

Ask HN: Writing Title of a thread - sagacity

My 1st thread here. :-)<p>I've noticed that many threads carry titles starting with Ask HN, Show HN etc.<p>Is this a kind of de-facto / voluntary standard or something else? Those 'in the know' please throw some light.<p>Edit: Someone also please list all such prefixes commonly in use.
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DanielStraight
Asking for a list of conventions is like trying to learn slang by reading a
book. If you want to learn the ebb and flow of HN, including all the
conventions and hidden pages (of which there are many, and no, I won't list
them), the best way is to spend time here. Conventions, like slang, are
developed organically, and organically is the only way to learn to use them
fluently.

~~~
sagacity
Thanks for the reply. Although it is a bit wasted on me, I'm sure it'll help
many upcoming hackers who read this thread in times to come.

Speaking for myself, I'm new to _this_ forum, but not to hacker-culture _per
se_ , that I started acquiring long before ER wrote the famous 'hacker-how-to'
piece, as an Electronics hobbyist starting 1981, moving on to Ham Radio
(VU2VKI) and finally to computers and software (1982/83).

The reason why I started this thread was to find the most suitable title for
another thread I was about to start, offering a free web API that many here
could benefit from.

Since I failed to find help, I 'rolled my own' (blame it on my hacker spirit
;-)) and went with:

Offer HN: Announcing free geolocation web API
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2255089>

> the best way is to spend time here.

... time which could perhaps be better spent _developing_ more tools which
could be of use to many here. (Not that I don't enjoy spending time here.)

> Conventions, like slang, are developed organically, and organically is the
> only way to learn to use them fluently.

Although I have no urgent or pressing need to do this, I fully intend to do so
in due course.

Stay well; wish you all the best.

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DanielN
Yep, as I understand it at least, it's the standard for self posts (no url).
It makes it easier to differentiate.

