[HN Gopher] Tips For Making a Popular Open Source Project in 2021
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Tips For Making a Popular Open Source Project in 2021
Author : makerdiety
Score : 197 points
Date : 2021-11-12 10:06 UTC (12 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (skerritt.blog)
(TXT) w3m dump (skerritt.blog)
| inshadows wrote:
| (deleted negativity)
| gtm1260 wrote:
| Maybe the next great library is sitting somewhere without a
| good readme so nobody goes on it /s
| ignoramous wrote:
| Just a note: It is okay to not censor yourself (though, you
| could always leave a note that you're being overly critical).
| Criticism often lays bare the hard-truths everyone else has
| _learned_ to ignore / suppress. The prospects that end up
| doing well, tend to address shortcomings pointed out by their
| harshest skeptics more often than not.
| q3k wrote:
| This all seems to rest on the assumption that more (drive-by,
| wooed by flashy logos) contributors => better software quality /
| functionality.
|
| That's... quite a bold claim.
|
| EDIT: And if you really want contributors, then maybe instead of
| building yet another logging or command parsing library with a
| cute mascot: contribute to and fix existing codebases, or discuss
| design and suggest changes to a standard library? There's plenty
| of existing communities of people that you can work with on a
| 'popular' library. If the target space is so crowded that what
| makes a difference is pure marketing, then maybe you don't need
| to make that space even more crowded in the first place...
| jmt_ wrote:
| Agreed. Reminded of a classic: "What one programmer can do in
| one month, two programmers can do in two months" - Fred Brooks
| hehetrthrthrjn wrote:
| No, but stars probably correspond to use or interest in your
| code.
|
| I don't think people always want contributors. I've found
| you're much more likely to get people who make a mess of things
| than coding soulmates.
| 0des wrote:
| This is so true- especially in a flattened org structure, it
| can get tribal very quickly.
|
| > maybe instead of building yet another logging or command
| parsing library with a cute mascot
|
| I'll admit this got a hearty chuckle out of me.
| lamplovin wrote:
| Not related to the content of the blog post, but I love the
| feature that enlarges the picture when you mouseover the picture.
| Such a nice feature!
| penjelly wrote:
| great article, i know a few talented devs who would benefit
| greatly from these tips. I think some people are averse to
| hacking the growth of their project and think they just need to
| put up a terse readme and the people will come. But these tips
| seem innocuous enough, no dark patterns to motivate growth here,
| simply basic advertising and economics applied to github repos. i
| almost feel like the intro about stars may turn people away
| before they get to the article, which hopefully shouldnt happen.
| TAForObvReasons wrote:
| "if you build it, they will come" and "terse readmes" work very
| well in problem domains that don't have a few compelling open
| source solutions. Fanciful READMEs and marketing matter a lot
| more in a competitive/saturated space.
| penjelly wrote:
| the article points out that the only way your repo will get
| attention if theres nobody else in the problem space, or your
| lib is much simpler then the other tools, so i think it can
| be both efficient in terms of description and mildly
| attractive visually. Also i think "fanciful" is a bit
| misleading here. Sure they recommend an icon, and/or an
| animation. i dont think thats necessarily overkill for some
| projects
| [deleted]
| OJFord wrote:
| ..or they don't care whether people come or not?
|
| I have a lot of little things I'm going to work on no matter
| what, a few that I'd appreciate help with but I'm not so
| bothered that I'm going to start 'hacking the growth', and none
| where the goal is to have a 'successful' repo with lots of
| stars and users or whatever. (I do help maintain/triage a
| couple of popular ones now, but I didn't get them where they
| are.)
| AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote:
| Right. Sometimes I put up my code because I think it might be
| useful or educational to someone else, and I'd actually
| rather it not become popular because I don't want to deal
| with people giving much of a shit about it.
| artembugara wrote:
| I have ~4k start in 2 Python libraries. Both help fetch live news
| articles. Links below.
