

No upvotes on Hacker News: Still awesome to submit - eduardordm
https://eduardo-mourao.squarespace.com/posts/2013/2/1/no-upvotes-on-hacker-news-still-awesome

======
smacktoward
I submitted stuff that never got upvotes for _months_ and thought I had just
become out of sync somehow with the interests of the rest of HN. Then I
realized that my submissions had apparently been banned! I can see them when
I'm logged in as myself, but when I hit the site without logging in they're
nowhere to be found.

Not quite a hell-ban, since people (apparently) still see my comments, but
still frustrating.

~~~
brudgers
There are many blocked IP's when it comes to submissions. PG commented on
within the past several months. Having a link immediately go dead isn't
related to one's karma - or at least that's my impression.

In any event, such links don't really disappear. If "Show Dead" is selected as
a preference they can still be seen.

~~~
smacktoward
I'm looking at two dozen submissions, nearly all from different sites (ranging
from major news sites to personal blogs), all apparently banned. I know some
sites are blocked, but it's hard for me to believe that every single one of
those submissions came from a site that's HN-verboten. It seems like a much
more straightforward explanation to assume that at some point an admin decided
that anything submitted from my username from then on would go straight into
File 13.

My personal theory as to what happened is this -- this is the last submission
I made that got any upvotes:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4331466>

It was made tongue in cheek (follow the link and you'll get the joke), but I
think an admin saw it, didn't like it, and decided that was sufficient
justification for sending me into the Outer Darkness.

Personally I wouldn't care as much if there'd just been an up-front
explanation when the decision was made. Passive-aggressive hellban-type
sanctions are supposed to be for hardcore trolls, and I would think 4400+
karma (average of 6.02) would indicate that I am not that. But whatevs.

~~~
brudgers
Just a quick scan of your submissions shows a potential variety of reasons for
dead submissions.

The Slate article was already submitted
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5079680>

Scripting.com has a unique relationship with HN - Dave Weiner often submits
directly, and an article I submitted after him doesn't show up in my list of
submissions. Discussions in which he joins sometimes take on their own flavor.

The "Windows Phone without Google" Editorial seems likely to foster partisan
debate rather than foster discussion.

"Good News for Gmail users" is blogspam.

There may be a golden nugget in your links. But nothing really pops out. What
I will say is that given your karma, people may be following you more closely
because of the weight which it can give your posts - I have seen some evidence
of this. What you submit may be getting quick attention, and at a certain
karma threshold flagging a new submission may be sufficient to kill it - I
have seen some evidence of this as well.

Find something really good to submit from an obscure corner of the web. Not
the usual suspects. Not linkbait. Not blogspam. Then you can test your theory.
Cringly or NY Magazine or Harpers aren't candidates.

~~~
smacktoward
So when you reach a certain (unspecified) karma level, the quality of your
submissions stops being judged by HN readers and starts being judged by HN
admins? And in twenty-plus cases they consistently found my submissions
wanting, _every time?_ Wanting so much that they needed to be filtered out
before other HN users could even see them?

If that sounds reasonable to you, you've found a friendly place here, I guess.
To me it sounds bizarre.

 _Find something really good to submit from an obscure corner of the web. Not
the usual suspects. Not linkbait. Not blogspam. Then you can test your
theory._

My submissions included _stuff I wrote myself_ , which is by definition "not
the usual suspects."

Look at this piece, for instance, which I submitted:

[http://jasonlefkowitz.net/2012/08/twitter-teaches-a-new-
gene...](http://jasonlefkowitz.net/2012/08/twitter-teaches-a-new-generation-
of-developers-why-proprietary-platforms-suck/)

Is this blogspam? Is this linkbait? I would argue it's an original discussion
of an issue that was much debated among HN readers at the time. You may agree
or disagree with its premise, but I cannot see how you could classify it as
cheap.

And yet it was killed, just like all the others.

------
byoung2
I'm from the school where I read the article before deciding to upvote.
Unfortunately, if the article is interesting, I read it all the way through
and forget to come back and upvote it. In this case the subject of the article
reminded me to upvote, but I think it would be a good idea to put the reminder
at the end of the article as well.

~~~
ante_annum
I'm in the same boat as him where I'll submit everything I write, watch 400
people read it on google analytics, and never get a comment of an upvote. It's
sort of frustrating because I'm submitting my writing specifically to get
feedback, but I also realize that if something is truly interesting to me, I'm
more likely to hop straight to twitter to share it.

