I've noticed that some users respond with suggestions to refine an Ask HN question to make it more compelling for the wider audience, so I know multiple users will have an opinion on this.<p>Theoretically there is a decent mixture of factors that activates more users desire to respond based on the prevailing themes and culture of HN, yeah?<p>I'll start it off with something I don't think works too well:<p>A blatant attempt to generate a business idea or conduct market research.<p>Something that does work:<p>A question that taps into personal experience and gives users a chance to express their philosophy on a subject.<p>I notice I'm more likely to respond to questions about jobs and participation in industry.<p>Thoughts?
As dumb as this might sound, I think timing is important.<p>I am going to make a broad generalization that most of our readers are located between Eastern and Pacific time. I would expect most activity to happen during common down times in the work day (eg. after lunch, post scrum). I think this is essential for generating meaningful and well thought responses.<p>Perhaps you can do some time analysis on some of the most successful Ask HN threads and tell us your findings :)<p>Also popular threads like "Who's hiring/firing etc" always happen at the beginning of the month, am now programmed to expect those.<p>Best of luck
>A question that taps into personal experience and gives users a chance to express their philosophy on a subject.<p>This works to some degree; if you ask "what is your experience with (Node.js|Electron)?" I feel like that won't do well due to the polarization and broadness attached to the subject. Some people will just avoid it because they don't want to read through pages of conflict (and they already know the popular quips that get copy pasted on every thread like that) and the people that are flocked to it will ultimately turn it into a flame war that gets shut down.<p>I think it has to be a question people can relate to, but at the same time, not have an obvious or universal answer. Ultimately your question is "what makes you click on an Ask HN thread?" and, apart from obvious clickbait, the simplistic answer is "an Ask HN where I'm interested in reading the answers." To extrapolate from that, <i>who</i> is I? Well, <i>I</i> is shaped by "the prevailing themes and culture of HN," so I figure anything that taps into tech or entrepreneurship is fair game. Is there more to it? Without clickbait..I don't think there's an objective answer.
An attempt to generate a business idea actually fits extremely well here. I am not sure where you get that feeling from but I am interested to hear the rationale at least, as a conversation starter perhaps.
I think gao8a is probably right about data analysis providing a more comprehensive answer to the question in lieu of a greater quantity of subjective responses.<p>Two sides of the same coin.