Show HN: I measured the half-life of 41,301 Show HN launches. It's 7 hours

Show HN: I measured the half-life of 41,301 Show HN launches. It's 7 hours(jonno.nz)

15 points by jonnonz 6 hours ago | 3 comments

I scraped every Show HN from the last 12 months (41,301 posts) plus the full comment tree of every launch with 10+ comments, ~100k comment timestamps, all from the Algolia HN API.

The median launch gets 2 points and 0 comments. For launches that do get traction, half the comments they'll ever get arrive within 7.2 hours and 90% within 26, and the top decile decays on the same clock as everyone else.

Vote timestamps aren't public, so comment timing is the attention proxy; caveats are in the post. Everything reproduces from the repo with one command (https://github.com/jonnonz1/hn-attention-cliff), and every number in the post maps to a named function. Keen to hear where the methodology falls short

ThrowawayR2 2 hours ago |

> "... every launch with 10+ comments..."

Using "launch" may give readers the wrong impression. Show HN is not for product launches or advertising. It is for "something you've made that other people can play with" according to the specific rules for such submissions at https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html .

Submitters try to game the system to self-promote constantly but generally such improper submissions are ignored or shut down by the site moderators or users very quickly. Those who want to advertise or SEO on Hacker News are not welcome here.

fuzzfactor 1 hour ago | |

You said it well.

I like the idea of this Shipyard.

I would think the missing elements would be to concentrate on things that HN is not doing, and nobody else either. Provide a complementary resource providing links purely to honest projects rather than news items. But there's no way everything can be on the front page at once so he's going to have to sort them in some creative ways ;)

I always got the idea that HN was not intended as a very good place to actually "launch" things.

I thought it started out more like YC founders posting their recommended "current" readings and findings from the web, and showing occasional progress to others as they worked their way up toward launch. And welcoming like minded others who were not in YC who might just be in the same boat themselves.

Not really with the primary intention of self-promotion, at the same time it can be good to show pride in a worthwhile accomplishment.

It's good for people to show progress or share all kinds of things, but if it's tech there may be more numerous interesting tech submissions on HN any particular hour to compete for peoples' attention. Like anything else sooner or later something may go "viral", especially compared to nothing, but it would be more like a miracle than something anybody should have any expectation of. And the statistics in this blog really bear this out.

I see YC companies announce their launch and non-YC too have been warmly welcomed, but it's usually for a long-anticipated product where lots of work has been done building interest and there is a link to take you to where it's been getting so interesting. What I'm seeing is documentation of their major milestone, not really anything of the launch itself. In a way that fits in quite well with this website, which really is standing by for them any time.

They can be very busy with all hands conducting as well-orchestrated a launch as they can, in more directions every day. So it can be good when they take the time to stop by and fill people in on progress and availability, plus answer questions which some people are going to have more of than others. It can add up to a lot of interest for one HN submission.

But it's still gone in no time at all and that's what makes front page news front page news :)

da-x 5 hours ago |

Launching today is all about sponsored distribution channels and less about posts in specific forums.

But let's hope this one beats the statistics..