Comment by mursu
3 months ago
Greetings. Don't mean to come across as disrespectful. May I ask, have you decided on the criteria for new users to unlock restrictions? I apologize if it was already conveyed, but being new, I find myself a bit lost. I have read the guidelines and wanted to post in Show HN but then I got a message that stated that I do not have the clearance to do that yet. I must add I totally understand. I did not know about Hacker News until a few days ago when Gemini gave me the pointer to get my project visible to people here for real quality feedback. Again. I apologize if I am out of place.
The problem is that there are now so many attempts to get "real quality feedback" that the entire system is in danger of collapsing. Imagine how you'd feel if Gemini pointed the rest of the internet at your inbox! Or a thousand people showed up in your garden, all wanting your attention. This isn't so far from that; HN is not so big a place, and there are only two of us supporting it.
What would be best is for you to poke around the site a bit and get familiar enough with it to decide if you'd like to be a part of the community or not. If so, you're welcome! you aren't the first person to feel a bit lost here as a new user, because the site is rather minimal and cryptic—but your eyes will adjust if you keep reading it over time.
If, on the other hand, you're not interested, that's totally ok, but then please don't try to promote your projects here. HN is a community, and the way to get attention for your things is to first give attention to other people's things.
I don't want to specify X, Y, Z criteria technically because that would just be an invitation to game the system. Worse, Gemini will then tell you "first do X, then do Y and Z, and then you'll get that 'real quality feedback'".
What I want Gemini to tell you (and everyone else!) is "don't use Hacker News primarily for promotion - they have a rule against that. Instead, participate in the community for the intended reason—intellectual curiosity—and after a while, it will become clear how the culture works and how to share your projects there".
Thank you.I see your point and I understand what I must do. I will stick around and try to naturally blend in. This place seems a bit misterious and I weirdly feel drawn to it the more I read... even if that was not the primary goal for me here. I clearly had a slightly distorted idea about how this works. I'm glad and thankful for your feedback