Hacker News
Platform · this deep dive is built from the official pages of the platform itself and of the tools that support it.
Overview
Hacker News is a link-aggregator forum owned and funded by the Y Combinator fund; the platform itself writes that "Y Combinator owns and funds HN", while the moderation team is editorially independent. The mechanics are as simple as they get: users submit links, vote on them and discuss them; the feed is built from votes and time.
For marketing this is a platform with the sign reversed. The rules forbid using it primarily for promotion, and asking people to vote or comment is punished. The only thing that works here is content a reader finds interesting on its own. The platform's own wording: a topic is on-topic if it "gratifies one's intellectual curiosity"; off-topic are politics, crime, sport and celebrities — "if they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic".
This is not a social network: there are no follows for an author and no "for you" feed — there is one shared list, the same for everyone.
Who's here
Hacker News does not publicly disclose the size of its audience. The pages we checked — the guidelines, the FAQ, the Show HN rules and the launch instructions — give no user count, no traffic figure and no country breakdown. That does not mean such data does not exist; it means the platform does not publish it, and we do not take numbers second-hand.
There is one language. The home page markup declares lang="en" (news.ycombinator.com), and there are no interface language versions. Do not expect a Russian-speaking audience here: you have to write and discuss in English.
An indirect indication of who is here is what the platform asks of them. The guidelines ask you to respond to "the strongest plausible interpretation" of what was said, and not to write or edit text with neural networks ("HN is for conversation between humans"). This is an environment that values substantive analysis and spots a marketing tone instantly.
Getting started
Registration takes a username and a password; the platform asks for no phone number and no document verification. An email address in your profile is optional, but the FAQ warns: without an address in your profile you cannot recover your password yourself and will have to write to the moderators. Changing your username also happens only by emailing the moderators.
Throwaway accounts are allowed, but with a caveat: "Throwaway accounts are ok for sensitive information, but please don't create accounts routinely" — a user is meant to have a recognizable identity. New accounts are marked with a green username (FAQ).
Karma is counted as the number of upvotes on your submissions minus the number of downvotes, though the match is not exact: the anti-spam system discards some votes. Karma governs access to some actions — the downvote arrow on comments and the flag and vouch links appear above a certain threshold, and the threshold itself is not published. At the same time, a bigger karma balance does not push your submissions higher — a direct answer to the most common misconception.
What you can publish
A link or a text. A submission with an empty URL field becomes a text post (this is how Ask HN works), and in its body you cannot make a link — deliberately, so that nobody can put a link in the privileged spot at the top of the page. Formatting is minimal: a blank line separates paragraphs, text between asterisks becomes italic, a two-space indent turns a block into code, and URLs automatically become links — except in the text field of a submission.
The rules for titles are strict and specific: [do not set the title in capitals or exclamation marks, submit the original source rather than a retelling, strip the site name out of the title, cut "gratuitous" numbers ("10 Ways To Do X" → "How To Do X"), mark videos and PDFs with the [video] and [pdf] tags, and do not edit the title to make it more enticing](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html).
Comments close: two weeks after a submission, or if the submission was killed by the software, a moderator or user flags.
How to grow
Ranking
The platform describes the mechanics briefly, itself: the basic algorithm divides points by a power of the time since submission; the rank is also affected by user flags, anti-spam, software that penalizes "overheated" discussions, the weight of an account or site, and moderator actions. Comments inside threads are ranked the same way. From this follows a direct consequence, which the platform also spells out: you cannot derive the rank from the number of votes and the time.
What is explicitly prohibited
This is the main thing to know when working with HN. "Don't solicit upvotes, comments, or submissions" — asking for votes, comments and submissions is forbidden. The FAQ repeats the ban twice and explains the consequences: the platform penalizes or bans the submissions, accounts and sites that break this rule. Asking for comments is forbidden for the same reason and, as the FAQ notes, is not in your interest: readers spot it and will call it spam.
You will not find instructions for getting around these rules in this guide: they are prohibited by the platform itself and by our own rules. The only path that works is to write in a way that gets you voted up on merit.
