
Show HN: Show HN - dang
https://news.ycombinator.com/show
======
rickhanlonii
Great work! I love when organic user behaviors are recognized and made first
class features.

Allow me to emphasize something from the Show HN Guidelines[1]:

> _Be respectful. Anyone sharing creative work is making a contribution,
> however modest._

> _Ask questions out of curiosity. Don 't cross-examine._

> _Instead of "you're doing it wrong", suggest alternatives. When someone is
> learning, help them learn more._

> _When something isn 't good, you needn't pretend that it is. But in that
> case, consider saying nothing._

The comments section of Show HN posts are not an invitation for you to tear
someone apart for your own self-aggrandizing glory. If you want to be helpful,
be constructive. If you don't want to be helpful, don't bother.

[1]:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html)

~~~
bane
Absolutely agree on these guidelines. It takes a lot of bravery to put
yourself out there in public. It should take just as much class to offer
advice and constructive criticism instead of tearing somebody else's work
down.

 _edit_ also, is it just me or is the front page plastered with Show HN links?
Does anybody else think that's _awesome_?

~~~
onewaystreet
Am I the only one who thinks it _isn 't_ awesome? As someone who comes to HN
for news, I really don't want to see _any_ Shown HN on the front page.
Certainly not half the front page filled with them.

~~~
dang
It'll settle down. Never judge HN by one day or even a few—the status quo ante
is more stable than that. Genuine long-term changes here are more subtle.
(Which is actually a challenge, but that's another story.)

------
pc
Stripe launched this way:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3053883](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3053883).
We didn't do any press or anything like that. (We didn't think of adding the
Show HN prefix, though.)

~~~
nostrademons
Dropbox did too:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8863](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8863)

The "Show HN" convention hadn't been invented at that point, though.

~~~
waterside81
The comments on this post are perfect examples of why it's hard to predict
what's going to take off and what won't. And also why it's sometimes a good
idea to just give people the benefit of doubt.

~~~
livejamie
These are awesome, are there more?

~~~
peterarmstrong
Leanpub, 1206 days ago:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2329397](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2329397)

(We didn't get any comments or many points, but it's nice to see that
afterward we've had a number of Leanpub books do better...)

------
irollboozers
Experiment (YC W13) started off as a Show HN, but back then we were called
Microryza. It was a very modest thing, and after somehow getting near the top
of the front page, we were flooded with traffic
[[http://i.imgur.com/miMyx7x.png](http://i.imgur.com/miMyx7x.png)]. That
traffic spike is what convinced us to quit our jobs and go all out. Show HN is
definitely my favorite part of hacker news.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3833393](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3833393)

~~~
mbesto
Same!
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7745959](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7745959)

------
austenallred
There's a definite influx of Show HN submissions happening right now. I see 7
in the top 30; I've never seen that many before.

I'm sure they won't remain at this level, but I hope formalizing the action
will encourage more to post. I also hope that there is less of an expectation
of a perfect product when something is submitted, and we can _respectfully_
offer advice. I've seen some products that were obviously weekend hacks torn
apart as if there were a 15 person team building them for a year.

~~~
Permit
I know I've definitely been hesitant to post in the past for being called out
for self-promotion or something. I think formalizing it like this will
encourage a lot of people to share who might otherwise not.

------
minimaxir
Note that this is a _filter_ on Show HN titles.

For the newest Show HN submissions, you must go to
[https://news.ycombinator.com/shownew](https://news.ycombinator.com/shownew)

~~~
dang
Think of /show as the Show HN equivalent of the front page, and /shownew as
the Show HN equivalent of /newest.

------
kevin
Related: [http://blog.ycombinator.com/make-things-and-show-
them](http://blog.ycombinator.com/make-things-and-show-them)

My Favorite Part: "There have been about 24,000 Show HNs so far. The first
used the title "Show and Tell HN", and was GitHub-related. The second, and the
first to use the "Show HN" convention [2], was a face recognition project. And
the third was a Hacker News alternative. Plus ça change..."

