Submission timeline
2007–2026One slot for every year since HN launched. Height is that year's peak points; orange marks a 100+ point or 50+ comment breakout. Select a bar to open its strongest thread.
First comments on top threads
HN comment orderYes, this, 100%. I find it very annoying to get a notification popping up on my screen for you to say "hi" when obviously you want to ask me for something...and then you don't ask or say anything else until I stop what I'm doing and say "Hi! What's up?" back to you. After another 5-10 minutes of waiting for you to see me ask "what's up?" and then type out what is up, which we all knew you were…
I wrote a similar guide (less concise/maybe more detailed) a few years back: https://josh.works/better-questions In another post, I make a case for never, ever asking "are you there?" in Slack[0]. It's been popular for my friends who work on remote teams inside of larger non-remote companies. Both are relevant, both try to encourage us to be respectful of the time and effort others might give us. https://josh.works/whole-messages-in-slack#you-there-and-oth...
It‘s similar to how some people in the company’s chat first initiate a longish back and forth of formal chit-chat before actually coming to the point of asking their question. I know full well from the first „hi“ that there will be coming a question my way at some point later but now I have to stop what I was doing and engage in an unnecessary real-time conversation to enable the other side to ask. Whereas if they just asked…
This drove me crazy in online discussions until I realized that 99% of the time, people who "ask to ask" don't just have a question, they want someone to be their dedicated tech support or mentor who will hold their hand and walk them through it, or will outright do the work for them. Now I just mentally filter these requests out and pretend they don't exist.
The first top-level comment from each of the four biggest threads, in HN’s own order. Excerpts are shortened; open a comment for full context.
- Breakout years
- 2
- Total points
- 531
- Total comments
- 511
100+ points or 50+ comments
reference only — not used in Hall rules or ranking
reference only — not used in Hall rules or ranking
Every submission
| Date | Title as submitted | By | Points | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2019-01-18 | Don't ask to ask, just ask | saranshk | 2 | 0 |
| 2020-08-24 | Don't ask to ask, just askFirst breakout | chynkm | 187 | 101 |
| 2021-04-17 | Don't ask to ask, just ask | st_goliath | 12 | 0 |
| 2021-12-18 | Don't Ask to Ask | rsie_above | 2 | 2 |
| 2022-03-11 | Don't ask to ask, just ask (2019)Best thread | chetangoti | 247 | 366 |
| 2024-03-07 | Don't ask to ask, just ask | RyanShook | 3 | 0 |
| 2024-03-20 | Don't ask to ask, just ask | RyeCombinator | 52 | 37 |
| 2025-08-21 | Don't ask to ask, just askLatest 20+ point return | thunderbong | 26 | 5 |