How we hack Hacker News and consistently hit the front page

Ok so, different take - if this what people call "gaming the system" I'm all for it.

All this article says is that hackernews likes interesting, informative posts that actually tell a real story. And I for one am here for that all day. So yes, everyone take this strategy and make great content.

In other words, they had to hack their own system to get anyone to pay attention to the advice of creating informative articles with a story to tell.

On the one hand, sure, it’s a kinda like that Mission Accomplished xkcd.

On the other hand, the parable of Frogstar World B warns against self-reinforcing focus on a local maxima at the expense of diversity.

Fortunately I doubt we’re at risk of passing the Marketing Content Event Horizon just yet

But how long until someone misreads this and understands a ChatGPT-based bot is what they need, to summarize news and spam HN continuously?

I'm sure lots of people spam HN, but it doesn't get upvoted.

This is like that 4chan post about a guy who tries to cheat on a test and ends up studying and does well on it.

Reminds me of that cheat in school where if you just memorize all the information in the textbook you can answer every question with 100% accuracy

At least it’s a fair game here. It could have been unfair if, for example, the audience cannot verify the truthfulness of the article, which would promote cheap fake but interesting articles.

Re: Mission Accomplished, that's https://xkcd.com/810/ and indeed it was the first thing that came to mind when reading GP's comment.

In the process of gaming the system, they gamed themselves.