HN Explorer

Why Does Every Single TechCrunch Article Get Submitted To HN?

7 points by DigitalSea ↗ HN
Call me cynical, but I haven't considered TechCrunch the epitome of tech journalism for a very long time. The articles are usually of low quality, but the funny thing is that it seems like people sit there refreshing TechCrunch for new articles to be the first one to post it onto Hacker News. Am I wrong?

6 comments

[ 3.7 ms ] story [ 24.9 ms ] thread
bkyan
It only takes one person to submit an article. Given the number of HN readers out there, most TC articles would be submitted simply from a probabilistic standpoint.
DigitalSea
Yeah but are people just submitting them because they think HN readers foam at the mouth in excitement every time they submit a TC article and that it's easier to get karma for submitting a known site?
nembleton
Hehe. In the end, the Karma is the main reason in either scenarios. Maybe PG could check these articles and the posters to extrapolate out some possibilities. Is there so many HN readers out there?
stephengillie
Some sites have bots auto-submit all of their articles to HN. I don't know if PG alters his algorithm in response to this.
DigitalSea
This is a good question. It's next to impossible to stop this kind of behaviour unless someone reports it I guess. Most other sites have the same issue.
dewiz
One possible explanation: karma.

the more you "contribute" the higher the possibility that you get upvoted.

Of course, if this is true it sounds like cheating, but no one is forced to upvote, so at the end of the day, it's more about the success of HN as a news engine.