Ask HN: I can't post in Show HN

#1

Post by wensim » Fri, Aug 07, 2026, 7:22 AM UTC

I recently built an html+pdf documentation framework that uses Typst and I want to post to Show HN, so I created a new account last week but when I try to submit my post it only shows "we are temporarily restricting Show HN" and "spend some time to comment, get around with the community," etc.

Are there any ways to remove the restriction? I read some other posts like https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47875235 and sent an email to hn@ycombinator.com five days ago. I believe I made myself pretty clear in my email:

> Hi, I'm Jeremy. I made a pure Typst documentation generator called Haita that doesn't rely on other tools and I wanted to post it to Show HN but found that I couldn't post at all. The project's link is https://wensimehrp.github.io/haita. I did not write it with LLM assistance. Can you please lift the restriction on my account? My account name is wensim and it uses the same email address. Thanks! > > Jeremy

And sometimes I go on shownew just to find that there are posts from accounts that are created only a few hours ago. Am I just unlucky?

Re: Ask HN: I can't post in Show HN

#2

Post by anh-nguyen1 » Fri, Aug 07, 2026, 10:08 AM UTC

me too, maybe our account is too new.

Re: Ask HN: I can't post in Show HN

#3

Post by ImgSharpener » Fri, Aug 07, 2026, 10:27 AM UTC

me too,I search this question,but no answer.

Re: Ask HN: I can't post in Show HN

#4

Post by gus_massa » Sat, Aug 08, 2026, 2:16 AM UTC

> It’s not ready yet! Haita is a decent choice for organizing long, comprehensive documentation. But just like Typst, Haita is an unfinished project, and is (currently) not a serious tool.

Unfinished as in "it does not compile" or unfinished as in "there are some missing advanced features"?

Re: Ask HN: I can't post in Show HN

#5

Post by wensim » Sat, Aug 08, 2026, 3:20 PM UTC

gus_massa wrote: post #4

> It’s not ready yet! Haita is a decent choice for organizing long, comprehensive documentation. But just like Typst, Haita is an unfinished project, and is (currently) not a serious tool. Unfinished as in "it does not compile" or unfinished as in "there are some missing advanced features"?

As in there are some missing features. The site you saw _is_ the compiled output.

There are some features like search and i18n that I really want to add. mdBook has search, sphinx also has search, and the best thing I could do now is to add a pagefind integration. I'm still finding ways to add more features while keeping the project's scope within Typst.

Re: Ask HN: I can't post in Show HN

#6

Post by gus_massa » Sat, Aug 08, 2026, 5:12 PM UTC

wensim wrote: post #5

gus_massa wrote: post #4

> It’s not ready yet! Haita is a decent choice for organizing long, comprehensive documentation. But just like Typst, Haita is an unfinished project, and is (currently) not a serious tool. Unfinished as in "it does not compile" or unfinished as in "there are some missing advanced features"?

As in there are some missing features. The site you saw _is_ the compiled output. There are some features like search and i18n that I really want to add. mdBook has search, sphinx also has search, and the best thing I could do now is to add a pagefind integration. I'm still finding ways to add more features while keeping the project's scope within Typst.

There has been a lot of recent posts that ara 1-day AI slop that does not even compile, so when I see "unfinished", I suspect the worst. Glad to see I was wrong.

I hate when people oversell their projects, but I think you are too far in the oposite direction.

I'd remove the unfinished warning at the top, and call this the 1.0 version. Then modify the "An Unfinished Project" section and the bottom and rename it as "Planed features for version 2.0". (I suspect you would be more confortable calling the current version 0.5 (or whatever random() number you prefer) and then say the planed features are for 1.0.)

---

>> "spend some time to comment, get around with the community"

I'll rehash one of my old comments:

Try to find post you think that are interesting and upvote the good comments. Please don't upvote jokes, unless the joke is very original and very funny.

If you and expert (or semi-expert) in the subject, try to reply to the questions in the comments. You can try to add your own questions if nobody else had asked them.

Don't write short comments. They should be at have at least three or four sentences. This is not a hard rule, but you must know very well what you are doing to write a oneliner. (Very long comments that are a wall of text are also bad.)

It's not necessary that the comments are perfect. I try to fix all the grammar and orthography errors but when I read my comments later I always find a few obvious errors. Also, don't use AI to write or polish them.

There are some official advice in

https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html

My favorite part of the official advice is

> The most important principle on HN, though, is to make thoughtful comments. Thoughtful in both senses: civil and substantial.

And there are some unofficial collections of secret features, but I think this is enough material to read.

Re: Ask HN: I can't post in Show HN

#7

Post by wensim » Sun, Aug 09, 2026, 3:09 AM UTC

gus_massa wrote: post #6

wensim wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As in there are some missing features. The site you saw _is_ the compiled output. There are some features like search and i18n that I really want to add. mdBook has search, sphinx also has search, and the best thing I could do now is to add a pagefind integration. I'm still finding ways to add more features while keeping the project's scope within Typst.

There has been a lot of recent posts that ara 1-day AI slop that does not even compile, so when I see "unfinished", I suspect the worst. Glad to see I was wrong. I hate when people oversell their projects, but I think you are too far in the oposite direction. I'd remove the unfinished warning at the top, and call this the 1.0 version. Then modify the " An Unfinished Project " section and the bottom and rename it as "…

Thanks for the detailed reply.

As you said, I'll participate more in the community, and read the official advice.

A main reason why I call Haita an unfinished project is because I haven't decided the API's shape. Haita itself has a lot of unstable APIs and I might change them any time, and the framework requires two experimental features (though very useful) features from Typst (which are bundle and html).

I guess putting that big blockquote with a red mark at the very top does discourage some people, but I want to be honest and not to oversell myself and the project. I think I'd move that section down, though.