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0 pointscryptoz14y ago0 comments

So, I was nervous of that but decided to post anyway. I think HN seems okay with this post (it currently has 9 points, for full disclosure) but if this type of post isn't welcome here, I will take it down. I'm not profiting off this and the project is entirely open source, so I felt okay about it. Does HN want it deleted?

0 comments

bryanlarsen14y ago

In my opinion, it was dman's post that was in poor taste. Hacker news is and should be about people showing off their hacks. Additionally his post adds no content -- a simple click on the downvote button provides all the information and feedback required.

dman14y ago

I only kept my post brief to be polite. While I agree that Hacker News is the place to show off hacks hijacking threads is not the way to do it. If parent poster has a hack that is worth showing on HN he should submit it as a news item and if there is intrinsic merit the post will attract an audience. Posting self promotional information on threads that are tangentially related is in poor taste in my opinion. Its a slippery slope - if every iphone post here attracted comments by all of us who were building an iphone app then HN would be the worse for it.

esrauch14y ago

If he was pushing a random android app on an article that was about a random android phone then you would have a good point. In this case it is more than just tangentially related, the vast majority (read: pretty much all) android phones don't have barometers, this is pretty much the only phone that can even run it. And it also answers the question of "what would I ever do with a barometer on my phone?".

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donaq14y ago

I think the post was relevant. I don't mind self-promotion if the thing being promoted has hack value.

[Edit] Re dsman's comment: "... if every iphone post here attracted comments by all of us who were building an iphone app then HN would be the worse for it"

It depends, IMO, on the nature of the app. Trying to crowdsource weather prediction is a sufficiently interesting hack that I think HN would very much not be the worse for knowing about this. I would only find it objectionable if cryptoz starts promoting in every Galaxy Nexus thread.

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