Comment by smooke | Hacker News Reader

Comment by smooke | Hacker News Reader

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What do you know about the way we publish? David from Hacker Noon here --- Most stories on Hacker Noon are not published by me, they are published by one of these four other editors https://hackernoon.com/meet-the-new-hacker-noon-editors-b375...

Every Hacker Noon story is reviewed by editor. On sites where anyone can publish, I'd guess less than 10% of stories are reviewed by an editor... but who knows?

I heard 7 of the 50 most clapped stories in 2018 are on hackernoon.com https://twitter.com/search?q=most%20clapped%20hackernoon&src... but I don't trust claps these days b/c of the evidence I've seen showing how clap counts display differently for different site visitors. If I go to hackernoon.com right now, "Blockchain Empowering Women Around the World" displays as zero claps on the hackernoon.com homepage, but I am following the author and when I click on the story many people have clapped it... https://hackernoon.com/blockchain-empowering-women-around-th... But if claps are to be trusted as a measure of quality, Hacker Noon outperforms the vast majority Medium posts: https://schleiss.io/2018/07/28/average-hackernoon-claps/

BTW, greatly appreciate the kind words about doing more initiative with my life! I thought a top 5k site in the world was cool, but it is small potatoes when you're neighbors are making twice baked. As the kids say, "CHEEEEEEESE"

I'd note that from the links that have trended on HN, Hacker Noon is, for me, now categorised basically under "assume shallow clickbait, don't bother".

And, honestly, "Blockchain Empowering Women Around the World" as the article you chose to mention here isn't doing anything to change that categorisation - the title is clickbait, and the content shallow to the point where it reminded me of the output of SEO content mills more than anything else. I read the article hoping to provide a more nuanced critique, but there really wasn't any there there to critique, and that's precisely what makes me default to skipping any hacker noon link based on the repeatedly validated expectation it'll be a waste of my time.

I'd also note that the passive-aggressive-smugness of your comment does you and your brand no favours either, but on the other hand if somebody'd just attacked my baby I could easily see myself making an even worse mess of it ... but perhaps you might want to consider that, given it's personal for you, your public comments could possibly also do with some active editing.

You my friend have some truth. The thing I made was attacked, and I made the comment they wanted me to make.

That Schleiss article makes exactly the point I'm trying to make to you. For a publication of your size 375 claps is a dud (that article is using data from when Medium's algorithm's would have been working in your favor). 75% of your articles are completely failing to get traction.

The job your editors should be doing is quality control. They should be filtering what you publish way down. And your job as the publisher should be to set guidelines for quality. None of that is happening and as a result, you're putting a constant stream of low quality in front of people. What's so great about being a top 5K site if you the impact is wasting people's time?

As comparison, I looked at the last 50 articles we published and only found 2 that didn't get 375 claps. Those were duds and we tried to learn lessons from them.

We do need to improve quality control. Having software designed for multiple editors instead of one un-filterable feed of many submissions for so multiple editors will help tremendously.

But claps aren't an accurate measure of quality or traffic. Sometimes they display and sometimes they don't. Is 375 from 8 people or 375 people? It's designed to blur the line.

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