------
0xdeadbeefbabe
At the risk of sounding like a stackoverflow pedant, would a hardware hack fit
in Show HN? For example: Turn a raspberry pi into an FM transmitter
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7361782](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7361782).

~~~
dang
Absolutely. There have been hardware Show HNs. Let's have many more! (As
always, though, we'd prefer primary sources.)

Obviously, the "other people can play with it" part of the guidelines can't
apply to hardware in the same way as to software, but whatever that legal
principle is where you interpret the law to fit the case, that's the principle
here.

------
staunch
Wow. Yay. Hacker News just got incredibly more hackery. Thank you so so much.
Just looking at all the work people here are doing is _awesome_!

------
danso
Glad to see this implemented...now on to the feature creep!

Sometimes the submitters use a text post, which I imagine they do because they
want to give some context to the project that may not be ideal to present
prominently on a landing page, but which likely cuts down on click-throughs
(because of the slight inconvenience of users having to find the link to click
through to in the text post).

Maybe it's worth having a post-type...for submitters only...in which the
submitter gets first say _and_ a click-through title? And those who use it for
non-Show-HN submissions are mercilessly flagged to oblivion? Sometimes the
submitter's first-comments are buried depending on the type of discussions
that occur.

~~~
jcr
danso, that's an interesting idea, but it goes against one goals stated in the
site guidelines, namely, a user should not be able to give their own comment
or opinion preferential placement. It's the reason why urls in text posts are
not turned into links (anchors), and why we're never supposed to editorialize
submission titles. The same is true for rank weighting, since text based
submissions sink faster than url based submissions.

Though not exactly, the guidelines roughly suggest a way around this issue;
write something on your own site, and submit that instead. If the guidelines
haven't changed since the last time I read them a week ago, pg essentially
said to write your own blog post and submit it, or something like that. e.g.

    
    
      http://example.com/show-hn.html
    

This solves all of the problems, but few people realize it.

One of the tougher problems I've had on /newest with url based submissions is
differentiating between spam links and people who just forgot to add the
leading "Show HN:" when submitting their new site/biz. If you create a new
travel, dentistry, or cooking site and forget the "Show HN:" on your
submission title, there's a good chance I'll flag it as spam. I try to be
lenient because I _really_ want to avoid clobbering someone who is just
starting out.

------
Kiro
The consequence will be a lot more Show HN on the front page, a bit like the
"upvote all Show HN" day which broke HN completely. I'm seeing it already.

~~~
chippy
It would be just temporary as people try out the new feature. Things will
stablize.

------
amirmc
I'm curious. Do Show HN posts work the same way as normal link submissions? I
have vague memories that certain types of posts are weighted differently and
sink down the front page faster. Maybe that's for the Ask HN posts?

~~~
dang
You're thinking of posts without urls. There aren't any special rules for Show
HNs, at least not yet.

~~~
mkal_tsr
Would you consider making Show HN posts text only? That way the submitter
provides background info / context, why they made the service, what they hope
to do with it, etc. I think requiring text-only for Show HN will help minimize
people spamming their own links and more about people contributing the
experience building their Show HN item.

Thoughts?

~~~
dang
Experience has taught us that it's healthier when HN stories point to things
in the outside world. That's why posts without URLs are penalized.

The kind of discussion you describe is good, but it can and does take place in
the threads right now.

~~~
mkal_tsr
Fair enough! As long as you keep up the moderation we should be good, hehe.

~~~
dang
I'm kind of hoping that you all can take over at some point. :)

------
ojosilva
Great addition to be able to read through them "Shows".

Rant: I find it really distracting that, at the moment, half of the front page
titles bear the prefix. Makes it harder to skim through, adds up to annoying
visual cruft.

------
riquito
Wouldn't be better to strip "Show HN: " from the titles in the Show HN page?
They add a lot of noise.

------
kristiandupont
Hah, contrary to almost any other post, every comment including the top one is
positive! That makes me glad and also it forces me to rephrase my one fear a
bit.

