Over the last few days, I've noticed a lot of posts that reference or come from reddit.com. I realize a lot of you are new to the community, so you might want to re-read the welcome. There's a place for reddit-like posts (reddit) and there's a place for news related to hackers (HN). Thanks!
1 - There are karma/score based systems in both sites that highly reward "first to post" interesting articles.
2 - There is no penalty here for bad initial posts, so there is no real penalty for not "posting news related to hackers."
3 - Both have a karma/score based system for rewarding interesting comments.
You will find similar situations on the stackoverflow sorts of sites, although one of the rewarding moves available at stackoverflow is unavailable here - which is to make a fast quick post and continue to edit it and add more details from other answers.
Any system with a score or badge as a sort of "reward" will get gamed. I'm sorry if you are offended by it, but that is the way things are.
1. Reddit and HN are not mutual exclusive. There could be stuff that could be cross posted. Also, Reddit is a startup, is a YC company, and the founders are very active in the startup community. All these things together make Reddit a popular item to discuss.
2. I think the HN community is starting to change. That doesn't mean decline, just change. I can program, but I'm not a programmer. I'd rather read about unique business models, human interest stories, etc than the latest and greatest clojure article.
3. That said, re-reading the guidelines isn't a bad idea!
Is there such a thing as a "reddit-like post"? They have a squillion subreddits for all kinds of different subjects.
I sometimes see posts which I'd upvote if it was on reddit, but which I ignore or even flag if I see it here, because the two communities are (and should be) vastly different. As a regular on both, it's sometimes difficult to remember to 'change my hat' when I log in.
Advice: Try to remember that any time you upvote a submission, you're encouraging more of the same type of submission.
For instance, I often make a point of upvoting submissions from people trying to engage the community, eg "look at this thing I made", "can I get some feedback on my product", "we just launched" and so on. Because that's the kind of stuff I want to see on HN. Real things made by real hackers; the stuff you won't see in the mainstream press because it was just made by this one guy. I flag stories which I know I'm going to read all over twitter and reddit and BBC news because, well I'll read about it there. HN, for me, isn't just a "top web news" place. If you're anything like me, you already know what the big stories are before you check HN. It's the smaller things that are more interesting.
One thing that always impresses me, though, is that the HN community can make even a 'boring' story fascinating through their comments and discussions, so that can make even 'bad' submission worthwhile.
As an interesting counter-point, the "Today you, tomorrow me" cross-post from reddit broke 1000 upvotes, becoming one of (if not the) most upvoted HN article ever.
1 - There are karma/score based systems in both sites that highly reward "first to post" interesting articles.
2 - There is no penalty here for bad initial posts, so there is no real penalty for not "posting news related to hackers."
3 - Both have a karma/score based system for rewarding interesting comments.
You will find similar situations on the stackoverflow sorts of sites, although one of the rewarding moves available at stackoverflow is unavailable here - which is to make a fast quick post and continue to edit it and add more details from other answers.
Any system with a score or badge as a sort of "reward" will get gamed. I'm sorry if you are offended by it, but that is the way things are.