
I Up Vote Every 'Show HN' Post and You Should Too - ZanderEarth32
http://tortillasinbed.tumblr.com/post/24175048206/i-up-vote-everything
======
citricsquid
Show HN is just another marketing tool and quite a few people treat it as
such. I upvote Show HN posts that are good, upvoting them all because they're
"putting themselves out there" is silly; it assumes HN is a very small
community of people only here for personal improvement.

~~~
dbingham
I disagree. Show HN would be just another marketing tool if you were looking
for people to use your app. But usually when you do a Show HN you're looking
for feedback and criticism. You're bringing it before it's really ready for
wide release, or when you feel it could use improvement. Or just want someone
to puncture your bubble of love for your creation and let you know how
everyone else feels about it.

HN is a community of people who build things. When you bring something you've
built to them, you're looking for their opinions on it. Not just advertising
to them.

Edit, as an example here's my own Show HN:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4053786>

I'm not looking for people to use it. How many HNers are really my target
market? Very few. I'm looking for opinions on the design, the feature set I've
chosen, my implementation of them and advice on how I could build its
community.

I suspect it's already been flagged by someone, since I can't seem to comment
on it though. :/

~~~
citricsquid
That's a nice view but it's the wrong one. Applications and websites gain
users and popularity through sharing, whether that's individuals on Twitter
and Facebook or on blogs. HN is a community of technology minded people, it's
not a community of creators. There are a lot of creators here but they are not
the majority.

Make a project -> launch it on hn with a Show HN (a free way to get traffic,
as this post has proven) -> if the app/website is good people from HN will
share it and it'll make it to blogs.

"Show HN" is absolutely an easy way to launch a product, HN has millions of
users, this isn't a quaint little community any more. Yes "Show HN" _should_
be about sharing creations and getting feedback and it does provide that, but
it also provides a great launch. I'm not ashamed to admit that my personal
launch plan for any "cool" website/app I launched is a "Show HN".

------
franze
i'm guilty of something: when i submit a "Show HN" entry, and i see it drop of
the "new" list too fast (within 5 to 10 minutes) without any(!) upvotes, i
delete it and wait for a better time.

my rationalizing behind that:

a) I'm sad that i didn't get any feedback on my latest weekend project.
(That's the emotional part)

b) But also i believe that the timing was just bad. 5 to 10 minutes isn't much
of a window.

deleting gives the opportunity to resubmit it.

said that: i know that this is kinda "gaming HN" and should probably not be
possible. (@pg)

my vote/like/+1 for a <http://news.ycombinator.com/show> view.

p.s.: shameless self promotion: here is my latest "Show HN" submission
<https://news.ycombinator.com/edit?id=4053553>

~~~
njx
I have been working on my webapp for 3 yrs and knowing that lot of weekend
projects get decent exposure on the front page, I had my hopes high.

I submitted my app couple of times but never made it. It seems like my website
is flagged. It is a great tool for startups and small businesses.

Do you see anything wrong with the web app that it deserved to be flagged?
<https://my.infocaptor.com>

~~~
jcampbell1
If you submitted for the purpose of feedback, I'll give you some very frank
feedback. The marketing copy on the homepage is terrible. You need to speak to
the potential customer in plain English. Like:

"Extract key insights from your business with an online dashboard".

The primary button that you want people to click says "warning", which tells
me not to click it. There are instructions on how to click a button. The next
section is why you built the business, not why I need this product.

My advice would be to read up on the basics of marketing, and then study the
marketing copy on every successful SaaS business you know about.

~~~
njx
"Terrible" is really harsh, don't you think?

I got 50/50 feedback on being greatest "demonstrable" and sales page comment
and "what does it do?" kind of questions.

I agree the "warning" bell is stopper but again I would not have gathered
interesting stats. And why does every web app have to follow each other. I
like to be different and experiments new stuff. If i fail, i will make
adjustments to it.

------
Newky
Although I agree with the sentiment, I think its not necessarily correct, if
every Show HN is upvoted regardless of what you think, we can end up with a
situation where we have a bunch of Show HN links in top 10 which are nothing
except the person putting themselves out there. Maybe this is not a
possibility with the standard of the HN community, but blindly upvoting for
the sake of someone putting themselves out there seems a bit crazy.

