Tell HN: I'm tired of formulaic, "LLM house style" show HN submissions
16 comments
I feel just as salty as you.
I can assure you that when my projects are ready to appear in Show HN, my write-ups will read very differently from this formula.
That's because they're ads / self-promotion, usually by freshly created accounts (i.e. not members of the HN community), that are thinly disguised as Show HNs. Just flag them and move on.
I've shown a product on HN in both human-authored, and LLM-assisted, versions. Neither got traction. When I showed my human-authored submission to LLMs they summarised it as "not a good post likely to gain traction" because, basically "too British in tone". The initial attempt at generating post copy for the LLM-assisted version was surprisingly similar to the OP's critique. Maybe it would've gained more traction - but I hated it (far too boastful) so I told the LLM to pull back on the marketing crap and make it shorter.
Of course the most obvious response is that the product is too niche for general interest. Still, I'll stick to human-authored in the future because HN always needs more "British".
Of course the most obvious response is that the product is too niche for general interest. Still, I'll stick to human-authored in the future because HN always needs more "British".
That’s all well and good, but how can we make money off of this post?
Well I’ve been working on an agentic app with a fun UI (https://aimakememoney.com) to turn complaints into startups ready for their first round of seed funding.
Well I’ve been working on an agentic app with a fun UI (https://aimakememoney.com) to turn complaints into startups ready for their first round of seed funding.
That's amazing. I've been working on a tool that takes seed money and turns it directly into apps, and thats been generating a ton of complaints from users. There's an unbelievable synergy between our two products, and I believe that if we combine forces we might be able to corner the user complaint market. Imagine the possibilities. Imagine the moat.
You might not be surprised to hear someone made a satire-ish site doing literally just that already.
And yes, it was posted to HN. I don't remember the name though.
And yes, it was posted to HN. I don't remember the name though.
[deleted]
In other news, I would like to offer the domain aimakememoney.com to the person with the funniest thing to put on it. I'll consider submissions for the next 24 hours and choose a winner.
"Show HN" posts have had this format long before LLMs were a thing. They follow the YC template and the YC sponsored ones make it to the front page. Just accept them for what they are and don't expect them to be organic community submissions.
this would probably have some kind of emoji if HN supported them
What is it about LLMs that causes an excess of emoji in their outputs? I've noticed this to be one of the most reliable signals for discrimination.
What is it about LLMs that causes an excess of emoji in their outputs? I've noticed this to be one of the most reliable signals for discrimination.
This feels to me that you just don't like people sharing what they've built in general. A lot of these things happen with or without AI.
>The UX I expect as a "hacker" is very different from what ordinary people would expect as clients or end users.
Although this site is called 'Hacker News', it doesn't imply that it is building apps for hackers; I think Show HN can also be about the making of things for non-hackers. This site is run by a VC.
>I can assure you that when my projects are ready to appear in Show HN, my write-ups will read very differently from this formula.
So what is the right way to write about projects? I've thought about writing something up that I'm building and it probably would have been similar to this structure.
This post makes me lean more toward 'why bother' and perhaps the community loses out on things in this way. Or maybe it is good if I don't write it up.
>The UX I expect as a "hacker" is very different from what ordinary people would expect as clients or end users.
Although this site is called 'Hacker News', it doesn't imply that it is building apps for hackers; I think Show HN can also be about the making of things for non-hackers. This site is run by a VC.
>I can assure you that when my projects are ready to appear in Show HN, my write-ups will read very differently from this formula.
So what is the right way to write about projects? I've thought about writing something up that I'm building and it probably would have been similar to this structure.
This post makes me lean more toward 'why bother' and perhaps the community loses out on things in this way. Or maybe it is good if I don't write it up.
> A lot of these things happen with or without AI.
Of course the AI had to learn from somewhere. In previous discussions I've been told that certain kinds of executives may naturally write like this and/or prefer for others to write like this. But now the style has become homogenized and ubiquitous, and I personally just find it extremely grating.
> This site is run by a VC.
Sure. But the VC culture here is about trying to connect VCs with people who want VC funding. It's not about marketing the resulting product.
> So what is the right way to write about projects? I've thought about writing something up that I'm building and it probably would have been similar to this structure.
Be up front about what your project does, and use only the plainest language to explain what it actually is. If you contrast with known alternatives, make sure we can directly understand your design taste/aesthetic and why you were motivated to make another one. Are you trying to provide something faster? simpler? more featureful? Or on the other hand, is it something you just re-created because you have a personal interest in things like it? It's perfectly okay to do that, and preferable to be honest about it.
If you're passionate about the underlying design, consider describing it in long-form prose.
Give a brief overview of how to use it. Not in a way that tries to convince us that it's easy to use, but in a way the directly illustrates that. Show, don't tell. Even if you have a full README already, repeat a simple example or three.
And please, don't say things that should already be obvious from the fact that you're posting it in the first place.
