[ColinWright]

If you value feedback from the HN collective then you probably should read the extensive discussion from the last time this was submitted:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4081390

There are many points and counter-points there, with more anecdotes, and some data.

Comments there are closed, of course, it being so old, so any new discussion will have to be here.

[ChuckMcM]

I suspect it is simpler, they don't care about HN's feedback.

A simple check of the account would suggest that they needed a bit of karma, their submission of the Hudsonreed site was DOA (as most, 'create an account, submit a site' type submissions are). They haven't made any comments to get karma that way, so they use the 'other' well known karma farming technique, scrape HN for past stories that were popular and re-submit them at the 'right' time. It has become enough of a signal that I suspect pg could add it into his heuristics for spammers.

[solaris152000]

Actually someone at work shared it on Yammer and I thought people here might like it. I didn't realise Karma was of any value to be farmed. Sorry for... trying to share things?

[ChuckMcM]

Welcome to HN.

It is a pretty popular web site with a part of the technical crowd. It gets analyzed a lot [1][2]. It also gets a lot of 'spam' (since coverage on the front page of HN can send you lots of traffic [3][4][5]) HN "scores" its participants using a counter 'karma' [6] which also affects features visible to your account (well at least the down vote button) And with any 'score' there are people who score more than others [7]. And where there is scoring there is competition.

The bottom line is that certain behaviors emerge for people who actively try to achieve a 'high score' (more karma) and people who are trying to achieve 'viriality'[8] (more exposure).

It was unkind of me to point out the behavior (usually I just note it and ignore it) and for that I apologize.

Colin (grandparent posting) has a 'thing' about stuff that gets doubly or triply or more posted. I understand the annoyance, it can get annoying. But I've also noted that he posts a lot of links :-) A number of people tend to complain when their version of the link doesn't make it to the front page when someone else's done (it's a 'I'm not getting that karma whine') And generally harmless (other than it sometimes back fires and they get down voted for whining)

[1] http://blog.rjmetrics.com/surprising-hacker-news-data-analys...

[2] http://hn-karma-tracker.herokuapp.com/overall

[3] http://thestartupfoundry.com/2011/05/26/hacker-news-and-driv...

[4] http://sparknlaunch.wordpress.com/2012/07/04/lessons-learned...

[5] http://pitchpigeon.com/blog/10-lessons-learned-from-a-succes...

[6] http://pitchpigeon.com/blog/10-lessons-learned-from-a-succes...

[7] https://news.ycombinator.com/leaders

[8] Not exactly a word, but my definition would be the rate at which things spread, especially on the Internet.

[solaris152000]

OK thanks for the welcome and explanation. I'll check my next submission is original before I post it next time. I've lurked here for quite a while and have enjoyed the content. Although it is harder to understand the rules compared to somewhere like Digg. Better content though.

[ColinWright]

If you're new and haven't become enculturated, there may be value in your reading jacquesm's unofficial FAQ:

http://www.jacquesmattheij.com/The+Unofficial+HN+FAQ

Bits of it are a little out-of-date, and there are some things it hasn't caught up with, but it's mostly right, and some people find it useful.

[kalms]

Hey, I had not seen it before and I enjoyed the read. So don't worry about it, and thanks for submitting.

[michaelwww]

I'm also missing out on the karma awards program. Where do I sign up?

[xauronx]

I was reading his comment, rolled my eyes and then felt stupid because I figured there was a /sarcasm tag at the end. There wasn't, so the eye rolling was justified.

/r/KarmaConspiracy

[ChuckMcM]

I probably need a /cynic tag for days like today.

[xauronx]

Haha, that's ok. I have days like that too.