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 orderI think a lot of the growth problems might have to do with the devaluation of karma. The solution to this might actually raise the quality of comments and front page stories. When I posted a comment here a year and a half ago, I felt like each vote was a real, actual smart person praising or agreeing with what I had said. Each point had a lot of meaning, and back then 5 points was considered a pretty good…
It's remarkably close to what I'd write today. The biggest difference now is the numbers. Now on a typical weekday we get about 150k unique IPs and 1.5m pageviews.
The dumb joke comment definitely resonates with me. Personally its the reason I stopped reading Reddit. I used to love it but now every comment thread is some self-referential inside joke. Or some other combination of “this” or “your mom” or something equally as stupid. Im glad there is a culture on here of downvoting those comments and keeping things fairly on topic.
(2009) Original discussion, which may be of interest: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=495053
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
- 3
- Total points
- 809
- Total comments
- 286
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2009-02-25 | What I've Learned from Hacker NewsFirst breakout · Best thread | mqt | 381 | 119 |
| 2012-07-24 | Ask PG: Any chance of an update on "What I've learned from Hacker News"? | tablatom | 229 | 98 |
| 2013-05-18 | What I've Learned from Hacker News | pajju | 2 | 0 |
| 2014-10-16 | What I've learned from Hacker News (2009) | S4M | 2 | 0 |
| 2019-02-19 | What I've Learned from Hacker NewsHall induction | sethbannon | 14 | 8 |
| 2019-02-20 | What I've Learned from Hacker News (2009) | vinnyglennon | 101 | 36 |
| 2021-09-18 | What I've learned from Hacker News (2009) | tentacleuno | 1 | 0 |
| 2022-02-19 | What I've Learned from Hacker News (2009)Latest 20+ point return | duck | 58 | 18 |
| 2023-06-13 | What I've learned from Hacker News (archive) | jWhick | 1 | 0 |
| 2023-08-25 | What I've Learned from Hacker News (2009) | mdwalters | 2 | 0 |
| 2024-11-01 | What I've Learned from Hacker News (2009) | belter | 5 | 5 |
| 2025-03-05 | What I've Learned from Hacker News (2009) | Freedom2 | 5 | 0 |
| 2025-09-12 | Hacker News started as a side project | sadeed08 | 8 | 2 |