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Re: META

People will stop posting to a community when they feel their posts aren't up to what they believe the community tends to accept as Par for the course.

That's my impression as well.

The way posts work on HN is a bit puzzling and not immediately obvious - I'll post something and then refresh the front page and won't even see it. The Reddit model seems simpler - I post something and it appears.

I think you're correct. A Show HN that goes nowhere fast will disappear and be seen by virtually no one. An equivalent in r/startups or similar will still be seen by a few people even if it doesn't attract comments or upvotes.

The popularity of reddit over HN (then and now) means that more interesting things have always shown up there first.

Interestingly, as soon as I saw this post on reddit I PMd Julius to please post to HN.

Then I came to HN and searched for optikey and I just found this and several other threads by others...

Also... That reinforces "front page of the Internet"