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What predicts Show HN front page success? I analyzed 73k recent ShowHN posts

3 points by margotli 5mo ago

margotli 5mo ago
I used a dataset from HuggingАace to analyse all Show HN posts for the past 3 years. Here is what influences if the post gets on the front page. - Niche technical topics have the highest viral rates (Rust, Postgress, Lua, etc) - Open source tools are the top performing category with 13.9% viral rate - "I built" outperforms "We built" - Sunday noon UTC has the highest chances to hit the front page - Titles with a parenthetical work much better that those without. More insights in the blog article.
syezdin 5mo ago
R u sure about Sunday though?
- margotli 5mo ago
  That what surprised me too, also Saturday turns out working just fine. My explanation would be that on weekends there is less competition for the attention. Even with less people on the platform, it's still easier to get noticed.
alexjreid 5mo ago
This is great insight, thank you. I have recently learnt that being shadow banned doesn't help either, so not sure if you'll see this comment. Either way, great work.
- margotli 5mo ago
  Ha-ha, all good - I can see your comment.
  - alexjreid 5mo ago
    It was my own fault to be fair, should have been more up on the guidelines.
- syezdin 5mo ago
  Yeah, we can see this comment. What for you got shadowbanned? (Or maybe it’s a bad idea to ask, and your reply will get shadowbanned)
  - alexjreid 5mo ago
    I think I was posting an open source project of mine too many times (2-3 times different posts on about the same project but different angles) pointing to the same domain. Maybe the consensus is that it is utter garbage, who knows hahah. Wasn't trying to spam, figured that if there was no interest it'd sink without a trace. Which it did of course as nobody saw it. I was generally just trying to get a temperature check on whether it was a good idea or not. I understand, I mean, HN's house HN's rules - genuinely don't want to turn this into a debate about moderation!
ThrowawayR2 5mo ago
Not being thinly disguised marketing and adhering to the Show HN guidelines (https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html) helps immensely.

3 points by margotli 5mo ago

I used a dataset from HuggingАace to analyse all Show HN posts for the past 3 years. Here is what influences if the post gets on the front page. - Niche technical topics have the highest viral rates (Rust, Postgress, Lua, etc) - Open source tools are the top performing category with 13.9% viral rate - "I built" outperforms "We built" - Sunday noon UTC has the highest chances to hit the front page - Titles with a parenthetical work much better that those without. More insights in the blog article.

syezdin 5mo ago

R u sure about Sunday though?

margotli 5mo ago
That what surprised me too, also Saturday turns out working just fine. My explanation would be that on weekends there is less competition for the attention. Even with less people on the platform, it's still easier to get noticed.

alexjreid 5mo ago

This is great insight, thank you. I have recently learnt that being shadow banned doesn't help either, so not sure if you'll see this comment. Either way, great work.

margotli 5mo ago
Ha-ha, all good - I can see your comment.
- alexjreid 5mo ago
  It was my own fault to be fair, should have been more up on the guidelines.
syezdin 5mo ago
Yeah, we can see this comment. What for you got shadowbanned? (Or maybe it’s a bad idea to ask, and your reply will get shadowbanned)
- alexjreid 5mo ago
  I think I was posting an open source project of mine too many times (2-3 times different posts on about the same project but different angles) pointing to the same domain. Maybe the consensus is that it is utter garbage, who knows hahah. Wasn't trying to spam, figured that if there was no interest it'd sink without a trace. Which it did of course as nobody saw it. I was generally just trying to get a temperature check on whether it was a good idea or not. I understand, I mean, HN's house HN's rules - genuinely don't want to turn this into a debate about moderation!

ThrowawayR2 5mo ago

Not being thinly disguised marketing and adhering to the Show HN guidelines (https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html) helps immensely.