This article fails to mention one of the most popular "tactics" for releasing on Product Hunt: begging your friends for upvotes.<p>In fairness, the OP did not explicitly ask for upvotes on Twitter, just provided a link to his Product Hunt submission. ( <a href="https://twitter.com/aten/status/511904562857254914" rel="nofollow">https://twitter.com/aten/status/511904562857254914</a> ) The difference is that doing that on Reddit or Hacker News will get your post killed and you potentially shadowbanned. And justifiably so, since putting an emphasis on social media popularity in determining ranking takes away from the quality of the submission.<p>If you don't believe that upvote begging is a problem on Product Hunt, just look at Twitter. ( <a href="https://twitter.com/search?q=product%20hunt%20upvote&src=typd" rel="nofollow">https://twitter.com/search?q=product%20hunt%20upvote&src=typ...</a> ) Note how most of those have Favorites and Replies from Ryan Hoover himself or another employee.<p>I doubt this policy will be reversed since it's the reason PH became so popular, but this is the primary reason I'll never take Product Hunt seriously.