|
| These were my first libraries.
|
| I took the approach of promoting them as any other product. You
| have to "sell" your code. Even if it's 100% free.
|
| In my opinion, the most important thing is DEMO. Just make a GIF
| where you showcase what your software does:
|
| * 80% of engineers won't even bother to read the description
|
| No one will spend their precious time trying to get through your
| code.
|
| [0] https://github.com/kotartemiy/newscatcher Programmatically
| collect normalized news from (almost) any website.
|
| [1] https://github.com/kotartemiy/pygooglenews If Google News had
| a Python library
| MawKKe wrote:
| Demos sure are important, however I would advocate using videos
| (.mp4) instead of GIF. That way you can pause and seek the
| video, to get better idea what's going on.
|
| So many times I've come across demo GIFs/animated shell
| sessions that "type" at about 1000 characters a minute, and the
| animation loops over before I even had a chance to blink.
| artembugara wrote:
| I agree, a live console/showcase website are even better.
| artembugara wrote:
| My article where I briefly explain how I approach open-sourcing
| my code:
|
| https://newscatcherapi.com/blog/how-to-present-showcase-open...
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| Check out the READMEs (and documentation) on these puppies:
| https://github.com/RiftValleySoftware
|
| They aren't particularly popular (and I don't especially care
| -I'm really my only customer).
| jamil7 wrote:
| These are impressive! The use of screenshots and figures really
| helps. I've also always thought Groue's GRDB is an example of
| great documentation and readme combination[1].
|
| [1] https://github.com/groue/GRDB.swift
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| That's extremely well-done!
| q3k wrote:
| FWIW, I much prefer those to some of the author's linked
| READMEs. :)
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| Thanks. Since I am the one that consumes my own projects, I
| write repos that I want to use.
| pfalcon wrote:
| > Check out the READMEs
|
| Ok. Tried https://github.com/RiftValleySoftware/RVS_Spinner.
|
| >> WHAT PROBLEM DOES THIS SOLVE?
|
| Looks like too many caps in titles to me, I'm mildly scared.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| No problem. Don't use it, then. That's standard heading
| stuff.
|
| No sweat off my back. I don't particularly care whether or
| not anyone ever stars these projects. They are really for me.
| brabel wrote:
| Why do you post links here then?
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| Why not? There's _tons_ of reasons to do it, other than
| craving attention. I 'm really enthusiastic about the
| tech I do, and I like to share my enthusiasm. Also, it
| helps to lend credence to what I say, if I can back it
| up.
|
| And some folks even _like_ the stuff I post. Go figure.
|
| Another thing that I try not to do, is immediately attack
| others, on this (or any other) forum.
|
| It buys me _absolutely nothing_. I don 't feel good about
| it, most folks around the place don't appreciate it, and
| it tends to make immediate enemies of potential friends.
|
| Pretty much the Platonic Ideal of "Zero Sum Gain."
|
| I've always found that life is easier for me, if I have
| more friends, and fewer enemies.
| flohofwoe wrote:
| Ah, but the real secret to maintaining open source projects is to
| make them popular enough to be useful to the right people, but
| not so immensely popular that maintenance becomes a burden.
|
| An "Ultimate Guide on how to make a Just-A-Little-Bit-But-Not-
| Overwhelmingly-Popular Open Source Project" would be much more
| helpful :)
| waltbosz wrote:
| That's the thing I don't get about open source. Where do these
| maintainers find the time to volunteer ? I wouldn't wish super
| success for my project if all that means is more unpaid work.
|
| sure, there are growing platforms that generate revenue for
| them, but from what I've seen, it's all dependent on volunteer
| donations.
|
| I suppose it would be a dream job to get paid to develop my own
| code, but developing a closed commercial software product seems
| like an easier route to success. Linqpad is one that comes to
| mind.
| pydry wrote:
| There's a definite trend amongst OSS projects done by
| individuals to build maintenance-lite things.
