On Friday, 26 June 2020 at 07:35:17 UTC, JN wrote:
Here's some examples of blog posts that got popular on reddit last week. They're short enough and can be understood without deep understanding of the language:
We've had long, D-specific posts be successful on reddit on more than one occasion. On HN as well. Sometimes they catch on, sometimes they don't. I always aim for an optimal window on reddit [1] and sometimes use an alternative, catchier title if it fits (I learned a valuable lesson with Liran's interview when I didn't include "the World's Fastest File System" in the reddit post -- I used it on HN and it hit big).
But I've noticed these days that most of our successful blog posts have a slow burn on reddit. They stay in the low teens for a day or so and then start to tick up. More interesting to me is the upvote *rate*. Anything over 75% makes me happy. As I write, Simen's post has 14 upvotes and an 82% upvote rate. And no D bashing in the comments. In my book, that's a successful post.
HN is always hit or miss. Unlike /r/programming, the HN front page changes rapidly. When a post catches on, it's always big. Otherwise it fades away quickly. From what I can tell it's mostly a matter of timing there. Also, if I don't share a post on HN, someone else inevitably will. And it's the same story: big or nothing.
[1] https://dashboard.laterforreddit.com/analysis/?subreddit=%2Fr%2Fprogramming&threshold=5