Of course the AI had to learn from somewhere. In previous discussions I've been told that certain kinds of executives may naturally write like this and/or prefer for others to write like this. But now the style has become homogenized and ubiquitous, and I personally just find it extremely grating.
> This site is run by a VC.
Sure. But the VC culture here is about trying to connect VCs with people who want VC funding. It's not about marketing the resulting product.
> So what is the right way to write about projects? I've thought about writing something up that I'm building and it probably would have been similar to this structure.
Be up front about what your project does, and use only the plainest language to explain what it actually is. If you contrast with known alternatives, make sure we can directly understand your design taste/aesthetic and why you were motivated to make another one. Are you trying to provide something faster? simpler? more featureful? Or on the other hand, is it something you just re-created because you have a personal interest in things like it? It's perfectly okay to do that, and preferable to be honest about it.
If you're passionate about the underlying design, consider describing it in long-form prose.
Give a brief overview of how to use it. Not in a way that tries to convince us that it's easy to use, but in a way the directly illustrates that. Show, don't tell. Even if you have a full README already, repeat a simple example or three.
And please, don't say things that should already be obvious from the fact that you're posting it in the first place.
Hackaday > HN for the kind of stuff I used to love discovering here
We made a text model for porn but it isn't polished enough to show off. So instead I'll mention it obliquely and pretend we have no interest in marketing
I think it helps to remember that those posts are basically sales pitches, and that if they don’t resonate for you, then you are probably not their target audience.
But another thing is that most tech people really undervalue good marketing and end up doing either the bare minimum (e.g., LLM puke) or narrowly targeting themselves as an audience. Either way, they often fail to get their message out to their market.
But another thing is that most tech people really undervalue good marketing and end up doing either the bare minimum (e.g., LLM puke) or narrowly targeting themselves as an audience. Either way, they often fail to get their message out to their market.
There are specific rules for Show HN (https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html) and tips (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22336638) from the HN moderation team, a couple of which are "Drop any language that sounds like marketing or sales. On HN, that is an instant turnoff. Use factual, direct language. Personal stories and technical details are great." and "Don't have your username be that of your company or project. It creates a feeling of using HN for promotion and of not really participating as a person. You don't have to use your real name, just something to indicate that you're here as a human, not a brand." It's pretty clear that using Show HNs to deliver sales pitches is not part of its intended purpose.
[deleted]
someone is going to create an LLM filter browser extension like adblock that targets distinct LLM phrase patterns.
and do what? block the entire page? block just the phrased? display the page as is, but with some sort of overlay pointing out the detected text?
that's the problem is that everyone wants to use AI, but nobody really does anything useful.
that's the problem is that everyone wants to use AI, but nobody really does anything useful.
remove the block the way Adblock does. Sure you could put a placeholder with a poo emoji
But it's not just a block though. it's text generated by an AI that is the offensive item. that's the point of the question that you've simply overlooked. So your suggestion is to remove the block containing the text? That would potentially remove all of the text, or at least a good deal of text. It's not like websites are using <div class="ai-generated">blahblahblah</div> that would make your quite simplistic suggestion of removing the block make sense.
This suggestion is like the AI slop in general in that it does nothing to move us forward
This suggestion is like the AI slop in general in that it does nothing to move us forward
[deleted]
Things sort of like that already exist, e.g. https://github.com/richardharrington/disrupt-to-bullshit
hit flag, move on with your life...
I'm tired of LLM, period.
> I can assure you that when my projects are ready to appear in Show HN, my write-ups will read very differently from this formula.
It's always nice to see something different. Your "Tell HN" (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43496859) had a structure very similar to the one you're tired of (that one is below), so I'm curious what your breaking point was, and what you believe will be more effective.
It's always nice to see something different. Your "Tell HN" (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43496859) had a structure very similar to the one you're tired of (that one is below), so I'm curious what your breaking point was, and what you believe will be more effective.
- Problem framing w/ stakes
- "To fight back, I built X"
- Solution positioning
- How it works/principles
- Vague justification
- The tech w/ buzzwords
- Social proof
- CTAFirst off, since it probably wasn't clear, several turns of phrase in my parody are meant to be understood more or less verbatim.
The structure I'm trying to highlight is specifically about things like the abuse of bullet-point lists (and specifically, ones where a few sentences of puffery are labelled at the start), and about trying to get people invested in using a product (with the implication that this leads to signing up for an account somewhere and eventually paying money or watching ads).
My Tell HN isn't intended to encourage people to use my fork of the project. I don't necessarily expect that anyone on HN was using the original in the first place. If anyone does care, I also explicitly point at alternatives.
I don't say anything at all about the actual functionality of the library, because it isn't relevant; my contribution is to the packaging of the project. I'm also not trying to use buzzwords to describe what I've accomplished: I put a repository on GitHub so people can see some source code, and published a wheel on PyPI so people can install the code with the standard tools. None of this is "sexy", bleeding-edge stuff in the Python world and I don't pretend that is is, either.