Show HN
A separate format for your own projects, with its own set of rules. You may show something a reader can play with: software that runs on a computer or that you can hold in your hand; for hardware a video or a detailed article will do, for a book a chapter. Not suitable are blog posts, sign-up pages, newsletters and lists — you cannot try them. The project has to be non-trivial and your own, and you have to be present and answering. The platform asks you to remove barriers such as sign-up and email, not to post landing pages and fundraisers, and not to file minor updates ("Foo 1.3.1 is out") as Show HN. The title starts with the words "Show HN". Every such submission lands on the shownew page, and reaches the main show page only after a small points threshold. And bluntly: "Please don't ask friends to upvote or comment. That's not ok on HN".
Launch HN
A format for startups funded by Y Combinator, with a curated procedure. The steps are described on a dedicated page: read the instructions, fill in the form, and wait for an editorial decision from the HN team — a reply is promised within two weeks. Each YC startup gets one Launch HN, so the timing is chosen deliberately. The title has to fit into 80 characters and take the form Launch HN: <company name> (YC S24) — <tag line>.
The advice in these instructions is useful to people outside YC too — the platform says so itself. The key points: do not write in a marketing, sales or PR style; do not use superlatives ("fastest, biggest, first, best"); give the reader a way to touch the product; make pricing transparent; say how you earn money or intend to. And one paragraph the instructions ask you to read twice: "Make sure your friends don't post booster comments. That's not allowed on HN" — readers work it out, and the thread can be buried.
Path to monetization
Hacker News does not pay authors. There is no share of ad revenue, no subscriptions, no donations and no affiliate programmes on the pages we checked: votes and karma convert into nothing except access to flags and the downvote arrow.
Advertising is not sold here in the usual way either. Job postings are described in the FAQ like this: ordinary vacancies may not be posted to the feed; there is a "Who Is Hiring?" thread on the first working day of the month for them, and only the whoishiring account may submit the thread itself. The second kind are ads for YC-funded startups: they appear on the front page, but they are not submissions — they have no voting arrows, no points and no comments, they start halfway down the page and keep sinking, and only one hangs on the front page at a time.
Put differently, the money on HN goes not to authors but to companies in the Y Combinator portfolio — and even then in the form of space on a page rather than payouts.
Tools and automation
The official interface is the Hacker News API on Firebase, based at https://hacker-news.firebaseio.com/v0/. It requires no authentication, had no rate limits as of the repository's publication ("There is currently no rate limit"), and is read-only: you cannot submit, comment or vote through it. Individual items are available (/item/<id>.json), as are user profiles, the topstories, newstories, beststories, askstories, showstories and jobstories lists, plus maxitem and updates. The repository with the description is published under the MIT licence.
The absence of write access via the API is not an oversight but a consequence of how the platform is built: automated posting and voting are prohibited by the rules.
The platform sets a limit on crawling its pages in robots.txt: Crawl-delay: 30 and a ban on crawling service addresses — /vote, /reply, /submitlink, /login, /flag, /hide and others. The FAQ adds a practical note: if you request many pages quickly, your IP address may be blocked, and there is a self-unblocking procedure.
Limits and rules
- Promotion. You may not solicit votes, comments and submissions; you may not use HN primarily for promotion. Breaking this leads to penalties or bans for submissions, accounts and sites.
- Show HN. Only things that can be tried; no landing pages and no fundraisers; the project has to be your own; asking friends to vote is prohibited.
- Launch HN. Only for YC startups, one per company, a title of up to 80 characters, booster comments from friends prohibited.
- Text and reposts. Text generated or edited by a neural network is prohibited; reposting is acceptable if a topic has not had significant attention for about a year.
- Moderation. [The
[flagged]label means user flags or a moderator action,[dead]means the submission was killed by software, flags or moderators; killed submissions are rescued with thevouchlink](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html). - Technical. Comments close after two weeks;
Crawl-delay: 30in robots.txt; the API is read-only.
Who it's for
It suits you if you have a working thing and a technical story about it: a tool that can be run, a breakdown of a problem, a report on an engineering decision. It suits people ready to sit in the thread personally and answer criticism — the launch instructions link the absence of replies directly to a submission dropping down the list.
It does not suit marketing in the usual sense: you cannot buy advertising here, you cannot send a mailing, you cannot speed up a submission, and trying to organize votes and comments is punished. It does not suit projects with no product: a waitlist page, an email capture or a landing page will not pass as Show HN. And it does not suit you if you have no capacity to write in English and in the tone that is accepted here.
Verified data
The checked data this deep dive rests on.
