
Ask HN: Will Hacker News Get An Official "Show HN" Section? - tronium
I&#x27;ve just recently joined Hacker News and I think it is a great community, however there is one flaw. While browsing through the &quot;Ask HN&quot; section, I find nearing half of the entries to be &quot;Show HN&quot;. I think there are so many people who are now &quot;showing&quot; things to HN, it deserves its own section up top. Does anyone else share this opinion?
======
dang
Yep, it definitely will! This has been on our list for a long time and I'm
hopeful we'll get to it soon.

I'm going to bury this thread now. Questions like this are better sent to
hn@ycombinator.com.

------
Arjuna
According to _dang_ , the short answer is _Yes_. This is dang's response to a
similar question, approximately 23 days ago:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7739559](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7739559)

In the same thread, I wrote up some "in the mean-time" search examples that
can help surface "Show HN" submissions:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7738243](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7738243)

------
kapkapkap
The root of the problem is that with the current setup, theres a huge 'luck
factor' into whether or not your Show HN post most makes it off of 'New' and
onto the first page. Its often 1 or 2 votes that can mean the difference
between a post reaching the front page where it can then go on to recieve
double/triple digit upvotes, versus remaining on 'New' and only getting 2-3
votes (in which case someone searching 'Show HN' thinks to themself 'well that
post must not be very good, since it has so few votes'.

Of course the same could be said about news articles, however people dont
spend hundreds of hours writing a news article (in fact it's rarely even the
poster's work at all). While it would certainly be unwise to rely on a Show HN
post as the sole means to launch your project, it certainly one of the top 5
traffic generators when you are just getting off the ground, and it sucks when
your thread falls into obscurity because you didnt get that one extra vote to
move you off of 'New' onto the first page.

~~~
hkmurakami
That's why the "smart" thing for someone to do is to game the system, either
through ring voting, asking friends to upvote on twitter. I can't blame them,
thigh it's technically a bit borderline. I guess it's more legit for show hn
than blogspam though.

~~~
opendais
That is why HN has a voting ring detector. :p

~~~
hkmurakami
I really think that if you have a group of friends who are regular
participants of HN, the ringvoting detector doesnt come into play. (not that
I've tried)

But maybe it's "okay" if the people are actually regulars? Hard to say since
I'm not a mod here.

------
cschmidt
I would love that. I've been working on my startup for over two years, and my
"Show HN" post last week didn't get a single upvote. I was really
disappointed. I think the Show HN section would provide more visibility.

~~~
ThomPete
Don't take this the wrong way but I think I understand why :).

Don't get me wrong I am sure you spend a lot of work on your startup but the
question I would ask myself is. Did you do a good job with how you market it.
In other words did you actually create a product for me to buy?

Your claim:

 _" Easy predictive modeling in minutes Answer the questions that matter most
to your business:"_

is kind of vague and your examples

 _" What will sell best?"

"How much will it pay?"_

Etc. simply sounds too good to be true.

Furthermore your visual style works against your claim. Using old b&w pictures
confuses however visits the site.

You then follow up with an excel like sheet which means nothing.

So in other words people have no idea what you are actually doing. I don't get
a sense of what this product is. Only vague generic claims.

So I would probably spend some more time on making the site more about how
your product is solving predictive analysis (whats your claim to fame compared
to others using those terms) and re-design the visual side of things (I rarely
say this but in your situation it really do need to look quite different)

~~~
cschmidt
Thanks for taking the time to give me some feedback. I'll redo the landing
page to make my value proposition much clearer. And I'll get rid of my retro
pictures, even though I do kind of like them.

In regards to the OP, that's just the kind of feedback I was hoping to get
from my Show HN post. I think I only had 3-4 arrivals from that page before it
dropped of the "New" page into oblivion. Maybe I was just unlucky.

------
brudgers
This thread:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=363](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=363)

is for _feature requests_. There is a link to it at the bottom of most pages
on HN.

------
detcader
I personally like the non-forced feel of how it works now, though I agree luck
is a factor. If it were "official," gaming will start instantly and the value
of the meme drops (as with most things). People start fights like "I'm tired
of seeing ____ in the Show HN section"; it takes the natural flexibility out
of the whole thing. Once you introduce incentives for gaming (the 1.0
probability that many people, including people with money, will see your link)
and create a sectioned-off social space, it becomes a whole different social
dynamic.

Maybe just have a link at the top bar/somewhere else to one of the websites
other commentors have mentioned that feature all ShowHN projects.

------
spacemanmatt
For the duration and focus of my average HN interaction, more
compartmentalization of the content here will mean I read less. Or maybe I'll
only read default compartments. Be careful what you ask for.

------
edavis
FWIW, I think there should be. Always seemed a bit odd seeing Ask and Show
posts merged together like that.

In case anyone's interested, I've put together a project [1] that generates a
"Show HN" RSS feed here:
[http://hnrss.org/feeds/showhn.xml](http://hnrss.org/feeds/showhn.xml)

[1] [https://github.com/edavis/hnrss](https://github.com/edavis/hnrss)

------
jcfrei
there are a couple of community run webpages that filter Show HN posts. Ie.
[http://showinghn.com/](http://showinghn.com/) Or on twitter:
[https://twitter.com/ShowHNDaily](https://twitter.com/ShowHNDaily)

~~~
seanewest
This very thread turned up on ShowHNDaily because of the "Show HN" in the
title.

...thinks like that hold back unofficial filters.

------
opendais
I think that a Show HN section is a good idea.

However, I'd strongly suggest it is more like a subreddit than just a filter
to only show 'Show HN' posts if possible. It would encourage people to use it
but keeping it separate might keep it from overwhelming the more relevant
content.

~~~
superbaconman
I remember when there was at least one Show HN post a day, sometimes 3 or 4 on
the front page... Those were the days when products and projects were the
relevant content. I don't know what anyone in this community works on anymore.
I miss seeing people do things.

~~~
opendais
And you'd have entire page of Show HN posts one click away. :)

------
mountainair
You're not alone!

In fact, it's so tricky to sort through the Show/Ask HN archives that I don't
often use HN when I want to browse new projects, I use producthunt.com

------
andywood
And, will it get a never time out and eat my long form essay i painstakingly
wrote on the bus... section?

------
cadalac
The "ask HN" section is usually very informative and useful, ie. dealing with
problems, finding work, recommending products etc.

I'm not sure a "show HN" section would have the same overall value for the
community.

~~~
hadoukenio
> I'm not sure a "show HN" section would have the same overall value for the
> community.

Last I heard HN was a community of people who build things. A separate "Show
HN" section would allow you know... people to show what they are building.
Extend this further, the homepage should be defaulted to "Show HN" and all the
rest put onto "other" pages!

~~~
canthonytucci
I think a third party can aggregate these and that would be enough.
Personally, I like that HN is a single page to visit (more or less) with
occasional ShowHN items appearing, I like seeing them, but would be less
likely to visit a separate section......if they appeared in both I guess that
would be ok.

------
joeblau
+1 on this. It would be like Product Hunt for the HN community.

