[KomoD]

> What surprised me is how quickly these kinds of projects get treated as spam across communities, even when there’s no monetization, no ads, and no growth hacks involved. In some places, just mentioning “I built a small ranking tool” seems enough to trigger suspicion or moderation.

Because most places don't want you to post self promotion and leave, that's spammy.

> I’m not trying to promote anything here.

You are, that seems to be your only intention. Your first 2 posts (out of 3) were about promoting your site and now your third post is complaining about unsuccessfully promoting your site.

You promoted your site and then left.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

> Please don't use HN primarily for promotion. It's ok to post your own stuff part of the time, but the primary use of the site should be for curiosity.

[firefax]

To be fair, lots of people don't like to comment on sites.

So imagine you read HN for a while, but never register a nym because you don't really like to do social media. Then, you are inspired to do a project and think the community would enjoy it, and get hit with hostility.

I suspect sometimes that's a trend that plays out, not saying it's the case in this particular instance.

[rankiwiki]

I appreciate this perspective. I think that tension between sharing and promotion is real, especially for people who don’t post often.

[rankiwiki]

Fair point. I can see how my posting pattern comes across that way, even if that wasn’t my intent. HN’s norms are stricter than I accounted for. Thanks for the direct feedback.