About the platform
the platform states: «Y Combinator owns and funds HN», and the moderation team is editorially independent; YC gets three privileges — job ads and startup launches on the front page and orange highlighting of YC founders' usernames
source, checked 2026-07-28
Account and access
throwaway accounts are acceptable for sensitive topics, but «please don't create accounts routinely» — a user is meant to have a recognizable identity
source, checked 2026-07-28
karma is the number of upvotes minus downvotes, and the match is not exact: the anti-spam system discards some votes; a bigger karma balance does not push submissions higher; the downvote arrow and the flag and vouch links appear above a karma threshold, and the threshold is not published; new accounts are marked with a green username
The platform does not disclose the numeric thresholds
source, checked 2026-07-28
What you can publish
rules for titles: do not use capitals or exclamation marks; submit the original source; strip the site name; cut «gratuitous» numbers; mark videos and PDFs with the (video) and (pdf) tags; do not edit the title to make it more enticing
source, checked 2026-07-28
Show HN is only for things that can be tried: software that runs or that you can hold in your hand; for hardware a video or a detailed article will do, for a book a chapter; blog posts, sign-up pages, newsletters and lists are not suitable; the project must be non-trivial and your own; landing pages and fundraisers are prohibited; minor updates such as «Foo 1.3.1 is out» will not do; the title starts with «Show HN»; reaching the show page happens after a small points threshold; «Please don't ask friends to upvote or comment»
The points threshold is not given as a number
source, checked 2026-07-28
Launch HN is for YC-funded startups: read the instructions, fill in the form, wait for an editorial decision (a reply is promised within two weeks); one Launch HN per company; a title of up to 80 characters in the format «Launch HN: <company name> (YC S24) - <tag line>»; booster comments from friends are prohibited; transparent pricing and access to the product are required
The instructions advise against superlatives and against a marketing style; the advice is addressed to non-YC companies as well
source, checked 2026-07-28
formatting: a blank line separates paragraphs; text between asterisks is italic; a two-space indent is a code block; URLs become links, except in the text field of a submission
source, checked 2026-07-28
Promotion
the platform describes the algorithm like this: points are divided by a power of the time since submission; the rank is affected by user flags, anti-spam, software that penalizes «overheated» discussions, the weight of an account or site and moderator actions; comments are ranked the same way; the rank cannot be derived from votes and time
The exponent and the weights are not disclosed
source, checked 2026-07-28
Advertising
ordinary vacancies may not be posted; there is a «Who Is Hiring?» thread on the first working day of the month for them, and only the whoishiring account may submit the thread itself; YC startup ads appear on the front page without voting arrows, points or comments, start halfway down the page and sink, and only one hangs on the front page at a time
The platform has no ads manager in the usual sense
source, checked 2026-07-28
Limits and restrictions
you cannot make a link in the body of a text submission — so that nobody can put a link in the privileged spot at the top of the page; comments close after two weeks or if the submission is killed
source, checked 2026-07-28
robots.txt: «Crawl-delay: 30» and a ban on crawling the service addresses /vote, /reply, /submitlink, /login, /logout, /flag, /hide, /fave, /collapse, /context, /r, /x
The FAQ adds: if you request many pages quickly your IP address may be blocked, and there is a self-unblocking procedure
source, checked 2026-07-28
Restrictions
«Don't solicit upvotes, comments, or submissions»; the platform penalizes or bans submissions, accounts and sites that break this rule; asking for comments is prohibited for the same reason
The ban is repeated in the FAQ https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html
source, checked 2026-07-28
using HN primarily for promotion is prohibited («It's ok to post your own stuff part of the time»); deleting and resubmitting is prohibited; accusations of astroturfing and vote manipulation are prohibited — you are asked to email the moderators instead
source, checked 2026-07-28
«Don't post generated text or AI-edited text. HN is for conversation between humans»
source, checked 2026-07-28
API access
the Hacker News API on Firebase, based at https://hacker-news.firebaseio.com/v0/; no authentication required; «There is currently no rate limit»; read-only access — you cannot submit, comment or vote; endpoints item, user, topstories, newstories, beststories, askstories, showstories, jobstories, maxitem, updates; the description repository is under the MIT licence
The statement that there are no limits carries no date
source, checked 2026-07-28
Languages
the interface language of the home page: en
The language is taken from the markup attribute, the versions from hreflang
source, checked 2026-07-28
the home page markup declares lang="en"; there are no interface language versions
Matches the database record
source, checked 2026-07-28
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