[pangon]

I've been a long-time HN lurker. Like many others, I never created an account to participate and mostly just read without posting.

Today, for the first time, I actually have something I'd like to contribute: a personal open-source project I built with the community in mind and wanted to share.

But if I create a new account, I get redirected to https://news.ycombinator.com/showlim I also have an older account from 2021 (the one I'm using to comment right now) that I barely used, and that one doesn't let me post to Show HN either. It just says: "Sorry, your account isn't able to submit this site".

I understand the need to limit spam. But shouldn't mechanisms like upvotes, shownew, and showdead already help with that? A full block like this seems to hit not just spammers, but also lurkers and new users who are trying to contribute for the first time.

To me, that risks making the community feel more closed than it should.