Hacker News Dataset Trend Report
Comprehensive statistical analysis of 1.15M posts to decode the mechanics of popularity on Y Combinator's front page.
Total Posts Analyzed
1,146,410
Engagement Metric
Sum
Points + Comments
Study Timeframe
2006 — 2026
Statistical Tests
32
FDR-corrected (q-values)
Core Conclusions (Click to explore)
Viral engagement thresholds have increased substantially over time, indicating higher competition.
Posting time matters statistically (14:00 UTC peak), but effect size is small overall.
Domain category and Topic Clusters have much stronger associations with virality than time.
Shorter titles (4-8 words) significantly improve Top 1% probability (negative correlation with length).
Global events (War, AI Policy) create massive, temporary displacements in trending topics.
Python and JS remain dominant, but Rust/Go and AI tools are consistently eating market share.
Temporal Engagement Trends
Median Engagement by Year
infoEngagement required to reach Top 1% has risen sharply from 2007 to 2026.
The "Golden Hour" Heatmap
query_statsDarker cells indicate higher viral probability. 14:00 UTC is consistently strong.
Statistical Testing & Hypotheses
Hypothesis 01
Title Length Impact
Logistic regression testing the correlation between title character count and Top 1% viral outcome.
Hypothesis 02
Topic Cluster Impact
Testing if specific semantic topic clusters (e.g. Cluster 8, 9) predict viral success better than random chance.
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