[aeonfox]

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.

[embedding-shape]

> 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.

[aeonfox]

> 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.

[detectivestory]

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.

[aeonfox]

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).

[Semaphor]

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]

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.