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Go Ahead, Feed The Trolls (distributionhacks.com)
21 points by alabut on July 15, 2012 | hide | past | favorite | 10 comments



Is the first distribution hack to make sockpuppet accounts to drum up controversy about your website? And then make a post responding to the faux-controversy? Sounds like a Karma Conspiracy to me!

For those playing along at home, this post was submitted to HN by the cofounder of the author of the blog post. How deep does the rabbit hole go?


Riiight, sock puppet accounts to get on the front page of HN... on a Saturday night when the traffic is practically zero.

No, Danielle's just having fun writing on Svbtle and treating it as her own fun shiny toy for the day. The scary thing is that this how she blows off steam, you should see her when she really gets going.


Dude, we should have made them. Somehow I don't think it would have worked if we had though, because I wouldn't have done my usual prayer to the startup gods for trolls - which inspired all these blogging shenanigans in the first place

BTW for those who are curious, HN traffic is definitely not zero on a Saturday night. These two posts combined have done 2795 visits so far (in 3 hours or so)


You wouldn't have been able to make more perfect sock puppet trolls if you tried with actual comments like:

"I've never heard of Twilio, can haz power users?"


Saturday night is not the same for every one here... It's Sunday 10:30am for me ;)


I can't take credit for that degree of inception, we did not create any fake accounts.

However, I am not against that tactic in the case where someone's company launch story goes onto HN, doesn't get the needed votes, and then they desperately need to get it to the front page. It really should be a last ditch effort though, and there are better ways to ensure getting those first few crucial votes.


I don't get this. I'm not here for launch stories.

Showing launch stories down to HNers throats is not the purpose of HN. Startup scene is so hot now that we could do nothing but read those "yay, I'm a CEO!".

I'm here if you do something interesting, like a product.


Pinch, poke, you owe me a Coke.


I don't think it would work on Reddit or Digg, HN is different because it's more difficult to downvote posts (not everyone can do it).





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