~~~
nkuttler
Seriously, you submit everything your write here? What is your goal?

I want, you know, news relevant for hackers on this site. Not everything that
was published on the internets in the last 24 hours.

If I were you I'd try to find more relevant sites, or maybe some subreddit.

~~~
pessimizer
You didn't look at the submissions before complaining about them, right?

<http://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=ante_annum>

They all seem perfectly appropriate to me.

------
tomblomfield
Visits != readers - there are a lot of automated bots that scrape HN.

If you get into the top 3 or 4 on the front page, you can expect around
20-30,000 hits on your site. But the number of people who stick around and
read the articles is much lower - around 1,000 to 2,000 according to my blog's
Google Analytics.

Congrats on hitting the front page, by the way!

~~~
ry0ohki
I would think most bots wouldn't have JavaScript and therefore not register on
GA. I think a lot of people are bored and do click the articles on the New
page. That said, even clicks from the front page are often not actual readers
(as you can tell by many of the comments).

~~~
tomblomfield
I wrote a post last year which stuck around on the front page for a while -
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3554206>

It got 28,000 pageviews, but 92% of visitors stuck around for under 10
seconds, according to Google Analytics.

~~~
ImprovedSilence
But sometimes it's a short post. I usually read everything, and with this
particularity short blog post, I'd be surprised if it took me longer than 20
seconds to read the entirety of his post and close it out. I imagine you can
glean most everything you want from the less beefy ars or tech crunch articles
in 10...

------
arcticfox
I ended up reading your article on to land an airplane, it was really good. My
palms were sweating the whole time ! Should've gotten upvotes for that.

~~~
eduardordm
thanks! I still remember my first time I was sweating and shaking a lot,
flying is awesome

~~~
ianstormtaylor
Yup that post was awesome! Almost didn't watch the video at the end, but glad
I did. Although there is zero chance I'm going to remember any of that when I
actually need to land a plane :p (Luckily the chance that I need to land a
plane is probably much lower...)

------
petewarden
I look through the 'new' page archives every few days, and reblog interesting
posts. They're usually so old that upvotes wouldn't matter, but the signal-to-
noise ratio for submissions is high enough that I can usually find some
neglected gems.

------
delinka
Let me suggest, after reading this post and the one on reasons not to use
Oracle, that readership (and upvotes) may follow if you improve your grammar.
It's not terrible, but it lacks 'quality.' If English is not your primary
language, it shouldn't be difficult to get someone you know to help you
proofread and edit your work.

Also, while I'm here, I also suggest spending a bit more time reflecting on
your blog post before publishing. Is the message clear? Does the post flow
well? Just a little extra polish can make your articles much more appealing.

~~~
eduardordm
Thanks a lot! English is not my first language, I've been gradually getting
better, but certainly a proofread from someone else would help me a lot.

I would pay for a english teacher to proofread and provide writing tips. I
tried wordy.com but they just do some basic checking, really.

~~~
jcamenisch
I think @LorenPaulsson would do this. I can vouch for his language,
communication, and editing skills—and his work ethic.

------
petercooper
A lot of good stuff doesn't "take off" here until it's been submitted several
times. It's just the nature of the beast when the shop window doesn't expand
to fit the increased number of products on sale.

I do find it funny when several of the items on the front page are things I
had in my weekly newsletters earlier in the day though (as happened today)
given all the people who said weekly e-mails would be a "slow" way to get news
;-)

------
jey
Read >100 times, or just clicked >100 times?

------
mladenkovacevic
I wouldn't submit anything of mine to HN out of fear that the traffic might
bring down my site (Webfaction hosted Django/Nginx blog)... and also because
at the moment I wouldn't have anything to gain from the traffic besides a
temporary ego boost.

EDIT: Speaking of which, is there a service out there that can test how much
load your site can handle at one time?

~~~
spyder
It's sad that you would submit something only if you can gain something and
not to help the community.

BTW First results in google for "website load testing":
<http://loadimpact.com/> For example you could try this service out and write
a post about your experience and submit it to HN so you could help the
community with useful information.

