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Ask HN: What are some key ingredients for a compelling Ask HN?

13 points by CameronBarre ↗ HN
I've noticed that some users respond with suggestions to refine an Ask HN question to make it more compelling for the wider audience, so I know multiple users will have an opinion on this.

Theoretically there is a decent mixture of factors that activates more users desire to respond based on the prevailing themes and culture of HN, yeah?

I'll start it off with something I don't think works too well:

A blatant attempt to generate a business idea or conduct market research.

Something that does work:

A question that taps into personal experience and gives users a chance to express their philosophy on a subject.

I notice I'm more likely to respond to questions about jobs and participation in industry.

Thoughts?

18 comments

[ 5.5 ms ] story [ 21.2 ms ] thread
tyri_kai_psomi
An attempt to generate a business idea actually fits extremely well here. I am not sure where you get that feeling from but I am interested to hear the rationale at least, as a conversation starter perhaps.
nexuist
I tried this Ask HN before: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19846911

It didn't do really well, maybe due to the timing and not the subject matter, but it's worth noting that some people in the thread did take an accusatory stance and assume malicious motives from my question. I tried my best to cover my bases and make sure the intent didn't come across as personal gain, but alas, you can't convince everyone.

My goal was to get responses from people who work in "exotic" or otherwise "not techy" industries who could benefit from technology that they may know about but are not experts in (alternatively, they are capable, but do not have the time nor incentive to care). I'm sure that, especially among the people who frequent HN, we've all had experiences with processes in our lives where we've thought, "man, I could script this in a few hours."

CameronBarre
I don't find the activity inherently malicious at all, it's a certain type of brain picking that people don't respond to positively. Thanks for the example!
CameronBarre
I don't quite know how to express my rationale, because I know exactly what you mean as well.

There is a certain flavor of question that I characterize as an attempt to harvest ideas from users who respond.

I would agree there must be methods of poking around with a similar aim, in a more organic way.

gtrubetskoy 

  RecursionError: maximum recursion depth exceeded
hellofunk
Going as meta as possible is probably the most effective way for your Ask HN to make it to the front page.
CameronBarre
Fair point, since this question is getting engagement, but I don't think breaking the fourth wall equates with an attempt to ask a compelling question about a real subject, if that makes sense.
nexuist
>A question that taps into personal experience and gives users a chance to express their philosophy on a subject.

This works to some degree; if you ask "what is your experience with (Node.js|Electron)?" I feel like that won't do well due to the polarization and broadness attached to the subject. Some people will just avoid it because they don't want to read through pages of conflict (and they already know the popular quips that get copy pasted on every thread like that) and the people that are flocked to it will ultimately turn it into a flame war that gets shut down.

I think it has to be a question people can relate to, but at the same time, not have an obvious or universal answer. Ultimately your question is "what makes you click on an Ask HN thread?" and, apart from obvious clickbait, the simplistic answer is "an Ask HN where I'm interested in reading the answers." To extrapolate from that, who is I? Well, I is shaped by "the prevailing themes and culture of HN," so I figure anything that taps into tech or entrepreneurship is fair game. Is there more to it? Without clickbait..I don't think there's an objective answer.

CameronBarre
That's an interesting position, I would expect clickbait to be more important on the normal posting format, because users are being asked to go to some external resource for reading.
[dead] LifeLiverTransp
Users have a chance to give some personal experience, in a field not adjunct to a flamewar.
gao8a
As dumb as this might sound, I think timing is important.

I am going to make a broad generalization that most of our readers are located between Eastern and Pacific time. I would expect most activity to happen during common down times in the work day (eg. after lunch, post scrum). I think this is essential for generating meaningful and well thought responses.

Perhaps you can do some time analysis on some of the most successful Ask HN threads and tell us your findings :)

Also popular threads like "Who's hiring/firing etc" always happen at the beginning of the month, am now programmed to expect those.

Best of luck

CameronBarre
I don't think it's dumb at all, I bet it does count as an ingredient to an overall compelling post.

Ignoring a fact like posting when a large number of users are potentially active does appear detrimental to the goal.

demarq
metaness
CameronBarre
Indeed, as I responded to the other mention of this, I think engagement with organic subject matter is different than the engagement that comes from asking introspective questions like this one.

That's my personal opinion right now, I could be wrong about it philosophically.

Havoc
Something contentious - i.e. Doesn't have a simple "correct" answer.
CameronBarre
I get a feeling that contentiousness works better with the normal post format that usually links to someones opinion on a subject that is obviously contentious here.
CameronBarre
I think gao8a is probably right about data analysis providing a more comprehensive answer to the question in lieu of a greater quantity of subjective responses.

Two sides of the same coin.