> the best time to post is early morning on a Monday
In what time zone? Also, I would guess that traffic on /show might actually be higher at other times, as procrastinators look for something to do. On Monday morning they have plenty of regular news to read, whereas on a Wednesday afternoon there might be less content out there competing for their eyeballs.
In my case, a post on a Thursday just before noon worked out very well, landing us on the front page and (I later learned) making us the 9th-most-upvoted Show HN. [1]
Indeed. It’s the one of the best time in terms of outcome, but not the best time in terms of how easy it is to get to the front page. It’s always a tradeoff.
Also, I’d argue that Tuesdays are better if you’re considering outcome exclusively. That’s when people will be done with catching up from the weekend and will have more free time.
Would be really interesting to see data for a timeline of when hnews is most and least active relative to number of new posts.
Great advice for titles. If a title is too vague I won't even look at it.