February 16, 2026
Upvotes, bots, and beef
State of Show HN: 2025
Bots, “voting rings,” and chart wars — HN brings the drama
TLDR: A massive analysis of “Show HN” posts claims shifting tastes and possible vote-ring behavior. The comments exploded over spam, misleading charts, missing methods, and maker war stories—boiling down to one question: does HN’s score reflect real interest or just noise, and why that matters for visibility and trust.
Hacker News just got a spicy self-audit: someone scraped every “Show HN” (project post) and claims big trend shifts, plus hints of vote rings and AI-driven voting pools. But the community didn’t just read the charts — they started a chart fight. One user waved a red flag about “Clawd spam ravaging /new and /show,” while cheekily admitting they’re in a "down voting ring"—but, they insist, “not coordinated.”
Data diehards piled in. One veteran argued the graphs are misleading without adjusting for user growth, calling out that 2016 had fewer people, so “the light green” on those charts is fooling folks. Another demanded receipts: what model? where’s the reproducible code? If the method’s murky, the “evidence” might be, too. And when a commenter asked if the final analysis slide was available — “not even for money?” — the conspiracy gifs practically wrote themselves.
Amid the chaos, creators shared war stories. One maker’s Triclock never hit the front page but lived as a 3-day evergreen with 65 upvotes, while their other posts went “crash & burn” or “burn & shine.” The vibe: HN still swoons for web dev and AI, but today’s hottest topic is trust — are those upvotes the crowd’s voice, or just bots, rings, and vibes?
Key Points
- •The author downloaded all Show HN posts from Hacker News since launch for analysis.
- •A hierarchical topic model was used to categorize content and uncover themes.
- •The study reports macroeconomic trends reflected in posting and engagement patterns.
- •Evidence of voting rings/fraud, including AI-driven voting pools, is claimed.
- •Category performance across years shows shifts in interests (e.g., AI, web/software, cloud, data, tools).