yes, what the world needs now is more and more people who care about marketing their brand. this might as well be called "a guide to shitting in the well: how to poison the HN community so you can go viral"
I think marketeers have already found out. Maybe I'm just being jaded and/or my interests have evolved, but seems like more and more techno-nonsense hits the front page in recent months than years ago.
It's up to the community to police the content, domains are now clickable and have a submission history page just like users. It only takes one person to notice exploitative behavior for the community or moderators to intervene.
I think it's getting better though, it seems like plenty of startups can artificially hit the front page a few times but once the voting ring filter's got all their employees and friends it is much harder.
and as the eternal septembering continues, newbies upvote the bad content, whilst posting comments filled with bad reddit puns, SJW crap, and "this." as the entire content of their reply.
I agree. The dataset has been around for a while now. Also, even though you can increase your chances a few percent by hitting the right time, the users are still the ones to decide.
I'd give up all my karma and ability to upvote if it meant that half the HN users with downvoting ability had it taken away. Especially the ones that downvote before replying.
