My comment, since there is a nonzero chance of it getting downvoted/deleted on PH:
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Hi Ryan & the Product Hunt team.
As the person who wrote the Most-Recommended comment on your Medium article with 100+ Recommends, believe me when I say there is a large amount of external interest in the topics of the questions I now ask about Product Hunt.
My questions are simple:
1. What changes, if any, have you made in response to the June Re/Code article accusing Product Hunt of being elitist?
2. You said "all upvotes are equal" in the Medium article as evidence that Product Hunt is fair. Would you say that the binary process of get-on-homepage/do-not-get-on-homepage is just as fair?
3. Whenever someone on Product Hunt upvotes a product, their friends receive a notification saying "X and Y others upvoted Z" with a link to Z. Does this call-to-action skew the upvoting process in favor of people with strong social groups on PH?
4. Do you believe that the current product curation process is meritocratic, that is the best products, on their individual merit, are the ones that are on the front page?
5. As a hypothetical maker trying to get my product onto Product Hunt, would my time be better spent Tweeting and chatting on Slack with Top Hunters or by improving the product itself?
6. Do makers who schedule exclusive launches with the Product Hunt team and offer PH-specific perks get favorable treatment in terms of ranking/exposure? Would this be considered a "conflict of interest"?
7. The new "conflicts of interest" section of the FAQ notes that they should be disclosed in good faith. In the case where a conflict of interest is blatant, such as when a venture capitalist submits a startup they funded (as an casual observer, I notice this happens all the time), are you willing to penalize the investor/submission and force disclosure?
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Hi Ryan & the Product Hunt team.
As the person who wrote the Most-Recommended comment on your Medium article with 100+ Recommends, believe me when I say there is a large amount of external interest in the topics of the questions I now ask about Product Hunt.
My questions are simple:
1. What changes, if any, have you made in response to the June Re/Code article accusing Product Hunt of being elitist?
2. You said "all upvotes are equal" in the Medium article as evidence that Product Hunt is fair. Would you say that the binary process of get-on-homepage/do-not-get-on-homepage is just as fair?
3. Whenever someone on Product Hunt upvotes a product, their friends receive a notification saying "X and Y others upvoted Z" with a link to Z. Does this call-to-action skew the upvoting process in favor of people with strong social groups on PH?
4. Do you believe that the current product curation process is meritocratic, that is the best products, on their individual merit, are the ones that are on the front page?
5. As a hypothetical maker trying to get my product onto Product Hunt, would my time be better spent Tweeting and chatting on Slack with Top Hunters or by improving the product itself?
6. Do makers who schedule exclusive launches with the Product Hunt team and offer PH-specific perks get favorable treatment in terms of ranking/exposure? Would this be considered a "conflict of interest"?
7. The new "conflicts of interest" section of the FAQ notes that they should be disclosed in good faith. In the case where a conflict of interest is blatant, such as when a venture capitalist submits a startup they funded (as an casual observer, I notice this happens all the time), are you willing to penalize the investor/submission and force disclosure?
Thank you for your time.
Max W. @minimaxir
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