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by blahblahblah 5508 days ago
Why is this "get rich quick" crap on the front page of HN?
3 comments

Because someone posted it, and a bunch of people voted it up, and there's no downvote to express our displeasure with get-rich-quick junk or content-less Techcrunch stories or what-have-you.
There is. Flagging. And before you say it's "not for that", people are clearly using it as such. I've had perfectly legit posts (that I haven't "promoted" at all) slide way lower than their votes would indicate due to flaggers. So it seems a legitimate downvote system now.
It's not a "Get rich quick". It's a "quit your job and do independent work", which is a pretty common idea amongst HN members, I think.
I think it was gamed.
Although I'm certain HN has been gamed in the past (search through the top results on searchyc for high traffic blogs and you'll notice a trend, and high upvotes with very few and completely worthless comments -- the effect of a content-less post), but in this case I'm not so sure.

I keep a hawkeye out whenever I see a post from a top blog on HN's frontpage, shit like this problogger, smashingweb, and mashable which are always either contentless diatribes or a bizarre summary of a link that's at the bottom of the post. There's a specific name for these types of posts but I forget exactly what. Anyways, this poster has a history if submitting from these major blogs anyways, so I think it's just a case of him/her being subscribed to their feeds.

The truly worrying part is seeing it with 100+ upvotes on the frontpage. That's not a good sign.

There's a specific name for these types of posts but I forget exactly what.

Blogspam.

I posted the link. Yes I subscribed to the problogger and found this story to be inspirational and posted it for this reason.

I had no idea that problogger would be met wich such an furious amount of contempt. I will refrain from ever posting a link from them again.

Fair enough. Thanks for the insight. I just saw 3 comments and 50+ upvotes and it seemed fishy.
I posted the link, I don't know if it was gamed, but if so I was certainly not involved in it.

I am surprised about the amount of upvotes myself, but the story is quite inspiring, independent from who wrote it, or on which domain it is hosted.