Ask HN: Is it wrong to submit your own blog articles to HN | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Is it wrong to submit your own blog articles to HN

8 pointsihackforfun9 comments

This question was inspired by a comment I got on a submission. I was asked not to submit my own blog articles to HN but let someone else do this should they find them interesting.

My argument is that: 1. My blog is less then 2 months old so not many people are reading it, changes are not one of those people will post articles here 2. I do this openly (my handle and blog name are the same, I never made this a secret) but I suspect some others just have a login to HN that does not reflect to their blog and as such post articles 'anonymously'

So what do you think, are blog writers allowed to post their own articles (at least the ones they think are relevant to HN) or should I stop doing so?

View on HN

If you really think it's up to snuff, sure, there's no rule against it and lots of precedent. But if you're just trolling for views, no. "This blog is young" is not a sufficient reason to submit something.

As a general rule, content that gets lots of upvotes is welcome, stuff that falls of the "new" page with 1 point is a waste of the precious few minutes actually spent on the "new" page.

Of course, good articles do sometimes fall off the "new" page with 1 point; but I'd take a look at the the average points received by your submissions, and try to be more selective.

Sorry.

> "This blog is young" is not a sufficient reason to submit something.

He didn't mean "the blog is young -> I need views". He meant the blog is young, and since there aren't many readers, no one submits it to HN; the only way to share is to submit it himself.

Only if they're boring and badly written. Or if you're spammy about it.

When in doubt, hop on IRC and see if someone else thinks it's worth submitting.

The unofficial HN IRC is #startups on {webchat,irc,chat}.freenode.net

I'd say go for it, within reason. Maybe not every single post, but it's OK to get started. Considering the good quality found on ihackforfun.eu, I doubt it will take you long to build a considerable audience.

Out of curiosity, why did you go for the TLD eu, having the possibility of picking com, net or org?

the choice for EU was a simple one, since I live in Belgium I wanted either a .be or something more international. I choose .eu since I'm in Europe and not .com since it is not my commercial activity (I have other domains for that), .org on the other hand seems more for organisations and my blog is a one man operation :-) As an additional factor I have to admit to work for the .eu registry so of course I want to promote the .tld a bit but that was more a happy side effect, my business domain for example is a .be since I target small companies within my region.

You work for the registry that oversees your domain!? Talk about domain security!

I work in the quality assurance and testing department so I do not have access to production systems but I must admit it is a lot of fun using my own domain in testing. It is actually the registrar/hosting companies that have more power, the registry only acts on a domain is there is a clear case of malware hosting etc. or in case of a legal dispute. A domain holder cannot interact with the registry except by going through a registrar so we as a registry hardly ever interact with domain holders. So if I ever have a problem with my registrar I'm still pretty much on my own but at least I have a grasp on the code of conduct they have to follow :-)

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