I hope this won't give people the impression that "show HN" is now a channel
where you should submit anything without hesitation. I like the organic nature
of it and I think it's partly because you feel like you are asking people for
their attention at the party, so you need to feel justified in doing so. But
hopefully that will still be the case.

~~~
dang
We intend to enforce the Show HN guidelines
([https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html)),
so if anything, you should see the scope narrow a bit.

------
maximumoverload
There are too many Show HNs all of a sudden!

------
userium
Just noticed this post. Perhaps this was the worst day for us to ask for
feedback
([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7989526](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7989526))
for our new service, since there are so many ShowHN posts today? :)

Fully agree with the following.

>"Instead of "you're doing it wrong", suggest alternatives. When someone is
learning, help them learn more."

------
chdir
What's the etiquette on repost? It's quite possible that you posted at the
wrong moment and got buried. (unfortunately, like this comment)

~~~
dang
The etiquette for reposting Show HNs is similar to that for reposting in
general, but there is one difference.

The general rule of thumb is: when a story hasn't had significant attention on
HN in about the last year, a small number of reposts is ok. That's so good
stories can have more than one crack at the bat.

We can adjust that for Show HNs like this: if a Show HN has already had
significant attention on HN, there shouldn't be another Show HN for the same
project. In other words, no one-year cutoff. But if a Show HN hasn't had
significant attention yet, a small number of reposts is ok.

As the guidelines at
[https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html)
point out, though, if a project has had a new and interesting breakthrough, it
might be ok to make a new Show HN out of that. But not for routine feature
releases.

In case anyone is wondering, yes, we're eventually going to add this
information to the Hacker News FAQ. We're dragging our heels about that,
partly because we want to change things slowly, and partly because we have
ideas for more sophisticated dupe detection that we might want to try out
first.

------
ecesena
Suggestion for the guidelines: add that Show HN often drives a spike of
traffic to the site, so one should plan accordingly before submission.

------
vog
That's a great feature!

As a minor nitpick, the topline as well as the guidelines contain an
unfortunate "here" link

| A list of the most recent Show HNs is _here_.

It could be changed to some more descriptive link text, for example:

| There is also a list of the _most recent Show HNs_.

See also:
[http://www.w3.org/QA/Tips/noClickHere](http://www.w3.org/QA/Tips/noClickHere)

------
zwegner
I guess the filter should only include titles with a colon after the "Show
HN". Right now there's the story from yesterday: "Show HN vs. TechCrunch vs.
Product Hunt: what's most effective to launch a product".

(Is it weird that the first thing I did was to see if this story was there?)

~~~
dang
The trouble with that suggestion is that it's fairly common for people to omit
the colon. I think we'll just deal with such cases manually; that's what we
did with the one you mention—we put "Ask HN: " at the beginning of the title.

------
andrey-p
Yes! I've been wanting this for a while. Thank you.

------
tdicola
Awesome, thanks for listening to feedback and implementing this feature.

One question though, is there a big uptick in Show HN posts today or is
something wrong with the HN RSS feed? Just noticed a full page of Show HN
posts on the feed and was curious if it was organic or maybe a bug.

~~~
dang
It was all organic, and it seems to have settled down, as expected.

------
ddod
As the creator (and neglector) of one of the more popular bastions of people
interested in just Show HNs (showinghn.com), I think this is a good move. If
anyone has any ideas of what other sort of value I could provide with
showinghn.com, feel free to let me know.

------
finkin1
Really glad to see this - great work! I love following Show HN. I recently
posted one about my startup that got to the front page and saw hundreds of
sign ups and got some really honest feedback. Thank you for continuing to
improve HN for the community!

------
_puk
This is great, and actually got me rummaging through the /shownew last night.

However, looks like everyone else did too as the front page has >50% Show HN
stories this morning.

Not that that's a bad thing, I imagine it's a good day to have submitted a
Show HN.

------
S4M
At the time I write it, the list of lists [1] doesn't have the "Show HN".

[1] [https://news.ycombinator.com/lists](https://news.ycombinator.com/lists)

~~~
dang
Since /ask isn't there either, we'll probably not add it. Or maybe we should
add them both.

~~~
S4M
Now /show has appeared next to /ask, so they don't need to be on /lists since
they are visible already.

------
_xzu
Absolutely great! Sharing your work with peers and getting inspiration from
others' work is hard core of hacker culture, so it's nice to see HN to adjust
the focus on that way.

