With Show HN vs a regular submission you're shoved on shownew, which gets a lot less eyeballs than new. If you get enough votes, you're supposedly moved from shownew to top stories, but somehow 5 votes wasn't enough for me (though I saw other posts that got there with just 2). I'd like to see someone attempt to persuade me otherwise, but I really don't see the value in using the Show HN: prefix.

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embedding-shape 9 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> With Show HN vs a regular submission you're shoved on shownew, which gets a lot less eyeballs than new

I don't think that's right, it's visible in both places, it's not "either or". Currently /new shows 5 "Show HN"s, which are also visible on /shownew.

> but I really don't see the value in using the Show HN: prefix.

You get a lot more traffic over a longer period of time, but best of all, the users who engage with you are in a different mindset for the "Show HN" posts.

On a normal submission, you get a whole range of top-level posts that are mostly tangible related to the topic at hand. It's basically a free-for-all, as long as it's at least a bit related to the submission's theme and topic.

On "Show HN" posts you get users who view it and comment about it as a way of providing feedback what they think of the idea itself, and its implementation. Completely different mood and input, that is much more about what you're actually sharing, than a submission.

That's my experience of "Show HN" at least, YMMV.

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aeonfox 9 hours ago | parent [-]

> it's visible in both places

Yeah I corrected myself in another comment. But I find with submissions to `shownew` they don't enter `top` straight away, or at all.

> You get a lot more traffic over a longer period of time

With a regular submission, it gets on `top` for at least a short period of time as well as `new`, whereas that doesn't seem to always be the case for a Show HN. And certainly not in my case. That said, many Show HNs do make it to top with less votes than the tiny few I got organically, so maybe I tripped some HN's filters? Or maybe it was bad timing? But if I post again, it'll be without the Show HN.

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embedding-shape 9 hours ago | parent [-]

The long trail of visits for Show HNs come because they stay on /show a lot longer than it'd stay on the frontpage. So while it can be featured on the frontpage for an hour or two, that same submission could stay 2-3 days on the Show HN frontpage, even as it dropped of from the actual frontpage.

I think the frontpage is both a lot harder to get into, faster to get dropped from there, but obviously also has a lot more traffic. But the traffic from Show HN frontpage seems to engage more (again probably because of the mindset) and it stays there for a lot longer.

Personally, when I want feedback about the idea and implementation, I'd go for Show HN, because you're out after comments and discussions then, not just traffic and views. But if traffic/views are what you care about, regular submission would do "better".

	▲	aeonfox 8 hours ago \| parent [-]
		> But if traffic/views are what you care about, regular submission would do "better". Traffic and views can lead to comments and discussion. I was definitely looking for feedback. I think there's a minimum threshold of interest that's required before people start engaging. But it could also be that my submission was super boring, or there was something else off-putting about it – I'd be surprised if it was the latter, because the HN audience isn't known for holding back on criticism.

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detectivestory 10 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I do personally check out shownew quite often, yet I would never really visit new. I might not be a typical user, but I think I am a lot more likely to engage with a shownew post than someone who comes across it on new.

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aeonfox 10 hours ago | parent [-]

It's a bit like ProductHunt. The only people that look at ProductHunt, are the people that post on ProductHunt—or at least that's its reputation. Though that's an unfair comparison, because I think on HN there is actually genuine engagement by other builders (or perhaps I'm mistaken about PH).

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cs02rm0 9 hours ago | parent [-]

I don't think it's wildly unfair, it's a genuine problem.

Not that I have the answer unfortunately.

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aeonfox 9 hours ago | parent [-]

As in you think it's as bad on HN as it is on PH? From what I've heard PH is basically dead internet.

	▲	cs02rm0 9 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Not quite as bad, but I do think the ShowHN posts suffer a form of the same issue where most posts seem to get very little attention and the little there is, probably comes from other people who post to it, rather than receiving the attention of the wider community (which, at least HN has).

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Semaphor 10 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Huh, didn’t know about shownew. But looking at it now, wow. That’s a *lot* of AI slop. Probably makes it even harder to get into new.

	▲	aeonfox 9 hours ago \| parent [-]
		I might have been mistaken, I think if you post to Show HN, it puts you on both shownew and new. I think in my case I saw Show HNs with less points and engagement on the top list, and somehow mine never appeared and I wonder if maybe there's some cherry picking there.