|
| All code needs maintenance of course, but some types of
| projects require a lot less than others.
| pfalcon wrote:
| If you really want to get paid for developing open source,
| nowadays you pretty easily can. But that likely won't be your
| own code.
| waltbosz wrote:
| For me, the priority is not open source, but rather the
| growth of my own creative invention. What I want is to get
| paid to grow my own vision, not that of someone else.
|
| For me, creating software is an expression of Creativity. I
| to be able to explore my creative interests. Not those of
| someone else. I want to create things that interest
| primarily myself. I suppose the key to that success is to
| find a topic which has enough people are of interest that
| would be willing to give me revenue to work on that topic.
| [deleted]
| remram wrote:
| I run a web app with 2k monthly users and 15k registered users
| (and about 14k downloads, which happen through the GitLab release
| page). I have 40 stars. It's just a silly metric.
| david_allison wrote:
| Same. 2MM+ actives, 5MM+ installs. 4.3k stars.
| mellosouls wrote:
| The author's most starred repo:
|
| https://github.com/bee-san/pyWhat
| penjelly wrote:
| i found the article good but honestly this readme seems
| overkill. An emoji for every single header gets tiring after a
| while.
| fenesiistvan wrote:
| Yes. Actually I can't read the readmee because my eyes are
| auto focusing on the icons :)
| brabel wrote:
| The "API" header is a freaking pizza emoji. WTF?
| junon wrote:
| I don't even know how many stars I have. Maybe the tens of
| thousands. On npm alone I have an upwards of billions of
| downloads a week. None of that really _means_ anything, so I don
| 't view that as a signal of authority on this subject.
|
| This article is exactly what's wrong with GitHub. Flashy logos
| and jargon-ey readmes fooling folks into thinking something is
| high quality, secure, thoughtful code that will benefit instead
| of hurt.
|
| These things are important for garnering views, sure, but open
| source isn't a marketing channel. You're optimizing for the wrong
| thing here.
|
| Further, in my experience this applies primarily to web (see:
| Javascript) and ML spaces. Most other areas of focus don't worry
| as much about this.
| oaiey wrote:
| Three things: community, community, community.
|
| Be friendly to the people.
|
| If they contribute, make sure you get their stuff released
| quickly.
|
| Attribute them in the release not es, your readme. Respect and
| gratitude.
|
| Be open for ideas.
| JackFr wrote:
| He lost me when he said Juicero was a good idea.
| timdaub wrote:
| Wow, this looks like a great resource for a difficulty I've been
| struggling for myself since a long time.
|
| For the love of it, I can't understand what makes other GitHub
| repositories stand out over mine.
|
| I'm blogging about my work, I've added more information in the
| readme and over the course of a view years, I've also gradually
| shifted course to a more appropriate process. I always wanted to
| be the owner of a busy open source repo. I find the idea of
| making this experience fascinating.
|
| But many of my repos are still stale though I think my code is
| good enough.
|
| Actually, seeing that the repository probably needs a much better
| designed readme makes me sad to realize that also for something
| so deeply rational: it's the looks that count.
|
| On the other hand, it's true. Deeply living with a problem and
| solving it in code is a though challenge and I'm not sure I'm
| committing enough for my work to be popular.
|
| But I'm anyways happy to now realize that I'll have to market my
| repos better too.
| specialist wrote:
| First off, I have no ideas, just questions.
|
| Have you tested your writing? project titles, readme, docs,
| etc?
|
| I learned to test _everything_. Basically SEO, but for good.
|
| I've done UI design, technical writing, ad copy, and so forth.
| Draft project plans, press releases, headlines. I've spent a
| ridiculous amount of time naming things, crafting pose,
| framing, messaging, etc. I even obsess over my trolling,
| sharpening my zingers.
|
| I just scanned your repos. Know that I am not your target
| audience. So I have no direct feedback. At least none that
| should be trusted.
