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Nope, not at all. Unless it's about my submissions. In that case, yes, 100%! Joking aside, the only way to get to the front page is either via pure luck, and l

Nope, not at all. Unless it's about my submissions. In that case, yes, 100%! Joking aside, the only way to get to the front page is either via pure luck, and lots of it, or on a bring-your-own-upvoters basis. I think it's normal with the amount of traffic, users, and submitted posts that we see here. The front page became, over time, an expression of what the "general audience" of techies like - an intersection of their interests, not a sum. It's perfectly natural given that there are only 30 articles on the front page - the competition is fierce, and you can't get there by relying solely on people interested in particular content. It reminds me of elections: while you may be able to get something by relying on your die-hard electorate, to actually win you need to appeal to just about anyone and their cat...

viraptor 4y ago
> the only way to get to the front page is either via pure luck, and lots of it, or on a bring-your-own-upvoters basis I don't agree. I hit the front page with ~50% of my own content submitted by me or others and I know others who also had good success tailoring their posts for HN users. Sure, luck plays its part as does the time of the day/week. But you can help the luck a lot by considering your audience.
- klibertp 4y ago
  Any advice on what to consider and how to tailor content for HN users? I've seen some advice before, but I just couldn't square these with the content I'm interested in, ie. following that advice would make the content into something I'm less interested in. Even if that worked, what would be the point?
  - viraptor 4y ago
    From my experience - stories do better than explanations, things you can play with do better than text, slightly controversial things do better than plain, almost everyone is interested in a tech/business/novelty crossover. Some of this you can change without changing the topic itself. This is not even HN specific - just how to make writing interesting, which many authors don't. Then again, I'm a sample of 1, so don't listen to me :-)
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- lapcat 4y ago
  "I hit the front page with ~50% of my own content submitted by me or others" How many submissions are you talking about? I only found this: https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=github.com/viraptor https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=github.com/viraptor
  - viraptor 4y ago
    Around 15 out of 30. In your link you're only filtering by my github.
    - lapcat 4y ago
      That's the only thing I found when looking at your submissions: https://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=viraptor https://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=viraptor But I guess I didn't go back far enough, because there are a couple of posts from 2015 with 200+ votes: https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=viraptor.info https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=viraptor.info Is there another domain?
      - viraptor 4y ago
        There's another account :-)
- sph 4y ago
  Maybe your regular posting window coincides with the ideal posting window. I rarely post, and when I do it's in early EU morning. 90% of the time, I don't get more than a single upvote, while I've found late US afternoon to have better luck. Not sure if European early birds are a tough crowd, or if Western evening/night time users are more generous.
gus_massa 4y ago
> or on a bring-your-own-upvoters basis That will probably get automatically and/or manually detected and get the submission flagged or killed and the user/site banned if they do it too much. From the FAQ: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html > Can I ask people to upvote my submission? > No. Users should vote for a story because they personally find it intellectually interesting, not because someone has content to promote. We penalize or ban submissions, accounts, and sites that break this rule, so please don't. > Can I ask people to comment on my submission? > No, for the same reason. It's also not in your interest: HN readers are sensitive to this and will detect it, flag it, and use unkind words like 'spam'.
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 4y ago
  <popular person on twitter>: "Check out my latest post: <link to blog post on HN>." They didn't ask for comments or votes.
  - gus_massa 4y ago
    The software may misclassify them as voting ring, or sockpuppets or shills or whaterver and still ban them. I'm not sure if there is an internal classification, because the details have never been published because they are part of the secret sauce. Users may notice and then flag and/or email the mods. Also, if the new users make a lot of silly comments like > This is great! Is the best post/app I've ever seen!!! it will increase the chance of making people angry and flagging the post.

viraptor 4y ago

> the only way to get to the front page is either via pure luck, and lots of it, or on a bring-your-own-upvoters basis I don't agree. I hit the front page with ~50% of my own content submitted by me or others and I know others who also had good success tailoring their posts for HN users. Sure, luck plays its part as does the time of the day/week. But you can help the luck a lot by considering your audience.

klibertp 4y ago
Any advice on what to consider and how to tailor content for HN users? I've seen some advice before, but I just couldn't square these with the content I'm interested in, ie. following that advice would make the content into something I'm less interested in. Even if that worked, what would be the point?
- viraptor 4y ago
  From my experience - stories do better than explanations, things you can play with do better than text, slightly controversial things do better than plain, almost everyone is interested in a tech/business/novelty crossover. Some of this you can change without changing the topic itself. This is not even HN specific - just how to make writing interesting, which many authors don't. Then again, I'm a sample of 1, so don't listen to me :-)
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
lapcat 4y ago
"I hit the front page with ~50% of my own content submitted by me or others" How many submissions are you talking about? I only found this: https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=github.com/viraptor https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=github.com/viraptor
- viraptor 4y ago
  Around 15 out of 30. In your link you're only filtering by my github.
  - lapcat 4y ago
    That's the only thing I found when looking at your submissions: https://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=viraptor https://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=viraptor But I guess I didn't go back far enough, because there are a couple of posts from 2015 with 200+ votes: https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=viraptor.info https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=viraptor.info Is there another domain?
    - viraptor 4y ago
      There's another account :-)
sph 4y ago
Maybe your regular posting window coincides with the ideal posting window. I rarely post, and when I do it's in early EU morning. 90% of the time, I don't get more than a single upvote, while I've found late US afternoon to have better luck. Not sure if European early birds are a tough crowd, or if Western evening/night time users are more generous.

gus_massa 4y ago

> or on a bring-your-own-upvoters basis That will probably get automatically and/or manually detected and get the submission flagged or killed and the user/site banned if they do it too much. From the FAQ: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html > Can I ask people to upvote my submission? > No. Users should vote for a story because they personally find it intellectually interesting, not because someone has content to promote. We penalize or ban submissions, accounts, and sites that break this rule, so please don't. > Can I ask people to comment on my submission? > No, for the same reason. It's also not in your interest: HN readers are sensitive to this and will detect it, flag it, and use unkind words like 'spam'.

2OEH8eoCRo0 4y ago
<popular person on twitter>: "Check out my latest post: <link to blog post on HN>." They didn't ask for comments or votes.
- gus_massa 4y ago
  The software may misclassify them as voting ring, or sockpuppets or shills or whaterver and still ban them. I'm not sure if there is an internal classification, because the details have never been published because they are part of the secret sauce. Users may notice and then flag and/or email the mods. Also, if the new users make a lot of silly comments like > This is great! Is the best post/app I've ever seen!!! it will increase the chance of making people angry and flagging the post.