussing new ideas, and especially so when I'm not sure which area I
want to specialize in for my career.

I like HN because it's simple and isn't overwhelming.

~~~
lsiebert
You didn't convey anything but earnest interest in contributing. I intended to
address you, then any people trying to game karma. On reflection, I'd have
split the comment; in my defense I was posting from my phone.

FYI, In terms of communities related to specific subjects, a surprising amount
happens on mailing lists, not web forums.

------
dbecker
I've looked through old comments a few times, and my opinion of my comment
quality had only a very weak correlation to the number of upvotes my comments
receive.

Specifically, comments that I thought made only small contributions to the
conversation received the same number of votes on average as those that I
thought were much better comments.

------
nicholassmith
Good comments (thoughtful, insightful etc) will generally attract good
reputation. Adding posts is a tricky one, and is a combination of timing,
quality and luck.

------
HeyLaughingBoy
Why are you trying to gain reputation? I don't know who has 5k karma and who
has 50, but I do know which posters tend to make thought-provoking comments
worth paying attention to.

If you want to engage with the community, then just do so. Ask questions,
respond to posts intelligently and politely and you'll find people responding
in kind.

------
mydpy
Okay, so I have a question: When submitting a url, is there any reason to
comment about the content? Is it all about using an appropriate title, or
should there be some explanation/summary given?

------
dwj
Why does it matter?

~~~
pawn
The cynical answer would be to stroke his ego.

The other possibility would be that he wants to improve the quality of his
comments and/or be a more valuable contributor to this community.

~~~
dwj
I think it is an ego thing, but I wouldn't be too harsh on the OP. I think the
whole karma/likes/followers thing is based on a basic human need for
recognition and acceptance. People basically like to be liked.

For some reason I'm one of the few people who doesn't feel the need to have
1000 followers listening to what I ate for breakfast (or the HN/SO equivalent
:)

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mkr-hn
An endless stream of plausible nonsense. Making sense can help.

