New users who get lots of upvotes in a short amount of time, specially when they are linking to their own sites, make me think they are gaming the system. I would like to see which other accounts upvoted the story.
I upvoted it because I thought it was interesting. It's not necessarily a new technique, a lesson in basic computational tradeoffs really, but I enjoyed the article.
Edit: that was before I saw that the follow-up on the same blog was also posted here today. I stand corrected. The article is spam, please don't upvote!
I guess it's inevitable that we have these sort of meta discussions right now, and I'll bite.
How does this become spam? Or, let's say you used the wrong word and didn't mean "spam" -- how is this article or its author somehow bad for HN right now? I add "right now" because I think the answer would be different if the user had been around for a year or two.
I am not looking to prove anything here or argue. I am really curious why you think I should not upvote a submission I found interesting.
I'm not a troll if that's what you're implying. I may be a condescending douchebag who irritates you but that's not the same.
I chose the word spam because it turns out the article was posted to bolster pageviews on someones blog. Whether it's actually commercial or just egomaniacal is not really relevant. What matters is this link was posted to sell me something.
> I am really curious why you think I should not upvote a submission I found interesting.
Please read my comment in its entirety. You'll find that I have also upvoted it and I have also stated that it's an interesting article. There is however a larger motive at work behind posting this to HN which became apparent to me later.
To make it extra clear: one article is fine, it's interesting and engaging. Posting another one about the same topic linking to the same blog within hours is gratuitous.
While I can see where you come from, I just read the article and found it quite interesting and can see why people would upvote it. I like the fact that a new user can come in here and get their article on the front-page and to me this is an indication that the system works. :)
I agree it is great you can/should come in and get the same attention as anyone else, but I am just afraid some people game the system. I guess it's ok to hack the hacker news.