|
| Your project for running C++ in a browser, via WASM, is the one
| I'd be most curious about. My guess is that's the one with the
| broadest appeal.
|
| I'd compare your written artifacts with similar projects. Push
| and poke it every way you can think of. Stuff like dropping
| each project's keywords and phrases into google to assess
| discoverability.
|
| I'd also test your writing on everyone you can. Peers, non-
| peers, randos. Both native English and German speakers.
|
| IIRC, didn't @danluu do something about naming repos? I'm
| probably misremembering.
|
| FWIW, for my last FOSS project, I spent a bit more time on
| writing than programming. Roughly 55/45 split. (I logged my
| time on that project. I was curious.)
|
| Lastly, testing writing is in addition to all the other good
| suggestions. "Yes and", not "Ya but".
|
| Happy hunting.
| timdaub wrote:
| OK interesting. Great idea on trying to compare my projects
| with others and then adjusting the copywriting.
|
| Then about testing for engagements: I've done similar things
| with the headlines of my blog articles. I usually have a few
| different ideas and I can test the engagement by e.g.
| resubmitting after a while on HN.
|
| Do you have ideas on how to get improve the pace of my
| feedback loop? E.g. for testing three headlines of a blog
| post: Where can I test their engagement quickly such that I
| get live results?
| specialist wrote:
| Sorry, I don't. Learning how to do that is on my to do
| list. I've read articles about using Ad Words to validate
| notions, but have never tried. My own efforts to date have
| been torturous unending manual trial and error. Not
| optimal.
| timdaub wrote:
| Actually, Veritasium posted a brilliant way for
| optimizing thumbnails and headlines to improve click-
| through rate on Youtube:
| https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=S2xHZPH5Sng
|
| I plead guilty and say that I've repeatedly posted the
| same link on HN but with different query parameters to
| understand its performance.
|
| But I've come to understand that users will notice this
| behavior and start to generally downvote.
|
| As a creator with a small audience, the only success with
| tapping into a high throughput feedback loop has been by
| painstakingly write articles and submit them one by one
| to HN.
|
| I've gotten much better at it already and frankly I've
| also noticed that engagement and "likes" isn't everything
| either.
|
| I've realized too that if you truly do what you believe
| in consistently, I've found that I suddenly start having
| "impact", which I think is different from engagement.
|
| How I see it:
|
| - Engagement: clicks, views, comments
|
| - Impact: The world changes, there's consequences and
| substantial changes as a reaction
|
| But I think you can't have one without the other. High
| engagement means you're a popstar. High impact means
| you're a politician. Ideally, I want to be able to pick
| my position on the gradient.
| penjelly wrote:
| im beginning to realize tons of things in life MUST be sold (or
| a case built which i see as a form of "selling")
|
| want a new code convention? best make a writeup and pros/cons
| for it to make it digestable to your fellow devs.
|
| want a code fix on a third party lib? best make a case for why
| its a value-add for the maintainers.
|
| want a new friend? best be interesting enough that the person
| has a reason to remember you.
|
| everything is a sell, though the buyers arent always buying
| with their wallets
| sgc wrote:
| I recently submitted a 2 character fix because someone used .
| instead of \\. in their regex. Terse explanation because
| obvious. Rejected!
|
| More seriously, some of the best friends I have made is
| because I randomly took the initiative to start a study group
| with them despite the fact that we had never spent time
| together as a group. There is always an animator making
| things work. If you want to actually do interesting things,
| you very often need to be that person. While you might not
| get the ego boost of being a 'chosen' one, you will
| occasionally receive thanks from those who recognize what you
| did to make things happen for everyone.
