Analysis of Show HN Posts Reveals Hacker News Community Trends, Voting Patterns, and Economic Insights
By
kianN
A bagel you'd recommend to a friend without hedging.
Summary
This article presents an analysis of every Show HN post since Hacker News launched, using hierarchical topic modeling to uncover trends. The researcher discovered macro-economic patterns, evidence of voting rings/fraud, and behavioral shifts over posts' lifespans. The analysis includes visualizations of topic distributions across years, revealing what the Hacker News community finds interesting over time, with findings spanning DIY hardware, AI-driven voting pools, and broader economic trends.
Key quotes
· 4 pulledI downloaded every Show HN post since the site was launched and ran them through a hierarchical topic model.
I set out to discover what the Hacker News community finds interesting but in the process I ended up uncovering macro-economic trends, evidence of voting rings/fraud, and subtle shifts in behavior over the lifespan of the post.
Figure 1: Treemap visualization of every Show HN posts. Grouped first by year, then by high level topic group, then by granular topic.
Macroeconomics, DIY Hardware and AI-Driven Voting Pools
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