~~~
mladenkovacevic
Thanks for the suggestion. I will try it out and maybe find other services I
can compare this one with.

My experience with programming/product launching is also so junior/non-
existent that I doubt anyone on HN would be interested in hearing about it. So
the only other reason I might post (at this time at least) is if I were
selling something (and I'm not). I was just being honest about what I feel I
can contribute to HN at this time. Which is very little, hence why I stick to
merely commenting.

------
HunterV
I just hope it stays this way. There are few enough submits to HackerNews to
ensure that every post gets viewed. If Hacker News gets over popular soon the
reddit effect will happen.

------
ErrantX
HN is so popular that really good stuff disappears (and ironically, relatively
"humdrum" stuff such as this gets to the front page :D).

His article on "how to land a plane" is a brilliant read, for example:
[http://eduardo.intermeta.com.br/posts/2013/1/25/how-to-
land-...](http://eduardo.intermeta.com.br/posts/2013/1/25/how-to-land-a-plane-
if-you-are-not-a-pilot)

------
danso
> _So, next time you write something, make sure you submit to Hacker News,
> even if you don't get upvotes, people will still read it._

Sorry, I have to disagree. It is not "awesome" to get pageviews for the sake
of getting pageviews. What is awesome is if 1 out of those 100 people who gave
you the benefit of the doubt gives you an upvote because you gave them
something interesting to read.

Instead of "Still awesome to submit", it should be "Still awesome to
write/create". Don't tie the point of your writing to some nominal number of
random readers.

~~~
mapgrep
You're putting words in OP's mouth he never said. He wrote these articles
because he thought they'd be useful, submitted them to HN, and was happy to
learn later that, even with zero upvotes, they'd been read by dozens of
people.

He explains this in the second sentence (!) of the post: "I try to write some
useful info like How to land an airplane if you are not a pilot or This is why
you should never use Oracle DB those are not very interesting topics but,
anyway, I always submit my post to Hacker News hoping at least 10 individuals
would read it."

There's a world of difference between writing something to get attention
versus writing something you truly believe and being heartened when it gets
attention. He never suggests people should engage in the former, he just says
to submit to HN when you do the latter.

~~~
danso
I didn't put words in the OP's mouth, I used a direct quote, and I don't think
I took it out of context.

> _So, next time you write something, make sure you submit to Hacker News,
> even if you don't get upvotes, people will still read it._

"something" _not_ "something worthwhile" or "something you care about". Is it
a far stretch to think that OP is saying, "Who cares if no one actually
affirms your work, at least you'll get pageviews?" And while that's probably a
true statement, I think it's not overall a net positive for HN.

I'll give the benefit of the doubt to the OP that what he actually means is:
"Even if you don't get any upvotes, your content will still get read, and at
least a few people will benefit from it" But I can't, as you say, put words in
the OP's mouth.

~~~
tgrass
Yes, it is a stretch to assume the OP meant "Who cares if no one actually
affirms your work, at least you'll get pageviews?"

His writing did not exclude that interpretation, but it didn't include it
specifically either. We shouldn't be grabbing any possible interpretation from
our own perspective and projecting it onto the OP.

------
bjhoops1
I've had the same experience. My blog posts not getting any upvotes, but still
quite a few page views. However, GA tells me the views from HN have an
atrociously high bounce rate and an average time on page of like 8 seconds. :P

------
jonheller
I'm very surprised, but excited, to see this is true. Thanks for sharing.

~~~
RobotCaleb
From my sample size of one I show about 100 visits for each upvote for my one
and only submission.

23390/247

~~~
jncraton
Sounds like the 1% rule:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1%25_rule_(Internet_culture)>

~~~
RobotCaleb
I should mention that was just while the post was on the front page. The
numbers are still going up, but the votes seem to have stopped.

------
mappum
Ironically, this DID get upvotes.

------
jere
That's somewhat encouraging. I have not had good results with either ask or
submit.

------
lifeisstillgood
Loved the video of the landing with speech bubbles - it made a great deal of
sense.

Have an upvote :-)