| grp wrote:
| The Society of the Spectacle by Guy Debord.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Society_of_the_Spectacle
| ignoramous wrote:
| > _im beginning to realize tons of things in life MUST be
| sold (or a case built which i see as a form of "selling")_
|
| While this is true, one is better off from thinking about
| this from first principles, such as what are _some_
| undeniable truths that are _constant_ over time given an
| _intractable_ problem space. Evolving software over and over
| around those constants, under the constraint of that one
| problem space, makes for a viable sell (but one does _have_
| to sell) especially in a b2b setting. Note that, early
| adopters don 't need much of a selling-to, by definition, if
| the software as much as interests them and fulfills a tiny
| modicum of their needs.
|
| Ref: https://apenwarr.ca/log/20211024
| AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote:
| Isn't this just making the metric the target? We want popular
| projects because popularity is a sign of quality[0], but by
| focusing on becoming popular we're just gaming the metric.
|
| [0] supposedly. I'm not convinced.
| ensiferum wrote:
| "But many of my repos are still stale though I think my code is
| good enough."
|
| The reality is just like with sellable (software) products
| (code) quality doesn't matter when it comes to "success".
| colinmcd wrote:
| I have two projects with a total of almost 7k stars. [0]
|
| It's worth noting that GitHub stars truly don't translate into
| anything worthwhile in the vast majority of cases. You can have a
| massively popular project, but it doesn't automatically translate
| into Twitter followers or newsletter subscribers. And those
| things don't directly translate into wealth or happiness either.
|
| Just get a job and make friends and have a life. That route has
| the highest expected value. I have been chasing GitHub stars for
| a long time, and it has never been fulfilling. I wouldn't
| recommend it.
|
| [0] https://github.com/colinhacks/zod
| susam wrote:
| I have a bunch of small projects[1] that have a total of about
| 6k stars (with the top one having about 2k stars). Except for a
| few donations to my Buy Me a Coffee page, I agree that they
| don't translate to anything else.
|
| All of my projects are tiny, minimal, and try to solve a small
| problem I encountered while doing something else. All of these
| tools were written for myself or my wife or just for fun! But I
| shared the code on the web anyway just for the joy of sharing!
| The joy of sharing code is something I discovered with my first
| encounter with computers while learning to write programs using
| IBM/LCSI PC Logo.[2]
|
| The joy of sharing is the real reason for making my projects
| open source. In case it turns out to be useful for others,
| that's a bonus! If someone cares about it enough to star it,
| fork it, contribute to it, or send a donation, that's an
| additional bonus! However, my primary objective is to have fun
| and share the fun with others. In my opinion, computing should
| be fun[3] and open source is one way of the ways that computing
| remains fun for me.
|
| [1] https://github.com/susam?tab=repositories&sort=stargazers
|
| [2] https://susam.in/blog/fd-100.html#a-lasting-effect
|
| [3] https://mitpress.mit.edu/sites/default/files/sicp/full-
| text/...
| reidjs wrote:
| It's a lot easier to get a job if you have started a popular
| open source projection. It will at least get you an interview
| at most companies.
| brabel wrote:
| I wonder why anyone would want to have a popular project in the
| first place.
|
| Do you think you'll get famous? Rich? Have higher status?
|
| Well, perhaps you will get some status in a few niche circles,
| like when applying for conference talks perhaps?!
|
| But other than that, all you'll get is a load of entitled users
| complaining about bugs, usually filling low quality bug
| reports, and very few actual meaningful contributions.
|
| Most people are just like you and want THEIR PROJECT to be
| popular, not to contribute almost anonymously to some other
| random guy's popular project. Those who are more likely to
| contribute are usually junior devs trying to learn new skills,
| so expect their contributions to require lots of reviews and
| help from you.
| sheetjs wrote:
| Maybe a story from a maintainer would help. To contextualize,
| the main SheetJS open source project
| https://github.com/SheetJS/sheetjs has over 28K stars.
|
| tl;dr: the project involves "crowdsourced research" which
| benefits from popularity.
|
| The main social goal with the project is data preservation
| and integrity. Large-scale economic and political decisions
| are made from data and analyses in spreadsheets. For example,
| last year in the UK, COVID cases were underreported thanks to
| Excel minutiae https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-54423988
|
| Due to various corporate stratagems, the older data
| representations were intentionally obfuscated. To support
| Excel, many developers poked around at Excel files and
| guessed at the structures.
