Show HN: I measured the half-life of 41,301 Show HN launches. It's 7 hours
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
Discussion Highlights (3 comments)
da-x
Launching today is all about sponsored distribution channels and less about posts in specific forums. But let's hope this one beats the statistics..
ThrowawayR2
> " ... 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.
Darkstryder
I’m posting this comment 8 hours after the post so I can be in the better half of the distribution.