Posted by JoseOSAF 2 days ago
The "outliers" are posts that were deleted and re-submitted, or possibly boosted by the moderators. The "visible for 44 days" post was only submitted 14 days ago; either it was deleted or it is a glitch in this guy's script.
The "44 days" outlier (Grov) appeared in our snapshots on 12 unique dates spread across 47 calendar days, not continuously. Our methodology measured time between first and last appearance in the top 50, which collapses resubmissions into one window. That's a real limitation we should have flagged.
The raw data: Grov first appeared Dec 8, then clusters on Dec 17-22, Dec 29, and Jan 16-24. Big gaps in between. It wasn't sitting on the front page for 44 days straight — it kept reappearing.
We're updating the study to add a "continuous visibility" metric alongside the existing one. The core finding still holds (99% of Show HNs are gone within days, and the median post gets a single 30-min window), but the outlier framing was misleading.
Appreciate the pushback.
The interesting part is in sections 4-6: what the survivors did differently. Happy to hear what would make it more useful to you.
Sections 4-6 have actionable insights:
* Part 4: The 1% — Who Survived and Why
* Part 5: When to Post
* Part 6: What This Means for Builders
But I agree, the headline doesn't convey that those insights are within the article.
2. What do you mean 5 years later? The article was posted today and the data was collected between December 2025 and February 2026.
As soon as something like this comes out, those who abuse HN latch onto it as some golden ticket and change the stats