I'm little bit worried that Show HN might turn to Spam HN. I think it should
be limited so that one url can be posted only once and there should be some
kind of update function. Updates would give the post some fixed amount of
weight to rise it so that heavily downvoted ones wouldn't rise to front page
anymore.

------
hiharryhere
This is cool. I often find myself combing through the New section looking for
interesting Show HN posts that get lost in the ether. Nice one.

------
fmax30
Hey Dang now that we have a separate Show HN section , can we please move Show
HN posts from the front page to that place (so that they don't appear on the
front page anymore ?

Because at the moment 11 out of the top 30 stories are about Show HN.

It seems that now that there is a separate Show Hn section , the posts are
getting more traction and in the process appearing on the front page.

~~~
lucb1e
I wouldn't say get them off the front page, but at least weigh them down.

~~~
muppetman
I'd love an option in my profile "Don't show show HN"

------
smcl
Except 13/30 on the front page are now "Show HN" posts, making this page
slightly redundant for the time being :)

------
jcr
dang, Most people don't know that the rank of text-based submissions decays
faster than url-based submissions, so by using the wrong type of submission on
your "Show HN" you shoot yourself in the foot by using a text-based
submission. This should be noted in the guidelines or adjusted in the code.

Also, I'd add a suggestion to the guidelines for "Show HN" submissions to use
a landing page like "[http://example.org/show-
hn.html"](http://example.org/show-hn.html") when appropriate so the submitter
can ask for specific types of help or feedback. This solves the top-comment
problem mentioned by danso, and also solves the text-based submission problem.

All in all, "Show HN" is an excellent addition. Thank you.

EDIT: The new code is actually finding the text-based submissions as well as
the url-based submissions, but at first I thought it was missing the text-
based ones.

~~~
dang
Yes, it's on our list to fix this, probably by just exempting Show HN posts
from the url-less penalty.

------
joeyspn
Checking in to say _thanks_ for making this happen. The most interesting part
of HN just got a huge boost..

------
filearts
I could click this link forever, it's just that great... also it leads to
itself so there's that too.

------
6thSigma
Fantastic addition to HN! I'll be visiting this daily.

Edit: Clicking on the YC logo from the guidelines brings up a 404.

~~~
dang
Thanks; we'll fix it.

------
datacog
This is great. Lets hope this helps surfacing good ideas which dont get
traction or get shotdown.

------
andrewstuart
The link should be second from left.

------
munimkazia
Anything that organizes the posts here into more categories is welcome. It is
quite hard to navigate through posts and comments as it is.

Now, I wonder if it is possible to get the monthly hiring threads pinned to
the top of ask.

Also, it is time for those 30 different HN mobile apps to update.

------
throwaway5752
Yay! Great change.

It's no secret the quality of discussion has decreased. I was fine with PG's
stick approach with moderation - I couldn't think of anything better. But this
looks like a carrot approach that can work. Very clever and elegant solution.

------
jonalmeida
This section is particularly helpful for the entrepreneurial side of HN that's
looking for new solutions, but also keeps the more technical side of HN
intact.

Looking forward to visiting Show HN on a regular basis.

------
chroem
I'm actually kind of bothered by this.

I was about to release signups for a private beta of my current project, but
apparently that no longer fits the formal criteria of "Show HN."

Disappointing to say the least.

~~~
chippy
You cannot show something that cannot be seen? I guess?

~~~
chroem
Well, it can be seen and it can be used, but just not by everyone yet.

I have no idea where I'll go to do a beta now.

~~~
dang
> it can be seen and it can be used

In that case you can do a Show HN. The guidelines are only trying to prevent
Show HNs for things that can't be used yet. If you want specific advice,
you're welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com. (That goes for anybody.)

We might need to relax this rule. Good work can get off the ground in many
ways. Drew Houston got initial traction for Dropbox with a video rather than
with working software. Our intention isn't to be overly strict—it's mostly to
detach "Show HN" from vaporware landing pages and market tests that don't have
serious work behind them.

------
grey-area
This is great, thank you!

------
danbucholtz
I do worry that start-ups will now get lost in the fray or people will ignore
the section :-/

In the mean time, I'd love to hear some feedback on my start-up:
www.gopaperbox.com

------
brianbarker
Anyone else notice that suddenly there are a dozen or so "Show HN" on the
front page? I think this spurred a new way to hack your way to the top.

------
sama
yay!

great job, dang. i may start reading this more than the front page.

