
Ask HN: What are the best ways to promote any opensource project? - MinhasKamal
How I can promote and present my open source project to the community in a nice and legal way. I mean, I do not want to advertise or spam it, and annoy others.
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gus_massa
Don't use sockpupets or friends to upvote the project.

Usually, in HN, don't make a small comment about your own submission. Reply to
the questions in the threads, but try not to write a new comment. (Sometime
it's a good idea to make a comment.)

Both projects you have submitted look like things that a good antivirus should
detect and block. Do you have a project that is less controversial?

You submitted two projects in one day. If your plan was to continue submitting
two projects each day, then I think it's too much. If your plan was to submit
only one project per week, then I think it's ok.

I prefer an blog post about some interesting detail or technical problem of
you project than a direct link to github. Both projects have a good readme.md,
but a long blog post is usually better to get attention here. (But not too
ling.)

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MinhasKamal
I am very new to HN, only learning about things here...

I actually could not understand how to showcase a project. So the the first
submission was a mistake. I could not delete it either. So I experimentally
posted another.

Thank you a lot for visiting my projects. Your advice was really helpful.

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brudgers
Over the long term, the best way is to build a community of users. That means
a lot of work that 'does not scale' like communicating with individuals who
are using the project to solve projects right now rather than broadly
overselling it to people who don't have exactly the problem it solves well.

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MinhasKamal
Thanks a lot, I really appreciate your thought.

But what should be the first step to build up a community? How to let others
know that there is a tool that can be helpful for them?

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brudgers
One person at a time. It might be harder work than writing the code depending
on your tool set. Quality documentation, a useful landing page, clear
enthusiastic communications to individuals that help them with their problems.

The pit that many open source projects fall into is looking for people to do
work rather than looking for people who need help.

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MinhasKamal
HN is a great place for showcasing software projects, and getting feedback.
Are there other sites like it too?

