Hacker News Community Guidelines

Translation of the official Hacker News guidelines. When in doubt, follow the original.

What to submit

On-topic vs. off-topic

On-topic: Anything good hackers would find interesting — not limited to hacking culture and startups. In one sentence: content that satisfies intellectual curiosity.

Off-topic: Most politics, crime, sports, and entertainment news — unless they illustrate an interesting new phenomenon. If it would make TV news, it's probably off-topic.

In submissions

Don't use all caps, exclamation points, or hype in titles.
Submit the original link. If an article summarizes content from elsewhere, submit the original source.
Don't use HN primarily as a promotion channel. Posting your own work occasionally is fine, but curiosity should come first.
Don't include the site name in the title — it appears after the link.
Drop gratuitous numbers in titles (e.g. "10 Ways to Do X" → "How to Do X"), unless the number matters.
Use the original title unless it's misleading. Don't editorialize.
Add [video] or [pdf] to the title when submitting those formats.
Don't post on HN to ask or tell the staff something — email [email protected] instead.
Don't delete and repost. Deletion is only for content that shouldn't have been submitted.
Don't solicit upvotes, comments, or submissions.

In comments

Be kind. Don't be snarky. Converse with curiosity — don't cross-examine.
Edit out personal attacks. Comments should get more thoughtful as topics get divisive.
Disagree with ideas, not people.
Don't be reflexively contrarian or habitually negative.
Don't post AI-generated or AI-edited text. HN is for human conversation.
Respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says.
Assume good faith. Avoid flamebait and shallow dismissals.
Don't use HN as a political or ideological battleground.
Don't ask whether someone read the article.
Don't pick the most provocative line to argue about. Find something worth responding to.
Flag spam or off-topic posts. Don't feed trolls by replying to bad comments.
Don't comment about voting or that HN is turning into Reddit.

Translated from the official guidelines: news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html