EDIT: Yep, I see the message now in Firefox and Chrome. Should I disable? I'm not sure I see the problem with reminding people who came to the post from HN to vote for the story if they think it's worthwhile, but what do others think?
I thought it was a pretty obnoxious message, and that it should be disabled.
Honestly, I find the whole tone of this discussion pretty obnoxious. The thing that can destroy HN is when the front page stops being filled with the stories which people find most interesting and starts being filled with borderline-interesting stories from the best self-promoters.
With regard to the "if you like this story, please upvote" thing, I understand your point, which is why I asked for feedback. But as to the original topic of this blog post, I think we're on different pages. I don't see anything wrong with the fact that I tweet my blog posts to my followers and some of them happened to find it interesting and submit to HN. Should I stop using Twitter and RSS as promotional tools because it might somehow be unfair to the person who doesn't use them but writes better content? This seems akin to arguing that startups shouldn't worry about marketing and sales and self-promotion and should instead just make something awesome and then people will flock to them. I really (truly) wish the world worked that way, but it simply does not.
Honestly I think the whole idea of trying to get your own blog posts onto HN is contrary to the spirit of HN. It seems... somewhat gauche, like asking for a birthday present. If someone wants to give you an upvote or a birthday present they'll give you an upvote or a birthday present, but actively campaigning for one is socially unacceptable (unless you're under the age of, say, twelve, in which case the birthday-present case is okay).
Even submitting your own blog posts for consideration is something that I don't really consider to be kosher, and I'd never do it myself.
Yes, it's ok to submit your own stuff. If you get to the point where you've submitted 20 things and none of them got any upvotes, though, you may want to start to be more selective.
I thought it was a pretty obnoxious message, and that it should be disabled.
Honestly, I find the whole tone of this discussion pretty obnoxious. The thing that can destroy HN is when the front page stops being filled with the stories which people find most interesting and starts being filled with borderline-interesting stories from the best self-promoters.