|
| In this environment, the biggest challenge is finding
| worksheets with random corner cases. These types of files are
| not easy to create and fuzzing has limited effectiveness.
| This is where open source and popularity come into play. The
| open source and JS nature of the project helps reduce testing
| friction (https://oss.sheetjs.com/ runs in the web browser,
| no need to install anything) and encourage bug reports with
| test cases.
|
| There will always be "entitled users" and "low quality bug
| reports" but that comes with the territory. There are also
| meaningful issues and code contributions. Efforts at trying
| to prevent the low quality contributions also discourage
| higher quality contributions.
| rikroots wrote:
| My main project has gathered some stars (low hundreds) and a
| few followers, the occasional fork, etc. I think the project
| is both important and useful ... but at the same time I'm
| also very grateful that there seems to be such a lack of
| interest in it*
|
| Why? Well I've been following my competitors' projects (other
| 2D canvas libraries) for a few years now. Most of these
| projects are being maintained by just one or two people.
| Their dedication to maintaining and improving these libraries
| - which they often took over from the original creators - is
| wonderful to see.
|
| But the amount of crap the maintainers of the more popular
| libraries have to put up with is astonishing. People who
| demand immediate fixes for obscure bugs. People not willing
| to produce even a minimal code example to help the
| maintainers understand and fix the issue. People -
| developers! - who are too lazy to do their research and
| expect the maintainers to build their products for them.
|
| So, yes. If that stress is the price to pay for having a
| popular project on GitHub ... I think I'll stay hidden in my
| little corner of the internets!
|
| *A couple of issues raised, and no contributions, over past 3
| years. On the bright side I can release updates without
| having to worry about backwards compatibility.
| susam wrote:
| > But other than that, all you'll get is a load of entitled
| users complaining about bugs, usually filling low quality bug
| reports, and very few actual meaningful contributions.
|
| I agree that entitled users can be a real problem. I have had
| my share of dealing with entitled and impolite users
| complaining about "issues" that eventually turn out to be
| something that is already easily addressed by the README.
| Interacting with such users can indeed be disappointing.
|
| However, except for the occasional discourteous user, most
| users of my tiny projects have been quite supportive. Most of
| them are polite while submitting bug reports. Some even leave
| comments to express their appreciation for the project![1] So
| it's not all bad!
|
| > Most people are just like you and want THEIR PROJECT to be
| popular, not to contribute almost anonymously to some other
| random guy's popular project.
|
| Wanting one's own project to be popular and contributing to
| other projects need not be mutually exclusive. Many people
| write their own projects as well as contribute to other
| projects. For example, I got into open source first by
| contributing[2][3] to other projects before I began
| publishing my own projects.
|
| [1] https://github.com/susam/uncap/issues/9
|
| [2] https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/NUTCH-559
|
| [3] https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/NUTCH-601
| brabel wrote:
| > Many people write their own projects as well as
| contribute to other projects
|
| Yeah, I know, I do the same thing myself! The question
| still remains: why would you want to have a popular
| project? It makes no sense to desire that...
|
| Desiring that a project exists that solves a problem
| well... that yes, we should all desire that, but who
| created it doesn't really matter... if I create a project
| these days, it's to solve a problem I really can't find
| anything else to solve, not because I want to write
| something popular... TBH if it becomes popular, I might see
| that as a problem rather than a good thing given what comes
| with it: feature requests, bug reports, PRs that you need
| to spend time on while sometimes just not wanting to accept
| the change, self-awareness that you can no longer just
| change stuff at will if you want it...
|
| I have a few slightly popular projects, but the ones I like
| the most are the obscure ones I use by myself :)
| notamy wrote:
| > I wonder why anyone would want to have a popular project in
| the first place.
