

#1 on HN for Six Hours: Postmortem  - kevinburke
http://kev.inburke.com/kevin/hn-popular-post-stats/

======
Mz
Someone should post a "...and crickets chirped" post mortem. Not everyone gets
this kind of response here but these seem to be the only post mortems which
show up here, giving a skewed impression it seems. Besides, I would rather see
an analysis of how and why it made it to the front page and stayed there. Good
for you that you got scads of traffic. But seeing a listing of your traffic
numbers helps me not at all in terms of figuring out how to replicate it.

~~~
kevinburke
Thanks for the feedback. As far as I can tell making the frontpage is about
85% dumb luck, 10% having a good title and 5% having good content, which is
maybe why you don't see articles about it :)

~~~
Mz
In my experience, when someone says "dumb luck" what they really mean is "I
have no clue how it happened and this leads me to believe A) no one else does
either and B) it isn't possible to figure it out." Even if A happens to be
true, B probably is not. ("Dumb luck" is something someone said in my archery
class about what it took to hit the target. I could do it. He could not. I
practiced two hours a day. He did not. I never saw the phrase the same way
again.)

But thanks for the feedback.

~~~
kevinburke
I guess I also meant that, maybe there's some underlying chance a post I write
will make the frontpage, but it's hard for me to predict in advance which ones
will make it. Some of the posts I think are great fall off the 'new' page
without an upvote.

~~~
Mz
I saw an answer on here once about timing from someone who clearly spent scads
of time here at the time. So I have reason to believe _when_ something is
posted matters and, also, _who_ posts it matters. There are, no doubt, other
factors. I would not know what they are.

Have a great evening.

