WannaLaunch scores planned HN post titles and URLs against 1.6M historical posts to estimate front-page probability before submission.
Key Takeaways
Two models available: Show HN model trained on April 2023-2026 data; General HN model covering all post types from 2021-2026.
Optimal posting window is 12:00-18:00 UTC; Sunday is the top-performing day for Show HN submissions.
Title sweet spot is 60-80 characters; parentheticals like “(written in Rust)” or “(open source)” are flagged as positive signals.
GitHub repo or live demo URLs are scored higher than bare landing pages for Show HN posts.
Hacker News Comment Review
Commenters challenged the core definition of success: front-page score and eyeballs are a weak proxy for the real Show HN value, which is substantive conversation and direct feedback.
The tool scored its own submission 49/100 and recommended adding a parenthetical, exposing a gap between model output and actual community behavior.
Skepticism surfaced about vote manipulation, and one commenter noted HN’s moderator controls and shadow banning already limit gaming the ranking formula.
Notable Comments
@jofzar: Caught that the tool scored its own Show HN post 49/100 while it was live on the feed.
@gverrilla: “Show HN: I built a bicycle that runs on my fridge (written in Rust)” to illustrate how easily the model’s signals can be gamed for a perfect score.
