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Is Show HN dead? No, but it's drowning

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Re: Is Show HN dead? No, but it's drowning

#361

Post by ThrowawayR2 »

codingdave wrote: post #229
dang wrote: post #177

Yes, we need to do something about this and tomhow and I are talking about it - it's not clear yet what. Raising the quality bar would likely cut down on quantity as a side effect, and that would be a nice solution. One idea that a user proposed is a review queue where experienced HN users would help new Show HN submitters craft their posts to be more interesting and fit HN's conventions more.

What I see is new users who are trying to share something without having yet understood HN. I get the impression that they think of "Show HN" as no different than "Show and Tell", and that putting the label on their post is communicating the message of "Here is something I want people to see", instead of "Here is something you can try out". So while I understand that new features on HN are few and far between, a quic…

The explanation should also prominently include a "no advertising or marketing" admonition since the submitters that don't mean well often seem to think putting Show HN will let them get away with it.

Re: Is Show HN dead? No, but it's drowning

#364

Post by simoncion »

yoyohello13 wrote: post #165
SCdF wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed, and were gonna see this everywhere that AI can touch. Our filter functions for books, video, music, etc are all now broken. And worst of all that breaking coincides with an avalanche of slop, making detection even harder. There is this real disconnect between what the visible level of effort implies you've done, and what you actually have to do. It's going to be interesting to see how our filters get rewired…

I have a sci-fi series I've followed religiously for probably 10 years now. It's called the 'Undying Mercenaries' series. The author is prolific, like he's been putting out a book in this series every 6 months since 2011. I'm sure he has used ghost writers in the past, but the books were always generally a good time. Last year though I purchased the next book in the series and I am 99% sure it was AI generated. None…

If you've some time to burn, write the author and/or his publisher and let them know that the guy's new ghostwriter sucks shit. If this is very seriously making your consider not picking up the next book in the series, be sure to mention that.

If folks just stop purchasing the new books, they can imagine a reason for the lost sales that's convenient for them, but if folks tell them why they stopped purchasing, there's a lot less room for that kind of nonsense.

Re: Is Show HN dead? No, but it's drowning

#365

Post by ch4s3 »

fainpul wrote: post #129
zero_shift wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the great benefits of AI tools, is they allow anyone to build stuff... even if they have no ideas or knowledge. One of the great drawbacks of AI tools, is they allow anyone to build stuff... even if they have no ideas or knowledge. It used to be that ShowHN was a filter: in order to show stuff, you had to have done work. And if you did the work, you probably thought about the problem, at the very least the pro…

People who got "enabled" by AI to produce stuff, just need to learn to keep their "target audience of one"-projects to themselves. Right now it feels like those fresh parents who show every person they meet the latest photos / videos of their baby, thinking everybody will find them super cute and interesting.

I get that, and mostly agree but some people will really have the cutest kitten the most beautiful sunset photo. Hopefully we figure out how to discern as fast as we can churn.

Re: Is Show HN dead? No, but it's drowning

#366

Post by 3vidence »

marginalia_nu wrote: post #143
fainpul wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People who got "enabled" by AI to produce stuff, just need to learn to keep their "target audience of one"-projects to themselves. Right now it feels like those fresh parents who show every person they meet the latest photos / videos of their baby, thinking everybody will find them super cute and interesting.

Yeah, I think it's sort of an etiquette thing we haven't arrived at yet. It's a bit parallel to that thing we had in 2023 where dinguses went into every thread and proudly announced what ChatGPT had to say about the subject. Consensus eventually become that this was annoying and unhelpful.

My manager at work still does this in work chats and it drives me a bit crazy. If I want to k own what an LLMs take on the subject is I can just go ask it.

The chat is for people to discuss people stuff.

Re: Is Show HN dead? No, but it's drowning

#368

Post by kranner »

marginalia_nu wrote: post #202
Gigacore wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I shared a well-thought vibecoded app on ShowHN last month. It took a few hours to get POC and two weeks to fully develop a product to meet my requirements. Nobody cared.

Sqfty? I mean it's a real problem, but it's also a solved problem, and also not a problem that comes up a lot unless you're doing the sort of engineering where you're using a CAD tool already. I don't doubt it's useful, and seems pretty well crafted what little I tried it, but it doesn't really invite much discussion.

Also, just a URL with no explanation and no supporting text in the post.

If the poster can't be bothered to talk about why they made it... actually it's not even that. Just say hello, at least a hello. Show your audience you're a person. Humans like to talk to other humans.

Re: Is Show HN dead? No, but it's drowning

#369

Post by kranner »

ModernMech wrote: post #332
marginalia_nu wrote: post #10

I don't actually mind AI-aided development, a tool is a tool and should be used if you find it useful, but I think the vibe coded show HN projects are overall pretty boring. They generally don't have a lot of work put into them, and as a result, the author (pilot?) hasn't generally thought too much about the problem space, and so there isn't really much of a discussion to be had. The cool part about pre-AI show HN is…

> I think the vibe coded show HN projects are overall pretty boring. Agreed. r/ProgrammingLanguages had to deal with this recently in the same way HN has to; people were submitting these obviously vibecoded languages there that barely did anything, just a deluge of "make me a language that does X", where it doesn't actually do X or embody any of the properties that were prompted. One thing that was pointed out was "M…

r/macapps is also putting new requirements in place [1], requiring among other things a statement of what your app solves, how it's better than existing solutions and even a changelog/roadmap.

I would bet just the first two text fields would be enough to catch out vibecoders.

[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/macapps/comments/1r6d06r/new_post_r...

Re: Is Show HN dead? No, but it's drowning

#370

Post by DetroitThrow »

jedberg wrote: post #344
DetroitThrow wrote: post #341

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe just hide them if they post GitHub links. I've loved some of the vibe coded apps that are hosted somewhere that have made the front page, but a lot of the links to GitHub projects intended to farm stars for throwaway portfolio padding (which often don't work). Egh. No silver bullet here.

As someone who has posted a couple of Show HNs that went to GitHub, I'd have to respectfully disagree. :) We are sharing language libraries, so GH makes the most sense. You can get the library and sample apps there.

Oh yes, I'd be very disappointed with no GH links or new code libraries, but making GH links for new users go through stricter review/more limited visibility might be a good trade off.

You still somewhat mute new users who want to share a useful/interesting GH link, but I'd hope higher karma users can help us out here.

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