The HN audience upvotes it or downvotes it or flags it or ignores it.

From the reaction, you get an impression of the reception of the thing.

That's... it.

Be somewhat novel, communicate very clearly (particularly what is' for and why you might want to use it, even if that seems obvious to you) and post around mid-morning PST so people can goof off from work to 'research' your interesting new thing.

use prefixes [Tell HN: Ask HN: Show HN:] and suffixes [ [PDF] [video] [1995] ] where needed.

be a human being, dont repost, or post promotional materials for adspace, cultivate a nuts and guts discussion for any project you promote rather than a sales ad.

There are no "levers". People come to HN to discuss nerdy topics and those that have come to HN to help make those discussions more informed and interesting are welcome. Anyone who comes to HN to create buzz, drive site traffic, do SEO, or market something, whether it be a product or themselves, can expect an extremely frosty reception, particularly since the rate of spam submissions is high lately. And we are certainly not here to be a gauge of interest to any investors.

The one semi-exception is Show HN, which is intended to showcase something interesting that users can play with. There are separate specific guidelines for Show HN submissions (https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html) and tips from the site moderators (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22336638). Do note that among the tips is the following "Drop any language that sounds like marketing or sales. On HN, that is an instant turnoff. Use factual, direct language. Personal stories and technical details are great." If you have questions about the guidelines or tips, the site moderators can be reached through the email on the contact page linked at the bottom of the page.

HN is very self-explanatory if you take it for what it is — a discussion forum. It’s a place where some people post ideas, questions, news, or projects and other people respond to them. That’s it. If you post something interesting or meaningful, then people will respond.

Your question makes me feel ancient because I fear that the concept of communicating to spark conversation (as opposed to communicating to promote or to manipulate or to drive traffic or to pull any number of other “levers”) is exceedingly a thing of the past.

It's true that this place can be cryptic, and that has downsides—specifically, it can be confusing to newcomers, even to some newcomers who would make ideal HN users. That sucks.

But there's a key that unlocks most of the puzzles. That is to understand that we're optimizing for exactly one thing: curiosity. (Specifically, intellectual curiosity, since there are other kinds of curiosity too.) Here are links to past explanations about that: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...

We try to elevate things that gratify curiosity: creative work, surprising discoveries, deep dives, technical achievements, unusual personal experience, whimsical unpredictability, good conversation, etc. And we try to demote things that run against curiosity, especially repetition, indignation, sensationalism, and promotion.

It gets complicated because you'll also see plenty of repetition, indignation, sensationalism, and promotion on HN—alas! This is the internet after all. But the site survives because the balance of these things stays within tolerable ranges, thanks to two factors: an active community which cares greatly about preserving this place for intended purpose (https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html); and an owner (Y Combinator) which pays us to work on the site full time and mainly just wants us to keep it good, to the extent possible.

If you really want to figure this place out, the way to do it is as a reader. Hang out on the site, look at the mix of articles that make the frontpage, spend time in the discussion threads (hopefully the interesting sectors and not the flamey ones!), and over time your eyes will adjust.

What doesn't work—and this is good because we want it not to work—is approaching HN as a platform for promoting content. If you (<-- I don't mean you personally, but anyone) mainly care about "how can I use this thing to get attention for my startup/blog/project/newsletter", then you're operating in 'push' mode rather than 'pull' mode (or, even better, 'idle' mode). In that case you won't be curious because you're too focused on what you're wanting for extraneous reasons—and if you aren't in a state of curiosity, this place won't make sense. At least we hope it won't!

The only really opaque thing I’ve found is the anti spam/anti flame war rules but it’s not crazy to keep those secret and I say that as someone who gets temp banned by those rules on here frequently

- the older it is, the less score

- the more votes and comments it has, the higher the score

- penalties reduce the score ( eg. By moderator)

How it works for the end-user:

- People browsing in newest, make it visible in the main page.

- Most people see the main page

Result: interesting topics go to the main page

But the reason they won't tell you is that the entire reason it works is because you don't know.

For instance I submitted an article three times (spaced a year apart). The first two times the article got no upvotes. The third time it got 600+ and hit the top of the front page. It's just a matter of who happens to be looking at the New page at the time.

If there is one thing to note, it’s that obvious self-promotion is not good. Technical details are more interesting than sales pitches.

Money. A spot as US citizen to get into startup school.

Money. An investment from a noble mind to another noble mind.

