Ask HN: Nobody clicked on a "Show HN" project I put my heart into. Now what?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46847710

by Ldorigo • 6 months ago

8 12 6 months ago

news.ycombinator.com

I shared a project I've been working on for months that I expected the community to love; it received all of 9 clicks, one upvote and disappeared from the "new" page into oblivion.

I don't know how strict HN is about retries but it definitely sounds like they don't want the same thing to be posted multiple times without changes. I would still love to share it with people (and maybe find out what was wrong with my post - was it not click-bait-y enough? Was the purpose unclear? Is the website not loading?).

I know there are bigger problems than this, but I was looking forward to share my work with others and I feel super disappointed!

(This was the original post for reference: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46847393)

giuliomagnifico• 6 months ago

Hey what a shame, the original post is very interesting, a great cultural project!

bartonfink• 6 months ago

Change the url and upload again. Embrace the hacker mindset. The rules here are mostly just suggestions and there are no penalties for breaking them.

ThrowawayR22• 6 months ago

Bad advice. Violating the HN guidelines does get users banned though it sometimes takes a while.

eimrine3• 6 months ago

Then register the ThrowawayR3 and try again.

ThrowawayR22• 6 months ago

There's an entry in the FAQ linked at the bottom of the page title "Are reposts ok?" that addresses your question.

I wouldn't be too disappointed. Most Show HNs never get any attention.

tingling168• 6 months ago

I can only speak for myself but I have no interest in watching historical movies, so your project has no relevance or value to me.

Could it be that either your target audience is small and/or has little overlap with the Hacker News audience?

Try posting it in a more relevant community. You might generate more interest from people who are actually interested in historical movies vs people interested in technology.

I know you're proud and want to showcase all the technological work you put into it but IMHO that's not what is valuable about this project.

Good luck :)

jonjacky• 6 months ago

I followed the original post to the project at

https://historical-moviemap.inneuro.ai/

It's a fascinating idea and the web site looks very nice. BUT it isn't clear how to use it. How do I see what the movies are? The page shows a world map covered with numbered spots. I thought the spots might be links to information about the movie set at that time/place, but clicking the spot just magnifies the map and replaces the numbered spot with more numbered spots. Oh wait, I tried it again and now information about movies pops up. Why didn't it work before?

I think people might have looked at the page, tried to use it, got frustrated, and left.

The page needs some explanation of how to use it. Besides the spots what is the meaning of the slider at the top? It might be some kind of timeline but what does it do?

Also, the HN crowd might not be the best audience for this. Have you tried announcing this project in forums about movies, or history? (I don't know where these might be, but surely they exist).

To appeal to HN readers, you might add more about the technology that runs the site, how you built the site, etc. That could be the text in the Show HN post or could be linked to the page itself.

Congratulations on getting this far, and good luck!

Ldorigo• 6 months ago

Thanks a lot for the feedback, this is what I was hoping to get. After working on something for too long the UX becomes so obvious that it's hard to imagine it from the perspective of someone seeing it for the first time. I'll work on the onboarding. And try to find some history subreddits where I can share this. Thanks for the encouragement!

eimrine3• 6 months ago

You created this topic after 1 hour which is nothing. I can easily read all pages of "new" until HN stops giving me the "next" link. Your project might be good but I neither interested in the history topic nor movies so didn't click. If your project would be about Lisp and unnoticed, I recommend you to send once more, because sometimes the publication which goes to the main is made from second or third attempt in a row.

From my experience the best content here is blogposts because they let me to discover great blogs. Also some whitepapers from any time work great for me. Probably you need to publish your work in some history community where folks have their favorite historic period and want to learn History from your website as a starting point.

DenisDolya• 6 months ago

Try posting in other communities, your project will find someone who will like it.

Ask HN: Nobody clicked on a "Show HN" project I put my heart into. Now what?

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