~~~
dang
May I add: Thanks to kevin, kogir and anonymous! :)

------
DanielBMarkham
Excellent. I may visit this page more than HN itself.

------
drsintoma
Really nice guidelines, as someone always fearful of looking spammish almost
made me want to submit my stuff, but it still needs some work.

------
jfaucett
finally! I always like looking at the Show HN posts and have often wished
feature existed, great :)

------
lalwanivikas
How will 'Show HN' differ from Product Hunt? Is PH going to become subset of
Show HN?

~~~
bernatfp
Many posts on PH aren't submitted by the creator of what is being posted. The
main idea behind Show HN posts is posting your own creations. The public here
is also more tech oriented than in PH - more product oriented.

------
tannerc
Neat! I'm curious as to what percent of posts made to HN are Show vs. Other.

~~~
minimaxir
Using the data from a previous HN analysis of all posts until Feb 2014 [1],
I've found that 1.45% of all submissions are Show HN submissions. (but that
only found 18,000 submissions. If you use the given 24,000 submissions and the
current number of articles [1.3m], the percentage is 1.75%)

I have the data loaded if you have any other Show HN questions.

[1] [http://minimaxir.com/2014/02/hacking-hacker-
news/](http://minimaxir.com/2014/02/hacking-hacker-news/)

~~~
tannerc
Awesome! Thanks for sharing this.

------
andrewstuart
The link should also say "Show HN" rather than just "show".

~~~
dang
Like everything else about this, that's by analogy to /ask.

Being laconic is part of HN's DNA. Probably always will be.

------
BrandonMarc
I really like how if I go to Show HN, the first topic is "Show HN: Show HN"

Recursive!

~~~
bebbs
Showception

------
owenversteeg
These still show up on the front page (like /ask), right?

~~~
dang
Yes.

------
anonyfox
Yo dawg, we heard you like "show hn" posts... :)

------
Pxtl
You made this just for the headline, didn't you?

~~~
dang
No, but the hypnotic fascination of meta made that title inevitable.

------
rectangletangle
Awesome, I've always liked the `Show HN:` posts.

------
obilgic
Now everything gets a "Show HN" tag ;)

------
kumarski
Dang, I wish I could tag you. Thank you.

~~~
Sir_Cmpwn
I wrote this a while ago to add some little details to HN:
[https://github.com/SirCmpwn/HNImproved](https://github.com/SirCmpwn/HNImproved)

It lets you give specific users a specific color, if you want to call dang out
specifically.

------
anmonteiro90
Awesome, thanks for this nice feature :)

------
bkd
Almost recursive... a neat feature.

------
lettergram
So much ShowHN on the front page

------
junto
Wow, that title is really meta.

------
evertonfuller
Finally.

------
ganessh
This is really good. (y)

------
laza
Cool! Great feature HN!

------
rshetty100
Recursion ? !!!! :)

------
sabalaba
self = \s.s s self show-hn

------
geoffsanders
I see what you did there...

------
guiye
cool feat!

------
navjot
FINALLY

------
ryanx435
so hacker news is splitting into subreddits. cool. (although subreddits is not
the right term... )

what other future subreddits are planned?

~~~
pkfrank
I'd imagine that "Ask HN" would be another major sub-heading.

~~~
sp332
How about "Tell HN?" That one doesn't work yet.

~~~
amirmc
I'd think 'Show' and 'Tell' should be filtered into the same feed.

~~~
sp332
I was thinking that "show" would be about the submitter's own, new project and
"tell" would be about old things that everyone should know or PSAs. But maybe
you're right.

------
notastartup
so we now have the show tab beside comments and ask at the top?

I think this is fantastic. I hope that more people will visit my site.

------
HorizonXP
I know this contributes nothing, but...

So meta.

~~~
logvol
So meta.

