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On HN it all comes down to having 5 people upvoting your post in the first 30 minutes, so of course there is a lot of luck in here. The rule I follow when I wa
by polote 6y ago
On HN it all comes down to having 5 people upvoting your post in the first 30 minutes, so of course there is a lot of luck in here.
The rule I follow when I want to publish one post is this one:
- Publish it one time first and see if you get at least 2 upvotes
- If you got them, try again to post it the next day at 9am (sf time)
- If still not successful try again in 3 days
If you dont get those 5 guys interested in your post in 30 minutes you will never get the frontpage, when you are on the frontpage, then there will be enough people seeing it and deciding if it should stay on the frontpage
On HN there are also a lot of emphasis on the title, and clickbait helps a lot also (look at this current post)
(I manage this [1] newsletter of 'HN blogposts which went unnoticed' and very often a post is linked in the newsletter and then a few days after that reaches the frontpage, because it gets re-posted or included in the second pool chance)
[1] https://hnblogs.substack.com https://hnblogs.substack.com
- mooreds 6y agoGreat insight. Are your rules based on analysis (which would be a fun project!) or experience/instinct?
- polote 6y agoIt's experience from having a few posts reaching the frontpage and seeing how contents published on the newsletter finally reach or not the frontpage
- XCSme 6y agoI disagree, I posted my Show HN thread [0] on a Sunday, got only 1 upvote in 36 hours, but then it started getting traction. I am not sure what happened, but you can still get on the front page even if you don't get upvotes immediately after submission. [0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24746921 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24746921
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- moron4hire 6y agoThe moderators will repost Show HNs that didn't get traction to try to help them out.
- polote 6y agoIt's the second pool chance https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23483538 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23483538
- XCSme 6y agoThanks for the info, that's really interesting, I assumed something like this happened but I didn't know about this system.
- ghaff 6y ago>clickbait helps a lot also I do like to point out that there are bad examples. Titles that misrepresent content or low quality listicle stuff + "You won't believe #2!" But headlines have been trying to entice people to read stories since before there were clicks to bait. I know a lot of people here think headlines should be basically boring but that's not how publications outside of journals etc. have ever operated.