|
| Personally, I just like the feeling of knowing that I've made
| something that others like and find valuable.
| austincheney wrote:
| I used to use a popular project to get employment and it
| worked very well.
| hehetrthrthrjn wrote:
| > Just get a job and make friends and have a life.
|
| That really is a narrow, normie view. Obviously it didn't work
| out for you but for others (and I'd put myself in the category)
| stars can be very meaningful, especially for work which you're
| proud of. In a small way you're being judged by people who
| understand, or at least use, what you've created and that can
| be more rewarding than other work, money or social
| interactions.
|
| (Also, I'd rather kill myself than get a job and friends are
| generally not that stimulating)
| zapita wrote:
| > _That really is a narrow, normie view._
|
| What does "normie" mean in this context? Is it the new
| "square"?
| yjftsjthsd-h wrote:
| Yes
| rzzzt wrote:
| It's hip to be square!
| Accujack wrote:
| I'm going to say it's used in the "derogatory shorthand for
| everyone who isn't like me" sense.
| NikolaeVarius wrote:
| Its funny since I find this comment to be the most normie way
| of living ever, being under the boot of people who don't give
| a shit about you.
| bellyfullofbac wrote:
| Are you Gen-Z? One of my observations is that people born in
| since the late 90's have known social media and metrics like
| Likes and Hearts since their teens. I wonder how damaged many
| of them are.
|
| It's not to say that me, someone just born after the Gen-X
| era's declared end, isn't? also addicted to these numbers.
| wizzwizz4 wrote:
| Being exposed to these things from an early age means they
| form a part of your early philosophy. Notably, they're
| around and salient during the "cynical about everything"
| phase that lots of teenagers go through. It might not have
| as big of an impact as all that.
| mattbk1 wrote:
| Please don't joke about suicide.
| BeFlatXIII wrote:
| How do you think the cash-in rate is for GitHub stars compared
| to Reddit karma? Somehow better or approximately the same?
| kingforaday wrote:
| Probably the same as the ratio of Stanley Nickels to Schrute
| Bucks.
| byteface wrote:
| easy to say when you got thousands. I had to really grind for
| my 43 stars over 18 months and each one really made my day.
|
| (python): https://github.com/byteface/domonic/
| susam wrote:
| Have you tried doing a "Show HN" post for your project?
| Creating a "Show HN" post is often a good way to get some
| attention and feedback for your project provided your post
| receives a few early upvotes in the first 30-40 minutes and
| reaches the front page.
| byteface wrote:
| I had considered but it's not quite good enough yet. I
| posted on reddit once and got 1 upvote and 1 comment. aha.
| Think it's as I did it really late on a sunday. Timing is
| everything. But it hepled me a lot with not stressing too
| much about posting.
| kristopolous wrote:
| For this project and content on the net in general, You
| should generally show a compelling answer to the
| following questions within a few seconds:
|
| What is this? Why do I care? Why is this exciting? Do I
| like this?
|
| At least for me I can't answer those questions when I see
| your project. Maybe I'm stupid or ignorant and you simply
| don't want to reach me, alright fine.
|
| Also some projects simply cannot fit into this box.
|
| Sometimes reader enlightenment is required to see value.
| Those are the hardest ones.
|
| Essentially your task is to convince the reader that you
| have an answer to things they never thought to question
| or connect together and your proposed way of doing things
| fixes problems they thought were just the way of the
| world.
|
| That's why my more sophisticated projects do much worse
| than my simpler fun ones and why silly things do so well
| and hard things do so poorly.
|
| There is value to solving hard problems but as the new
| patterns form, people forget so the appreciation of great
| achievement is often fleeting.
|
| So I dunno, people suck and life is hard. Whatever
| ngokevin wrote:
| I've done a 10K+ one which did translate to followers, but keep
| in mind those followers are following the project, not you :)
| While people are grateful and supportive, do what makes you
| happy inside, because chasing clout and JSConf stages gets old.
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