Hacker News Etiquette

I'd find it stupid to write a great piece that people on HN really would love, and hopelessly wait for someone else to discover it for you.

Now, the trick is in being sure that it's a great piece for HN. Delusion is by definition hard to detect on yourself :-)

No, plenty of people do it (myself included), just don't spam and be a HN'er of good standing (i.e. posting your own articles shouldn't be your only activity here)/

I did submit articles from my own blog a couple times, when I thought they were both interesting and good enough to provide for a nice discussion.

My opinion: It's tricky to submit your own content here. It's certainly not forbidden but it doesn't always go over well. I completely suck at starting conversations (not just here, it's a long-standing personal issue) and I am still trying to observe and learn and figure out what works here. I think the trick is that it needs to serve the needs of the community at least as much as it serves your own need for self-promotion. If it clearly serves your needs/ego far more than the HN community, people here generally won't hesitate to let you know how they feel about that.