In fact, my submission wasn't really about `stringcase-new` at all. It was about a) what had actually happened with Setuptools; b) promoting myself as someone who can understand and solve problems like this on the fly, and then create comprehensive write-ups with abundant sourcing; c) promoting some of my sources ([2] and [13] are important information for all Python developers, in particular, and [11] did excellent work here and deserved a shout-out for it).
Edit: forgot to mention — I also don't benefit from anyone downloading or installing the fork, unlesss you count the tiny ego boost (or not) from looking at https://pypistats.org/packages/stringcase-new (as I post this, the site seems to be down...).
The structure I'm trying to highlight is specifically about things like the abuse of bullet-point lists (and specifically, ones where a few sentences of puffery are labelled at the start), and about trying to get people invested in using a product (with the implication that this leads to signing up for an account somewhere and eventually paying money or watching ads).
My Tell HN isn't intended to encourage people to use my fork of the project. I don't necessarily expect that anyone on HN was using the original in the first place. If anyone does care, I also explicitly point at alternatives.
I don't say anything at all about the actual functionality of the library, because it isn't relevant; my contribution is to the packaging of the project. I'm also not trying to use buzzwords to describe what I've accomplished: I put a repository on GitHub so people can see some source code, and published a wheel on PyPI so people can install the code with the standard tools. None of this is "sexy", bleeding-edge stuff in the Python world and I don't pretend that is is, either.
In fact, my submission wasn't really about `stringcase-new` at all. It was about a) what had actually happened with Setuptools; b) promoting myself as someone who can understand and solve problems like this on the fly, and then create comprehensive write-ups with abundant sourcing; c) promoting some of my sources ([2] and [13] are important information for all Python developers, in particular, and [11] did excellent work here and deserved a shout-out for it).
Edit: forgot to mention — I also don't benefit from anyone downloading or installing the fork, unlesss you count the tiny ego boost (or not) from looking at https://pypistats.org/packages/stringcase-new (as I post this, the site seems to be down...).
> My Tell HN isn't intended to encourage people to use my fork of the project. […] I put a repository on GitHub so people can see some source code, and published a wheel on PyPI so people can install the code with the standard tools.
Ah! Cool.
Ah! Cool.
All that said, I applaud the instinct to try to hold OPs to their own standards.
I would disagree that their previous TellHN has much structurally in common with the pattern they’re describing here.
> Hi HN, I have a history with some sort of problem — the common one which I'll describe here with some flowery prose that possibly makes gratuitous use of "quotation marks". I realized I was going some thing that reflects my fundamental limitations as a human. This demonstrates that something is wrong with our modern world, although the proliferation of AI slop is definitely not that thing.
> [Now something like:]
> To fight back, I built Software Name. It’s not just another program of the sort you might logically expect. It's something else, designed to implement a puffed-up description of solving the problem.
> [or perhaps:]
> I built hxxps://heck.no, an arbitrarily-described tool that helps you deal with the problem, instantly. You can interact with it in an intuitive way, and an AI does something for you.
> How it works is based on a few key principles from the problem domain:
> Formatting for Emphasis: Text that would make more sense as free-form prose is re-worked into a bullet-point list. Since each item includes multiple sentences, however, this doesn't actually reduce the total amount you'll be expected to read.
> Vague Explanation: This list contains exactly three items which seem generally aimed more at justifying how the product works rather than actually clarifying what will happen when you use it.
> Occasional Incoherence: LLM-generated lists of this sort often include items that don't all seem to belong in the same natural category. This confuses the reader and violates https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallelism_(grammar).
> The Tech (this would probably have some kind of emoji if HN supported them):
> It's built as fully buzzword-compliant software of some sort (which may be described with a word that doesn't quite fit in context), but some aspect of it is cool, interesting Other Buzzword which has some logical implication. Here's another logical implication. This might be several sentences that basically just mean "it's a web page where you can make an account, that is totally not going to crash if I suddenly get lots of business". Also I have no interest in ensuring you can see any content whatsoever without enabling JavaScript and I've probably vibe-coded a few off-the-shelf components together and launched it on Vercel.
> I wanted to share a personal story (and advertise my product) and thought others might find it useful too. I'm here to answer any questions about the problem domain, the tech, or the process of creating this thing. (I will remind you of this in a very formulaic way.)
> Would love to get your feedback!
> (Or perhaps I specifically "would love your feedback" — https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu... — on some pre-selected aspects of the project, rather than soliciting arbitrary critique.)
> Check it out here [if not previously linked]: hxxps://heck.no/
None of this makes me want to try out these projects, nor does it give me the sense as an HN user that I could actually, well, hack or experiment with a cool software toy. It makes me feel like I'm being marketed to and that I'm being asked to sign up for a product or service intended to solve a problem I'm unlikely to have or care about. The UX I expect as a "hacker" is very different from what ordinary people would expect as clients or end users.
I can assure you that when my projects are ready to appear in Show HN, my write-ups will read very differently from this formula.