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Ask HN: How on earth can you follow the “RfR: Basic Income” thread?
(For reference, it is this one: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10982340)
I've started to read through it several times, as new content gets added constantly. But it's getting more difficult by the moment. Most of what I see seems not new, but I see the counter going up.
If you are actively participating you can follow your threads, but what about the 99% of us that didn't? It is not easy at all.
Just to put things in perspective, to jump from the first subthread (tptacek) to the next one (surfmike) I've had to put my finger on the screen to track indentation and hit New Page 72 TIMES. And that's only gets me to about a third down the page.
I believe it is showing one of the limitations of this minimalistic platform - it works great for small threads, but big ones get unwieldy.
Part of it is the failure to spin off new threads on separate themes, that normally happens whenever people start browsing on their own for new information, and post new interesting links to HN.
It would be great to see some UX changes like folding comments, or others that, I don't know, help structure posts so subthreads can be spinned off to a new post or something.
Any ideas? It would be great to have one of these big comment stories be the tipping point for some functionality to change!
- sharemywin 11y agoor you could argue this content is too political for this platform and should move to another platform.
- harperlee 11y agoWell but that's a cop-out answer. There are several very interesting discussions in that thread, as in other big threads (see https://hn.algolia.com/?query=&sort=byPopularity&prefix&page=0&dateRange=all&type=story https://hn.algolia.com/?query=&sort=byPopularity&prefix&page...). Would HN be better or worse off without them? Further, the conversations around link submissiones are one of the two core value propositions of HN (the other being the actual link curation, but I wouldn't be the first to say that the conversations are actually more valuable than the link curation itself). Shouldn't the platform be encouraging them (as long as they remain at the usual HN standards)?
- gus_massa 11y agoI agree. I just ignore most threads with more than a hundred of comments. They are usually borderline political and most of the comments are just opinions. The comments in small threads have usually more technical content based on facts.
- sharemywin 11y agoI read "new" pretty often which helps keep commenting down.
- ddingus 11y agoOpen subthreads in a new window by right clicking on their timestamp. As for the political, I submit everything is political. Often, it can be ignored. For this topic, it can't. Discussing it does not mean much, unless we also discuss the politics. It is the politics that will gate what is possible. People take politics way too personally too. Not always, but enough that the contact sport nature of it can be a problem. I tend to try to understand others as a way to help marginalize this impact. We do find common ground or can improve on advocacy this way. Take each major thread and process it. Filter politics by reading lightly. There is some good thought in that discussion. Worth it. Use a number of browser tabs to get multiple views into the dialog. This can help you reference things without so many navigation hassles. And doing this is a skill too. Developing that is worth it.
- harperlee 11y agoI hear you, but I don't think the burden of navigating the thread and keeping tabs on subthreads should be put on the user and his/her navigator tabs...
- ddingus 11y agoI'm a practical person. The move to simplify UI has it's costs. This is one of them. Your point is entirely valid. But, there is a lot of momentum in the wrong directions right now too. This pendulum will swing again, and maybe we will once again value threaded discussion enough to put a more effective UI on it. One thing I've noticed is flat UI has impacted many aspects of online discussion. Many people don't even understand threaded, and moves to serve the "sweet spot" use cases are efficient, but they also take the good features away or do not deliver them to people ready or wanting to take advantage of them. Personally, I'll just find the flow that makes the most sense, employ it, move on, and hope for better times.
- japhyr 11y agoThere are some browser extensions available for collapsing comments. Here's one for chrome: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/hacker-news-collapsible-c/hockhafcdegocajmjhafgjncjpodihkd?hl=en https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/hacker-news-collap... I'm not sure why this isn't a core feature of HN; I think it might be in the works at some point now?
- mrfusion 11y agoIt's definitely a problem. Especially for mobile browsers that can't install the enhancements. It would be great just to see the top voted comments in a thread.