content-hackernews

# Hacker News Content Generation ## Before You Start 1. **Understand HN culture**: Hacker News (news.ycombinator.com) is a community driven by intellectual curiosity and technical depth. It is run by Y Combinator and attracts founders, engineers, researchers, and technically sophisticated readers. The community is allergic to marketing, superlatives, and hype. 2. **Determine post type**: - **Show HN**: Sharing something you have built for community feedback - **Ask HN**: Asking the community a question - **Standard submission**: Sharing a link to content (your own or someone else's) 3. **Check for brand voice**: Read `brand/VOICE.md` if it exists, then heavily adapt it using `hn-voice.md`. HN has the strictest voice requirements of any platform. Marketing language of any kind will get the post flagged, downvoted, or ignored. --- ## HN Culture ### What HN Values - Intellectual curiosity and genuine interest in ideas - Technical depth and rigorous thinking - Honesty, especially about limitations and trade-offs - Novel insights and original thinking - Clear, direct writing without embellishment - Substance over polish ### What HN Rejects - Marketing language of any kind ("revolutionary," "game-changing," "disruptive") - Superlatives ("the best," "the fastest," "the most powerful") - Emotional manipulation or engagement bait - Clickbait titles - Self-congratulation - Hype without substance - Excessive self-promotion without proportional community contribution ### The HN Audience - Technically sophisticated: assume your reader can evaluate technical claims - Detail-oriented: vague claims will be challenged in comments - Skeptical of hype: extraordinary claims need extraordinary evidence - Global: readers span every timezone and many industries - Time-constrained: they scan titles and click selectively --- ## Show HN Format and Rules Show HN is for sharing your own projects, products, or creations with the community. ### Title Format ``` Show HN: [Concise description of what it is] ``` **Good titles:** - "Show HN: A terminal-based Markdown editor written in Rust" - "Show HN: Open-source tool to visualize PostgreSQL query plans" - "Show HN: I built a search engine for academic papers using semantic embeddings" **Bad titles:** - "Show HN: The revolutionary new way to manage your infrastructure" (marketing) - "Show HN: Check out my awesome app!" (vague, hyped) - "Show HN: [ProductName] -- Disrupting the observability space" (buzzwords) ### Title Rules - Describe what it does, not how great it is - Include the technology if relevant ("written in Rust," "using WASM") - Keep it under 80 characters - Do not use all caps or exclamation marks - Do not include pricing or "free" in the title ### The Accompanying Comment Every Show HN post should have a top-level comment from the creator. This comment is critical. Use `show-hn-template.md` for the structure. The comment should cover: 1. **What it is**: One sentence. Clear, specific, no jargon. 2. **Why you built it**: The problem you faced or the motivation behind the project. 3. **How it works**: Brief technical overview for the curious. Architecture, key technologies, interesting design decisions. 4. **What's interesting technically**: What did you learn? What was hard? What's novel? 5. **Current state and limitations**: What works, what doesn't, what's next. Honesty here earns enormous respect. 6. **What you want**: Specific feedback you are looking for. "Feedback welcome" is vague. "I'd love feedback on the query optimizer approach" is actionable. --- ## Ask HN Format Ask HN is for questions directed at the community. ### Title Format ``` Ask HN: [Your question] ``` **Good Ask HN posts:** - Specific, well-defined questions - Questions that invite diverse, experience-based answers - Questions the community has not been asked recently - Questions where the asker has context to share **Bad Ask HN posts:** - Questions easily answered by a search engine - Surveys or market research disguised as questions - "What do you think of [my product]?" (use Show HN instead) ### Body - Provide context for why you are asking - Share what you have already tried or considered - Be specific about constraints or requirements - Keep it concise. HN readers value brevity. --- ## Standard Submissions When submitting a link (blog post, article, paper, tool): ### Title - Use the original title of the content. HN prefers this. - If the original title is clickbait, rewrite it to be descriptive and neutral - Do not editorialize: "Great article about X" is editorializing. Just submit "X" with the link. - Adding "(2023)" for older content or "(PDF)" for PDFs is acceptable ### Submission Timing - HN is most active during US business hours (Pacific time) - Posting during peak hours gives more initial visibility - Weekends have less competition but also less traffic --- ## What Gets Flagged and Downvoted Understanding HN's enforcement culture helps you avoid problems: **Flagged (removed by community or moderators):** - Obviously promotional submissions - Clickbait titles - Duplicate submissions of recent stories - Low-quality content - Submissions from domains that are heavily self-promoted **Downvoted:** - Comments with marketing language - Defensive responses to criticism - Comments that don't add to the discussion - Self-promotional comments unrelated to the discussion - "Thanks for the feedback!" without substance **Invisible penalty: flame detection** - HN has sophisticated flame-war detection - Heated or uncharitable comments may be auto-deprioritized - Assume good faith in your responses, even when others don't --- ## HN Voice See `hn-voice.md` for detailed voice guidance. The essential rules: 1. **Be direct.** State things clearly. No throat-clearing. 2. **Be technical.** HN readers expect and appreciate technical depth. 3. **Be honest about limitations.** "We don't handle X well yet" earns more respect than "We handle everything." 4. **No superlatives.** Replace "the best" with specific comparisons. 5. **No marketing language.** If it could appear in a press release, rewrite it. 6. **Show, don't tell.** Instead of "It's fast," show the benchmark. --- ## Output Checklist Before delivering HN content: - [ ] Title is descriptive, not promotional (under 80 characters) - [ ] Zero marketing language or superlatives - [ ] Show HN posts include a substantive creator comment - [ ] Ask HN posts include context and show prior research - [ ] Technical details are included where relevant - [ ] Limitations and current state are honestly described - [ ] The content would survive scrutiny from a technically sophisticated, skeptical audience - [ ] Voice follows `hn-voice.md` guidelines - [ ] No clickbait, emotional manipulation, or engagement bait