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Comment by dang | Hacker News Reader

We've noticed it too, and I'm not sure what to do about it. We take "Show HN" out of the titles when we see posts using it inappropriately (like for email signups or blog posts). But there are too many submissions for us to scrutinize them all.

Any suggestions?

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> Any suggestions?

Paste this into the console on https://news.ycombinator.com/submit and try submitting a Show HN. Some code is odd in order to make it browser-pasteable. Obviously rules can be changed to what you think are most important.

  var title=document.querySelector('[name="title"]'),submit=document.querySelector('[type="submit"]'),alreadyShow=!1;window.accept=function(){var e=document.querySelectorAll(".show-rule:checked").length;3!==e?(submit.disabled=!0,submit.style.opacity=.5):(submit.disabled=!1,submit.style.opacity=1)},title.addEventListener("input",function(e){if("show hn"!==e.target.value.substr(0,7).toLowerCase()){submit.disabled=!1,alreadyShow=!1;var t=document.querySelector(".show-guidelines");return void(t&&t.parentNode.removeChild(t))}if(!alreadyShow){alreadyShow=!0;var o=document.createElement("div");o.className="show-guidelines",o.style.height="80px",o.innerHTML=' <div style="position: absolute; margin: 15px 28px;"> Please ensure your post follows the <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html">Show HN Guidelines</a>. In short:<br> <input class="show-rule" type="checkbox" onclick="window.accept()"> I made this new thing.<br> <input class="show-rule" type="checkbox" onclick="window.accept()"> People can play with it.<br> <input class="show-rule" type="checkbox" onclick="window.accept()"> I\'m happy to receive feedback. </div> ';var i=document.querySelector("form tbody tr:nth-of-type(7)");i.parentNode.insertBefore(o,i),accept()}},!1);

Slight revision, forgot to reset the submit button's opacity after canceling the Show HN prefix:

  var title=document.querySelector('[name="title"]'),submit=document.querySelector('[type="submit"]'),alreadyShow=!1;window.accept=function(){var e=document.querySelectorAll(".show-rule:checked").length;3!==e?(submit.disabled=!0,submit.style.opacity=.5):(submit.disabled=!1,submit.style.opacity=1)},title.addEventListener("input",function(e){if("show hn"!==e.target.value.substr(0,7).toLowerCase()){submit.disabled=!1,submit.style.opacity=1,alreadyShow=!1;var t=document.querySelector(".show-guidelines");return void(t&&t.parentNode.removeChild(t))}if(!alreadyShow){alreadyShow=!0;var o=document.createElement("div");o.className="show-guidelines",o.style.height="80px",o.innerHTML=' <div style="position: absolute; margin: 15px 28px;"> Please ensure your post follows the <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html">Show HN Guidelines</a>. In short:<br> <input class="show-rule" type="checkbox" onclick="window.accept()"> I made this new thing.<br> <input class="show-rule" type="checkbox" onclick="window.accept()"> People can play with it.<br> <input class="show-rule" type="checkbox" onclick="window.accept()"> I\'m happy to receive feedback. </div> ';var i=document.querySelector("form tbody tr:nth-of-type(7)");i.parentNode.insertBefore(o,i),accept()}},!1);

(a) minimum karma for posting a Show HN, otherwise the keywords are automatically removed from your title (similar to downvoting priveleges)

(b) keep track of the accounts who get their Show HNs removed for inappropriate use, and if it happens too many times their Show HN privileges are revoked (similar to flagging privileges)

Just brainstorming possibilities.

Those are good suggestions, but on reflection (a) is problematic because we don't want to block out good posts by new users—in general on HN, the cost of losing a good post is much higher than receiving a few bad ones (I like to think of it as analogous to startup investing!). And (b) is problematic because most of these are not repeat offenders.

I suspect what we need is community curation. We're not going to do much of that as moderators—we don't have the cycles, and I think it's a good thing we don't have the cycles. But we would be open to changing the software somehow to support community members who want to curate the Show HNs, e.g. by weeding out the ones that break the rules.

Maybe a 'flag as not meeting Show HN guidelines' thingie on the thread page will be enough? With the only penalty for accumulating too many flags being the removal of the Show HN prefix.

It also seems there's a lot of genuine lack of familiarity with the guidelines, perhaps there's some simple, not-terribly-onerous way to encourage posters read them when they try to post a Show HN.

Those are two practical suggestions. Thanks!

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