Stacker News is a place for Bitcoiners to connect and share interesting ideas.
If there was one Stacker News principle to live by, it would be to follow your curiosity and share content that fascinates you.
Right now, much of the conversation on Stacker News revolves around Bitcoin and related topics, but there are also dozens of new topics that are covered on different territories.
This guide is designed to share best practices for posting content so you can get the most out of your experience here.
What To Share on Stacker News
It’s worth repeating the central idea from the previous section here.
If you’re not sure what to share, follow your curiosity and share content that you find fascinating.
You can share interesting links, original posts, polls, bounties or Bitcoin job listings. You can also add comments to any type of post to have in-depth discussions with other stackers.
Below are a few best practices worth considering when sharing content.
Links
Where possible, share links from original sources. Original sources tend to get more attention (and stack more sats) than secondary tweets, articles, and other content derived from an original source.
Take a moment to make sure your title is accurate, complete, and succinct. Precise and thoughtful titles help more people see your post, and help you stack more sats.
If someone has already shared your link, you’ll see a “dupe” warning on the post screen. Consider zapping that link instead of posting a duplicate link. Duplicate links tend to be ignored, and by zapping the first person to post your link, you can stack sats as part of our daily reward.
Discussions
Just like link post titles, your discussion title should be succinct and should accurately describe the topic you’re writing about. Consider spending a few moments improving your post title, as this can determine whether or not other stackers decide to read (or zap) your content.
If you are writing a post that contains multiple paragraphs, consider formatting your post. Adding subheadings to your discussion post makes it easy for readers to keep up with your writing. Stacker News will automatically generate a searchable Table of Contents when multiple subheadings are included in a discussion post.
Polls
Just like the other content formats listed above, your poll should have a succinct title that accurately describes the question you want other stackers to answer. In addition, each of your poll options should be correctly labelled and should entirely encompass the range of possible answers.
For example, if your poll is a simple yes or no question, two poll options will suffice. However, if your poll is asking for people to select a numerical range, be sure to include poll options that encompass all possible answers for the most accurate poll outcome possible.
Bounties
To get maximum participation from other stackers, bounty posts should clearly articulate the problem you're trying to solve or the task you're looking for someone to complete in the post title.
The body of the bounty post is a great place to elaborate on smaller details of your question or problem, to give readers additional context on what problem you're trying to solve.
Finally, bounties give stackers the flexibility of deciding how much money the completion of a task is worth, so pick a number of sats that accurately reflects the work required to come up with a solution and the urgency with which you'd like a sufficient answer. All else being equal, larger bounties will typically get answered before smaller ones.
Comments
Be kind. Your experience on Stacker News will be far more enjoyable if you consistently share kind, constructive, and helpful comments with other stackers.
When responding to other stackers, consider using full sentences and appropriate grammar. The added context can help readers follow your train of thought and engage in better back-and-forth dialogue.
What Not To Share on Stacker News
Instead of explicitly telling stackers what they can and can’t share, Bitcoin is the tool that the Stacker News community uses to signal which content is (or is not) valued.
If you regularly stack sats for your content, consider it a signal that other stackers enjoy what you’re sharing. If your content is often ignored, consider it a signal that stackers aren’t finding it valuable.
Content That Gets Ignored
Generally speaking, referral links and repetitive content tend to be ignored by the Stacker News community.
Because all posts cost money, anyone who is regularly posting content that the community ignores has a financial and social incentive to either share more relevant content or avoid posting at all.
Connect with Stackers
Stacking sats and seeing your post at the top of the page is always fun, but the best part about Stacker News is connecting and sharing ideas with our global community of stackers.
The daily discussion thread is a great place to introduce yourself to the community and to share whatever is on your mind. Think of this thread as a lounge or social club where you can share freely without being bound by the constraint of topic-based discussions.