Comment by brabel
2 years ago
And can get completely different response when posted at just the right/wrong time. I've had posts I made that got no attention, just for someone else to post the same thing a few days/weeks later and it reached near the top, with hundreds of comments.
My go-to "trick" is to check /new beforehand. If the last post on the first page is posted under an hour ago, odds are whatever you post is gonna be burried very quickly afterwards.
If there's less things posted to /new at that particular time, it seems a bit more likely someone gets a chance to interact with it before it disappears from that first page of /new.
Interesting. I was wondering why my recent show HN posts were significantly less successful than a (imo not as good) post on a similar topic the day before.
Is there some kind of graph of HN activity which shows the highs and lows? Sounds liie it would be wise to post during the lower traffic periods.
My modestly successful Show HN for my last project [0] was the third time I'd submitted it - the first two got no traction at all. It does feel like luck of the draw sometimes, and it can be very demotivating.
At least HN tolerates reposts if you don't get any attention the first time round [1]; if your launch bombs on ProductHunt, you don't get a second chance (ask me how I know!)
On gsky's about HN traffic lasting two days - that was definitely my experience, though if it's interesting enough it'll likely get picked up by other sites too. Blogs, podcasts etc are always picking stuff up from Reddit and HN.
[0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9772114
That meta post is very helpful. I thought dang had to email you for the second chance slot.