[dang]

In that case it was the blind leading the blind. The advice that founders give each other about how to game HN routinely backfires. Unfortunately, people are so conditioned to conflate "feels like it should work" with "actually works", that no matter how much we repeat the contrary it seems to have little effect.

Thanks for the reply - you had me wondering for a minute what the hell I wasn't remembering.

[kingcharles]

> Unfortunately, people are so conditioned to conflate "feels like it should work" with "actually works", that no matter how much we repeat the contrary it seems to have little effect.

Thank you for this. This sentiment applies to so much online, especially in the field of online content, social media posting and conversion rates.

What feels like it should work is not the same as what actually works.

This site was posted on here at some point and it made me mad because everything the guy recommends sounds awesome, but where is any proof that it actually improves sales? https://examples.roastmylandingpage.com/

Humans are complex beasts and sometimes the exact opposite of the obvious is the right solution: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-11573666

[IgorPartola]

This is interesting. I have not done a launch or a Show HN post in some time but back in the day HN was pretty easy to game: three rapid upvotes from unrelated accounts and IPs got you to the bottom of the front page (I did not use sock puppets ever, instead just asking geographically diverse friends to upvote the post immediately after posting it). If the content was mildly interesting you got to see it spend some time at the top. Posting when the New page had a longer delta T between the top and bottom post was also helpful. I definitely got a lot of front page time for what I now consider fairly mediocre content.

[shkkmo]

Voting rings aren't allowed any more than sock puppets are.