When to post to Hacker News and how many points to make it to the front page • Hacker News Board

Re: When to post to Hacker News and how many points to make it to the front page

#31

Post by henrik_w » Sun, Apr 17, 2016, 7:03 PM UTC

forrestthewoods wrote: post #15

HN is frustrating. I've had two blog posts hit #1 in r/programming recently. Neither got more than 2 points on HN. I could be wrong but I think HN is more random than Reddit. Reddit has lots of randomness of course. But my gut says that escaping New on HN is harder and less predictable.

My experience is that it is much easier to get on the front page of reddit (specifically reddit/r/programming, aka Proggit). As I am writing this, my submission from earlier today there is at number 2 [1] - the same submission to HN got 4 points (which is actually good, but not enough to get to the front page). One reason I think is that the turnover at HN is much higher.

[1] https://henrikwarne.com/2016/04/17/more-good-programming-quo...

Re: When to post to Hacker News and how many points to make it to the front page

#32

Post by nommm-nommm » Sun, Apr 17, 2016, 7:05 PM UTC

fredley wrote: post #5

readcodelearn wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah sorry, it should be EST, updated the article to say that :)

Great stuff, but please normalise to UTC in future. Everyone (reading this) knows their own offset from UTC and can probably makes sense of the data directly in that format. For anything else I have to go and lookup the offset between that timezone and mine.

I don't know my offset from UTC offhand.

Re: When to post to Hacker News and how many points to make it to the front page

#33

Post by jsprogrammer » Sun, Apr 17, 2016, 7:08 PM UTC

minimaxir wrote: post #9

As someone who has looked into this area for Reddit and HN data, here are a few additional notes before everyone starts submitting their blog posts and marketing pieces to HN on weekday mornings: 1) After everything, the analysis is probabilistic. You are not guaranteed to get onto the front page just by submitting on at a high-probability time. 2) There are game-theoric implications; the more people submitting at a…

Unless I read it wrong, the analysis says early-Saturday-morning on the US East Coast is the optimal submission time?

>here are a few additional notes before everyone starts submitting their blog posts and marketing pieces to HN on weekday mornings

Re: When to post to Hacker News and how many points to make it to the front page

#34

Post by jabrams2 » Sun, Apr 17, 2016, 7:10 PM UTC

moonlighter wrote: post #27

Q: Where’s the safest place to hide a body? A: Page 2 of Hacker News.

http://hckrnews.com/ and other sites provide an alternative view of HN posts to combat this issue.

Re: When to post to Hacker News and how many points to make it to the front page

#35

Post by lisivka » Sun, Apr 17, 2016, 7:12 PM UTC

forrestthewoods wrote: post #15

HN is frustrating. I've had two blog posts hit #1 in r/programming recently. Neither got more than 2 points on HN. I could be wrong but I think HN is more random than Reddit. Reddit has lots of randomness of course. But my gut says that escaping New on HN is harder and less predictable.

Why we need exact copy of reddit here? One reddit is not enough?

Re: When to post to Hacker News and how many points to make it to the front page

#36

Post by mintplant » Sun, Apr 17, 2016, 7:15 PM UTC

sillysaurus3 wrote: post #25

forrestthewoods wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it? I thought re-submission is frowned upon. I've also gotten "slow down, you're submitting too fast" when multiple days have passed. That might have been because I'd had a few comments get a bunch of downvotes? I comment a lot but almost never submit stories.

If the HN front page consisted of your content alone, I would be very happy. https://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=forrestthewoods https://blog.forrestthewoods.com/reverse-engineering-sublime... https://gamedevdaily.io/four-ways-to-create-a-mesh-for-a-sph... https://gamedevdaily.io/advanced-behavior-tree-structures-4b... Speaking purely for myself, I hope to see them resubmitted. The post about reverse engineerin…

I liked that one, too. Resubmitted it here:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11515800

Re: When to post to Hacker News and how many points to make it to the front page

#37

Post by forrestthewoods » Sun, Apr 17, 2016, 7:23 PM UTC

lisivka wrote: post #35

forrestthewoods wrote: post #15

HN is frustrating. I've had two blog posts hit #1 in r/programming recently. Neither got more than 2 points on HN. I could be wrong but I think HN is more random than Reddit. Reddit has lots of randomness of course. But my gut says that escaping New on HN is harder and less predictable.

Why we need exact copy of reddit here? One reddit is not enough?

We don't. But because the types on content are so similar we can compare results to look for systemic faults.

Re: When to post to Hacker News and how many points to make it to the front page

#38

Post by lisivka » Sun, Apr 17, 2016, 7:26 PM UTC

forrestthewoods wrote: post #37

lisivka wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why we need exact copy of reddit here? One reddit is not enough?

We don't. But because the types on content are so similar we can compare results to look for systemic faults.

Faults?

Re: When to post to Hacker News and how many points to make it to the front page

#39

Post by sillysaurus3 » Sun, Apr 17, 2016, 8:04 PM UTC

mintplant wrote: post #36

sillysaurus3 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the HN front page consisted of your content alone, I would be very happy. https://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=forrestthewoods https://blog.forrestthewoods.com/reverse-engineering-sublime... https://gamedevdaily.io/four-ways-to-create-a-mesh-for-a-sph... https://gamedevdaily.io/advanced-behavior-tree-structures-4b... Speaking purely for myself, I hope to see them resubmitted. The post about reverse engineerin…

I liked that one, too. Resubmitted it here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11515800

Submissions need to be a bit more organic. :)

I like that it disappeared from the front page, or never showed up, because it means HN's voting ring detector is working very well. Kind of amusing.

I'm sure it'll pop up sometime, though.

Re: When to post to Hacker News and how many points to make it to the front page

#40

Post by forrestthewoods » Sun, Apr 17, 2016, 8:14 PM UTC

sillysaurus3 wrote: post #39

mintplant wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I liked that one, too. Resubmitted it here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11515800

Submissions need to be a bit more organic. :) I like that it disappeared from the front page, or never showed up, because it means HN's voting ring detector is working very well. Kind of amusing. I'm sure it'll pop up sometime, though.

And here I thought some of my content would see the front page.

How disappointing. :(