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How Product Hunt really works

(medium.com)
695 points brw12 | 7 comments | 15 Dec 15 19:32 UTC | HN request time: 0.231s | source | bottom
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ryanSrich ◴[15 Dec 15 20:11 UTC] No.10740127[source]▶
It always surprises me when people get bent out of shape when they learn that blogs and forums are rigged to favor a certain group of people. There's A LOT of money to be had and if you think places like Product Hunt, Reddit, HN, etc. aren't all being rigged in some way, you're naive.
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minimaxir ◴[15 Dec 15 20:23 UTC] No.10740221[source]▶
There are ways to optimize submissions to Reddit/Hacker News for upvotes, yes. (and I've done a lot of research on both services.) However, I would say that neither is rigged; that is, moderators don't control what is seen on the front page. (Although in the case of HN, moderators have bumped up good posts which have not been upvoted, which is a positive intervention)

Product Hunt, as noticed in the article, requires shennanigans to be successful. The real problem here is that PH presents itself as a meritocracy when it really isn't, and it has mislead naive entrepreneurs into thinking a given product is "good" when it truly isn't.

replies(1): >>10740345 #
1. quintin ◴[15 Dec 15 20:45 UTC] No.10740345[source]▶
Correction: HN mods often flag posts down. Almost on a very regular basis. They do this for the larger good.
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2. DanBC ◴[15 Dec 15 20:47 UTC] No.10740360[source]▶
As far as I know that's not mods, that's regular users.

minimaxir is talking about the small repost-bump that some posts get.

3. minimaxir ◴[15 Dec 15 20:53 UTC] No.10740397[source]▶
No, those are mostly by users. And in the case where an article is falsely flagged to death, the new vouch system corrects that.
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4. ◴[15 Dec 15 22:00 UTC] No.10740808[source]▶
5. mintplant ◴[15 Dec 15 23:32 UTC] No.10741277[source]▶
I thought the "vouch" system only applied to dead things. Is that not correct?
replies(2): >>10741323 #>>10741324 #
6. detaro ◴[15 Dec 15 23:40 UTC] No.10741323{3}[source]▶
You can only vouch once something has become flagged, but then it works against the flags. (and if only a few users have flagged a post, it is likely to become unflagged by that)
7. minimaxir ◴[15 Dec 15 23:40 UTC] No.10741324{3}[source]▶
Works for both dead and flagged.