4 ms·

What I learned from my Show HN failing and getting flagged

2 points by l1am0 6y ago

Earlier today I submitted a Show HN which failed badly until it got flagged (See. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24960293) This is three things I learned from this experience: - Stay the fu around for Show HN: I went for dinner with my parents about 30 minutes after the submission and during the dinner time I was not able to answer questions - Have an archive of your newsletter in order to allow people to know what they are getting themselves into (https://simon-frey.com/weeklycspaper/archive/) - Do not use the default email templates. A lot of the confusions came up as I took the default sign up templates which looked too generic. I hope to make up a little bit for my mistakes earlier today with this post. Maybe after fixing this mistakes some of you might be interested in the newsletter after all: I will send you a research paper mainly about distributed systems and backend development (as this are my day-to-day topics): https://simon-frey.com/weeklycspaper/ p.S. Does anyone of you how the mechanism of getting flagged works?

l1am0 6y ago
For clickable versions of the links: Failed Show HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24960293 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24960293 Newsletter Archive: https://simon-frey.com/weeklycspaper/archive/ https://simon-frey.com/weeklycspaper/archive/ Weekly CS Paper Newsletter: https://simon-frey.com/weeklycspaper/ https://simon-frey.com/weeklycspaper/
mtmail 6y ago
https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html lists sign-up pages and newsletters as off-topic. Even with zero comments there was the chance it was deemed not a fit for the Show HN category. It's curious that on the one hand founders are told to start with something super basic to check user interest, and a landing page promising something (which may or may not exist) is such an option. On the other hand Show HN requires something ready and filter submission that only promise but hide the product. Link to the archives helps, removing Show HN, too.
- l1am0 6y ago
  Ah thank you. I apparently over read that. My assumption was, it happened because I was not fast enough on responding to comments. Yeah kind weird if that was the reason as the newsletter is the project in itself and not something to check the user interest
  - floatingatoll 6y ago
    If the newsletter is the project itself, then it isn’t a valid use of “Show HN”, since the guidelines specifically exclude newsletters. If you think that the exclusion only excludes newsletters under circumstances other than your own, you can use the footer Contact link to ask the mods for guidance. They can clarify the intent of the rules, alter the wording in the guidelines to close loopholes, and override community flags if they support your interpretation.
floatingatoll 6y ago
“Flagged” is exclusively “users click flag, algorithm tipping point reached”. The site admins can offer guidance on how something could result in heavy flagging, and can override it if it seems like users weren’t acting in good faith. “Dead” is exclusively admins, and can only be overridden by a high karma site user vouching for it (which undeads it).

2 points by l1am0 6y ago

l1am0 6y ago

For clickable versions of the links: Failed Show HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24960293 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24960293 Newsletter Archive: https://simon-frey.com/weeklycspaper/archive/ https://simon-frey.com/weeklycspaper/archive/ Weekly CS Paper Newsletter: https://simon-frey.com/weeklycspaper/ https://simon-frey.com/weeklycspaper/

mtmail 6y ago

https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html lists sign-up pages and newsletters as off-topic. Even with zero comments there was the chance it was deemed not a fit for the Show HN category. It's curious that on the one hand founders are told to start with something super basic to check user interest, and a landing page promising something (which may or may not exist) is such an option. On the other hand Show HN requires something ready and filter submission that only promise but hide the product. Link to the archives helps, removing Show HN, too.

l1am0 6y ago
Ah thank you. I apparently over read that. My assumption was, it happened because I was not fast enough on responding to comments. Yeah kind weird if that was the reason as the newsletter is the project in itself and not something to check the user interest
- floatingatoll 6y ago
  If the newsletter is the project itself, then it isn’t a valid use of “Show HN”, since the guidelines specifically exclude newsletters. If you think that the exclusion only excludes newsletters under circumstances other than your own, you can use the footer Contact link to ask the mods for guidance. They can clarify the intent of the rules, alter the wording in the guidelines to close loopholes, and override community flags if they support your interpretation.

floatingatoll 6y ago

“Flagged” is exclusively “users click flag, algorithm tipping point reached”. The site admins can offer guidance on how something could result in heavy flagging, and can override it if it seems like users weren’t acting in good faith. “Dead” is exclusively admins, and can only be overridden by a high karma site user vouching for it (which undeads it).