Money. Pass information to fellows at YC (who are from a different domain, see YC as a cool place) they crowd and promote (seems organic)

Money. Well, then the product or the tech fades, because its a bloatware.

They retry the same thing again with next batch of people. Keeps the forum running. The maintainers get retired or really tired.

Readers. I have seen this one before. Reader. Well, now, you are old

I found out, the other day, that if you post too many comments in too short a time (also undocumented) your final comment is deleted (sorry, you just lose it) instantly with a somewhat snarky message about how you post too much.

I am a little mystified about what community Hacker News serves. It doesn't seem to be the kind of hackers I grew up with (fiercely skeptical, a la 2600 magazine), because, as one example, skepticism about AI or self-driving vehicles is generally downvoted.

Not so much Hacker News as Next Shiny Toy News.

Even so, I know of no better way to discover interesting tools and trends than Hacker News.

Sometimes my friends post on social media platform A "Hey, I've just posted on platform B. Upvotes appreciated."

Or a newsletter will say "please share this post on…"

Or people on Discord / Slack / Matrix will say "people are being mean to me on platform C, where are my defenders at?"

HN feels organic - and is pretty well moderated - but it isn't immune to family & friends giving something an initial boost.

But if no one wants to discuss it, the post will falter.

As for the other levers, it is hard to say. Sometimes the posts I've worked hardest on with the most detail just die a death. But the half-finished thought casually tossed off will Do Numbers. Outrage sometimes works, but it is a fickle friend to tame. Catchy titles aren't clickbait (despite what some people say) but they work best when they are descriptive.

And, finally, people can and do resubmit stuff. What doesn't work at 0900 Monday will be popular at 1700 Tuesday. Why? That's just the way it is.

In the end, it is all luck. But, as the saying goes, the harder you work the luckier you get.

Good: "Why I used Postgres to write a web app"

Another part of the equation is topic and tone. There's no sophisticated algorithm, but it's an eclectic forum, so if your post sounds like pure marketing or self-promo, it will probably not make it far. You need to offer something of value to readers, not to you.

An interesting quirk of the system is that people who upvote or comment on stories don't necessarily read them. A lot of HN discussion boils down to people reacting to the prompt in the subject line. There are publications that learned how to game this. I don't think it's a template worth following, but it sells...

The root of HN is a thing called 'startup news', that was changed very quickly and since then HN has been a focal point for techies of all sorts but also lots of other people from all walks of life and from a large variety of countries. It isn't 'one thing' to everybody that participates, just like a hammer is a different thing for a carpenter than it is for a masoner or a farmer.

The fact that after being a member for a couple of years you have this question indicates a lack of participation, not a lack of understanding.

Don't just come here trying to figure out how you can promote your stuff because investors said so. You could have a good product, but the HN audience might not be a good match, so there is no need to put too much emphasis on this.

As with any real system, there is always a fact of randomness and luck, when it comes to it, so don't get discouraged if your post gets 0 comments and 1 upvote.

Unlike LinkedIn and other social networks where brainless AI assisted inauthentic emoji filled self promotion is the point of the whole platform, HN generally dislikes shameless / dishonest / spammy self promotion. Be authentic and honest in your self promotion.

If you've been reading HN for a week, and you still "just don't get it", ask someone else from your team if they use HN and ask them to submit. No offense, but your questions sound like you watched one too many videos on how everything in social media needs a hook, one liner intro above the fold, everything is measurable and predictable.

It's not hard to get it, it's just a discussion forum (kind of like a subreddit but thankfully not on reddit), where interesting posts will get traction.

HN is not a nail. Stop trying to hit it.

Unless you're building a start up where the potential customers are specifically HN and Reddit readers, get the hell away from those investors. They're idiots.

As lovely and wonderful as the readers of HN and Reddit are, being loved on HN or Reddit means essentially nothing. People here are the magpies of the internet - we love seeing the new shiny thing but that does not tell you it will be a success with the people who might want to buy it. For every Dropbox posted here there are hundreds of Show HN posts that didn't really go anywhere despite having tons of very positive commentary.

If you want to show investors that your start up's product has potential post about it where your customers go and get feedback from people who might give you their money. If you really want to prove your start up has potential, sell to those people and actually get their money. If you can get a sale based on your prototype/proof-of-concept/MVP product that is worth more than a million "Yeah, looks ace, I'd buy that if it was <price that's far too low>." posts from us.