~~~
ZanderEarth32
This is a very real possibility but my logic is that not everyone will up vote
every 'Show HN' post, and assuming the number of 'Show' posts doesn't increase
at a rapid rate, it should hopefully stay within reason. Of course, this might
just be me looking at HN through rose tinted frames. The last thing I'd want
is for the front page to become spam. My hope is to only get more people to
support their fellow hackers, not to ruin the community.

~~~
Newky
I fully agree with that sentiment, and I apologize if my comment was in anyway
taking away from the article, I do support it, but I think for my own self as
a result, I'll make a more noticeable attempt to upvote those that I like.

I often find I'll read a post, enjoy it, but feel my upvote is not really
necessary. In that way, I feel innovation and "putting yourself out there"
should be rewarded more by myself anyway.

------
tomgallard
I agree (having seen my own Show HN disappear with only one upvote).

One of the most useful things in the community is the wide range of talent and
expertise. Reading through comments on the Show HN posts is a great way to
learn a lot very quickly.

They also tend to spark off interesting discussions.

So I'm joining the 'Upvote Show HN posts' club.

~~~
onli
Thank you. I was a bit sad when my own Show HN vanished without a vote or
feedback, so I'm happy to see not only this article, but also people in the
comments here who can relate to that.

Guessed that was worth an answer, and not just a +1.

------
dclaysmith
I also cruise "newest" and make it a point to view and upvote any credible
"Show HN" posts. However, you do get the odd post that abuses "Show HN".
Sometimes, they are just "Show HN: This Cool Link I Found", "Show HN: A site I
found but had no hand in making", etc. Before everyone goes blindly upvoting,
make sure you take the time to follow the link and make sure it's on topic...

~~~
ZanderEarth32
Very true. People should at least click through to check out the project, even
briefly, just to vet that it is a real project. Without this small step, the
front page could become polluted with junk very quickly.

------
alan_cx
I would suggest a separate category for Show HN. Would make the whole thing
easier. Also, Im not sure how Show HN is "news" as such.

So we have: Hacker News new | threads | comments | ask | jobs | submit

Why not just add a Show HN bit?

~~~
DanI-S
This would be great. I'd love to have a place to go to check out the current
state of the art. There's a huge amount to learn from other people's projects.

Additionally, votes cast there would be meaningful in terms of seeing which
projects the community approves of - as opposed to on the front page, where
the level of randomness in vote allocation is pretty huge.

People shouldn't have to wake up at 6am to post their cool weekend project for
vote-optimization reasons if they just want some smart people's feedback.

------
johnnyg
I love this thought and am joining your club. I think:

1\. If you built it, you should get to show it to other makers.

2\. You should get blunt, honest feedback that allows you to improve.

------
guelo
Good job ruining the front page today, hopefully it won't last.

~~~
nik_0_0
Yeah, the entire front page is now Show HN...

Perhaps we could have a category? Like /ask, but /show?

------
richo
Not everyone can be an astronaut. This community is built on doing awesome
stuff, and sadly that pretty much entails that if you worked really hard and
ultimately failed then your work is of little consequence.

A well thought out post detailing why you failed and why you don't think you
will next time is a different story, though.

~~~
rytis
But even if your project and/or idea is rubbish it is still nice to get some
feedback as opposed to 0 up-votes and complete radio silence.

The only way to improve is to get some criticism and work on fixing identified
problems.

~~~
richo
Totally. I'm not saying don't submit.

I'm just saying blindly upvoting everyone who tries undermines the whole point
of having a karma system in the first place.

------
duck
I started Hacker Newsletter (<http://hackernewsletter.com>) about two years
ago for a similar reason. I wanted to highlight "Show HN" posts more and
collect them each week. I still do that, but found that I have to be more
picky these days as there are more projects than ever and a lot of them seem
half-baked.

I would also add, don't be too harsh when criticizing someone's new project.
It seems to happen way too often. Bringing up problems is great, but do it in
a way that will help the creator.

------
acoyfellow
I love this mentality and appreciate that there are people like you here. I'm
so glad I found HN- and I can't wait to Show HN my upcoming projects

------
laktek
My only worry is people starting spam "Show HN", hoping for the obliged up-
votes.

~~~
tjr
Seems to be happening... <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4054104>

------
pramodbiligiri
Completely agree.

Show HN _ought_ to be a top level tab, for a site labelled "Hacker News"!
Think of it like a KickStarter, but just for kicks (mostly) :)

------
joshmlewis
Well now there are 5 Show HN's on the front page.

Well done.

------
joshmlewis
Ok, now there are many more than 5 Show HN's on the front page.

I wonder if everyone was like oh a post to make everyone feel guilty about
letting Show HN's slide, let me show HN something and reap the benefits. Good
thinking.

~~~
marknutter
It's up to 13 now. Getting kind of ridiculous at this point.

~~~
joshmlewis
And now they're all gone?

------
udp
At <http://news.ycombinator.com/ask>, you can see all of the Ask HN
submissions. Is there something similar for Show HN?

If not, I think that'd be quite nice to have.

~~~
ssong
I built <http://www.hnshowcase.com> for this purpose. It finds all Show HN
posts via the search API and displays a thumbnail of each project page.

