
Trends in Show HN posts - karimf
https://toddwschneider.com/dashboards/hacker-news-trends/?q=Show+HN&f=title&s=text&m=frac_items&t=month
======
dang
I'm glad to see Show HNs ticking up a bit. We've been putting more effort into
finding good ones that fall through the cracks. Anyone who wants to help with
that should browse
[https://news.ycombinator.com/shownew](https://news.ycombinator.com/shownew).

If you see a Show HN (or any submission!) that's particularly good and isn't
getting attention, let us know at hn@ycombinator.com. We'll take a look and
maybe put it in the second-chance pool
([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11662380](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11662380)),
so it will get a random placement on HN's front page.

The best such suggestions come from people who aren't personally connected to
the article or project, but just ran across it.

~~~
airstrike
> Anyone who wants to help with that should browse
> [https://news.ycombinator.com/shownew](https://news.ycombinator.com/shownew).

And as you browse, it's worth keeping the Show HN guidelines in mind,
particularly those around commenting
[https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html)
(which I actually had never seen before clicking on that spike in 2014...)

------
dan-robertson
I wish there were some more analysis of the trends but lots of interesting
analysis would be hard to do. I had a quick search and found some trends. eg,
lisp decreased in popularity, overtaken by clojure then Haskell, then peak JS,
but my memory of HN was that lisp articles were reasonably common until 2015
at least, Haskell had a peak around 2012-2016 and in the early 2010s there
were loads of articles about all the different web frameworks. I see a lot
less of all of those things today. Probably the biggest increase has been in
current affairs. There was also a period around 2016 when articles from
literary magazines (<city> review [of books]) were popular, typically articles
about politics more than books. I don’t see them so much either, I barely even
see articles from the new Yorker anymore.

The problem with using this site to look for some of those things is that
those things were usually not mentioned in the title. I’m glad that HN still
has a lot of “mystery” titles where you don’t know what you’re going to get
when you click a link.

------
saagarjha
Ever wondered if Hacker News has vote inflation?
[https://toddwschneider.com/dashboards/hacker-news-
trends/?q=...](https://toddwschneider.com/dashboards/hacker-news-
trends/?q=.*&f=title&s=exact_case_insensitive&m=items_score&t=month)

~~~
dang
I don't know about vote inflation but I'm pretty sure we need some karma
inflation. New users need easier ways to get in the game.

(Of course karma is silly and no one cares very much about it, but it's not
nothing, and as long as we have it we should have a system with better
circulation.)

~~~
renewiltord
I don't really think it's that hard as a new user. I've been here 25 days and
I just got downvote powers, which is cool. I imagine I'll get vouch powers at
this rate next month but I haven't found anyone I want to vouch anyway so it
doesn't seem that bad.

~~~
kick
Vouch mostly comes in handy for stories.

~~~
saagarjha
They're great for bringing in good comments from new accounts as well.

~~~
kick
Yeah, certainly.

------
lettergram
Looks similar to something I built:
[https://hnprofile.com/compare?search=ruby,python](https://hnprofile.com/compare?search=ruby,python)

Note the rules for "Show HN" state:

> Show HN is a way to share something that you've made on Hacker News.

and/or

> Show HN is for something you've made that other people can play with. HN
> users can try it out, give you feedback, and ask questions in the thread.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html)

The person who submitted does not appear to be the original author (who is
Todd W. Schneider). Interesting content though.

~~~
johnmaguire2013
Are you suggesting this post goes against the rules because the submitter
didn't create it? This post is not a Show HN.

~~~
darrenf
No, but its original title started with "Show HN" which misled me at the time
(and perhaps the poster to whom you're replying).

~~~
karimf
Well, I was trying to be a bit clever. I thought that by removing the colon
after "Show HN" part, I could use it as a subject. The original title was
"Show HN Trends on Hacker News."

But that caused a lot of confusions indeed. Glad that dang has changed the
title to be a more appropriate one.

~~~
lettergram
Ah I see - that makes sense in retrospect! Not at the time though haha

------
jameslk
The recent uptick in Show HN posts since the coronavirus pandemic started is
interesting. I have some guesses why this is occurring (WFH, layoffs, new
problems to solve) but it would be interesting to know exactly what's driving
it.

------
jedberg
> Show HN: This up votes itself

Ironic that that is still number one. A shady way to submit a bug, but props
to HN for not burying it or punishing the submitter.

~~~
kick
Shady? It's great. Little increases site culture in a more positive way than a
community taking advantage of a flaw in the software it's running on,
especially on a site wanting to encourage curiosity like HN. I'm surprised you
disagree; reddit had some of the coolest examples of this:

[https://old.reddit.com/r/reddit.com/comments/2pnpu/_/](https://old.reddit.com/r/reddit.com/comments/2pnpu/_/)

~~~
jedberg
I disagree specifically because I've been on the receiving end enough times to
know that as fun as it is, it's a huge pain in the ass for the devs who have
to scramble to fix it before someone exploits it for evil.

~~~
kick
If reddit wouldn't have moved away from Lisp, maybe you wouldn't have had to
scramble to fix it. HN (as an example of a site that didn't move away from
Lisp) fixes are always fairly quick, and the site has rarely had downtime.

------
giarc
It's a cool tool but my main reason for commenting is to say how quick and
fast the graph updates! Good work.

------
pedalpete
What caused the huge spike in 2014? Seems only one of the top voted items was
around that time.

