Honestly it isn’t too hard to hit the front page with something polished that’s of interest to hn readers. I have not had anything to market to HN, but I’ve hi

Honestly it isn’t too hard to hit the front page with something polished that’s of interest to hn readers. I have not had anything to market to HN, but I’ve hit the front page with articles of my own a couple of times, with an ask HN once or twice, and with submitted articles at least twice. The most popular article I wrote here was about how I tried not having home internet for a month (didn’t work, but was interesting). How can an article like that not hit the front page? You see 2-3 articles a day on that theme: wacky personal experiment + earnest well written personal narrative. Not everyone can do that but it’s hardly some unique alchemy. If I’d done it once I’d say it’s the jackpot but it’s happened often enough without special effort on my part that I think anything reasonably interesting has a fair shot. Assuming the submitter is a HN user, knows the community, has a track record of writing stuff people like, etc. I’m pushing back because I think presenting fairly pedestrian accomplishments as jackpot level achievements has the effect of discouraging people from trying. Obviously not everyone can write well enough to pull that off but most people making a course ought to have that kind of communication skill.