~~~
rpledge
Wow, good job. A search function would be great (apologies if I missed it).

~~~
ssong
Thanks for the feedback!

------
hoopism
I am sure someone will give a good reason for not doing this but as a note...
I do actively seek out these threads. I love seeing what people are creating
and the discussions are often enlightening.

------
Tycho
One of the best things is also when people write blogs and submit them to HN.
It differentiates our feed from just mirroring what you'd see in Slashdot or
Reddit.

------
dfragnito
We did our "Show HN" post today. Not sure if this article helped us or hurt
us. We dropped like a stone in the new section then made it to the front page
briefly. The highest was 20. Then suddenly dropped to the third page and
falling.

I think the title was all wrong. Not sure what the policy is for resubmitting?

Here is our post

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4053692>

Up votes are nice but would really like some feedback

------
jack-r-abbit
I will assume this is why my feed is now blowing up with Show HN posts. I up
vote on substance... not because the title started with "Show HN"

------
guelo
Interesting, looks like pg killed this story.

------
Kilimanjaro
I'd divide the front page in four sections: hot, new, ask, show, with 20 posts
each.

It's time for a fresh new look.

~~~
uptown
Maybe you could mock that up and "Show HN"

~~~
Kilimanjaro
How about this

<http://georgenava.appspot.com/demo/hn/index.html>

Let me know if you like it so I can post it in "Show HN"

* better seen in modern browsers like safari, chrome and firefox

* nothing works, this is just a mockup, stop clicking on links

------
Achshar
Can I rant? I have had about two show HN's without a single upvote or comment.
It's like no one sees them. It's kind of discouraging but i will keep doing
it. The next one will be a long exposure camera app in opera mobile, finished
proof of concept yesterday. :P

------
TeMPOraL
I, like OP, also upvote "Show HN" posts on the basis that people should be
encouraged to ship. It worked on me as well.

But anyway, could somebody explain this:

<http://dl.dropbox.com/u/216352/show_hn.png>

Is this a result of this thread?

------
ditojim
the problem with this strategy being used by many is presently apparent on the
homepage. i would estimate over 60% of the stories are Show HN. I personally
come here for technology news, so this makes HN less valuable to me as a user.

------
Permit
Judging from the front page, you've converted a few people haha. I was sad to
see my Show HN project fall off the new page after just four votes a few
months ago, so I'm sure a lot of people appreciate this.

~~~
rplnt
It's getting more and more crowded. I guess the number of show hn posts
overall is higher as well.

------
smackfu
Heh, now half the front page is Show HN, which doesn't seem right either.

~~~
Cushman
Doesn't it? Figure ~200k readers. Figure ~1% of readers are working on
something this year they might like to Show HN. 2,000 / 365 = ~5 projects
posted per day.

These numbers are obviously just guesses, but there should probably be several
Show HNs on the front page at all times.

------
fernandose
this is awesome this has got more attention.

I submitted my project yesteday
(<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4048636>) to get some feedback and got
zero comments and 1 upvote. Not sure what i did wrong, but I think you really
need some friends for immediate upvotes to get some serious exposure.

Whats interesting is that I posted the same project on reddit/startups and
reddit/entreperneurs and got over 30 really useful comments and 30 upvotes.

------
falcolas
Wow. Front page to 141 in the space of a lunch break. Flag seems a bit broken.

It seems that the backlash of this was too heavy handed - there are no ShowHN
posts on the front page now.

~~~
ZanderEarth32
Yea, not sure what happened.

------
sicxu
you can use <http://www.myezapp.com/pub/help/hackernews.ws> to build custom
tools. one example/test case that collects Show HN stories are at
<http://testblog1-myblog.blogspot.com/>

disclaimer: i build the site and appreciate any feedbacks.

------
jpadilla_
And it seems to be working! <http://d.pr/i/3oxM>

------
tbatterii
the quality of content on HN is inversely proportional to this idea catching
on IMO.

~~~
K2h
The whole upvote thing is like a freemarket concept to ideas. I guess if
enough people decide to upvote something even though it isn't interesting (to
them) then it will be more likely to reduce the quality of the front page if
we all share the same idea on what is interesting or not... which is I guess
the point of voting and having a community of like minded individuals.

Personally, I don't think people would sustain upvoting things they don't
like.

------
lwhi
And suddenly there's a problem: a majority of 'show HN' on the front page ...
;)

------
Cushman
This is without doubt the best fad ever to hit HN. I hope it keeps up.

------
zemo
sometimes the truth hurts people's feelings! If they spend 10 or 20 hours
making something and it's total shit, don't tell them! If you tell them it's
not good, they might fix it! Make sure you tell everyone everything they make
is good, so that they never can never recognize when they're on the wrong
track. Surely there can be no drawbacks to engaging in a positive-only,
harmonious love-fest, free of criticism and negative sentiment.

------
bromagosa
I'm upvoting this.

