zlacker

I asked them to take that bit out at the end and it looks like they did.

General remark for startups wanting attention on HN: it's not good to end an interesting article with a call-to-action that makes your article feel like an ad. Readers who read to the end experience that as a bait-and-switch and end up feeling betrayed.

What works much better is to disclose right up front what your startup is and how it's related to the article content. Once you've gotten that out of the way, the reader can then dive into the (hopefully) interesting content and end the article on a satisfying note.

Btw, I have a set of notes on how to write for HN that I'm working (slowly) on turning into an essay. If anyone wants a copy, email me at hn@ycombinator.com and I'll be happy to send it. It includes the above point and a bunch more.

>>dang+(OP)
I think it’s disturbing you asked someone to change their content and even more disturbing that they complied. You are experienced at moderating Havker News have no business being a global censor for content out in the world. This sucks.

As a reader I’d have appreciated the original. And I’d appreciate a nice HN alternative.

>>educti+ut
Perhaps I should explain. What I actually did was suggest that it would be in their interest to take out the bit that some readers were complaining about, because it felt like an ad at the end. Of course they were free not to follow my suggestion.

I admit that's not precisely how I described it in the GP comment but it never crossed my mind that anyone would care. Commenter objections never fail to surprise!

Edit: I think I was right that it was in their interest as well as all of ours, because earlier the thread was dominated by complaints like this:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35718321

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35718172

... and after the change, it has been filling up with much more interesting on-topic comments. From my perspective that's a win-win-win, but YMMV.

>>educti+ut
Even if they decided not to change it which is fully within their rights and somehow that gets the article moderated off the front page of Hacker News, isn't that still moderating Hacker News? No one is getting censored, just like nobody is entitled to have their article be on Hacker News.

>>dang+(OP)
There's another interesting article on front page about oauth that's actually almost exactly the same. A very long article about oauth implementation. And sadly I knew the add was coming the whole time and there it was as the last paragraph. It seems that unfortunately or fortunately some of the best really informative intermediate depth blog posts (read: not medium surface level stuff) tends to be an advert by a company offering a very technical product.