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IDEA: Hacker News is a great resource for news and interesting discussions. However, sometimes I wish it could do a little better in some areas like reading on

IDEA: Hacker News is a great resource for news and interesting discussions. However, sometimes I wish it could do a little better in some areas like reading on mobile, sending notifications about replies, and perhaps having more social features. We decided to take a different look at HN and build a feed with notifications for HN users, which will notify about the following items: - When a user you follow comments on Hacker News (e.g. ptacek, patio11, dang) - When someone responds to your comments (I've missed a response from kevin once :(. This could've helped) - When someone posts a topic/keyword, which you follow and it gains popularity (e.g. "lisp", "scheme") TEAM and COMMITMENT: We are 4 guys residing in Uzbekistan -- all working on the same startup. We'd like to think we are smart -- 3/4 of us got full rides to study at UMBC/UPenn/Hertfordshire. We are committed to succeed -- as a team, but not necessarily with this or some other idea. In the past we worked at Morgan Stanley, Western Union, and created apps for others. WHY HN APPLY: This as an experiment. So far we have an idea and an Android prototype. We invested 4 days of work. If we are picked, we will pursue this full time over the summer and ship weekly builds. We need your feedback on this. I am sure some people won't need it because it will ruin the simplicity of HN but, perhaps, as power users you need some other features and use-cases. Let us know. PS: As Hacker News API is very limited, we have to do lots of work to build our own API from ground up to add rich set of API. Sorry if things break -- we only spent a couple of days on this.

jbob2000 10y ago
I don't like it. Hacker news is nice right now because it doesn't have all the crap you want to add. I don't want this site to turn into a "social media game" like reddit. I like that the power users feel limited, it keeps them inline with 98% of the other users here.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- Smirnoff 10y ago
  Hi jbob2000. I understand your concerns. In fact I have got a few people tell me that they like the HN the way it because of the great content. Don't get us wrong, we don't want to change that. What we do want is to give some people the ability to make their experience richer. This is not for everyone but it can be helpful for some people. Personal anecdote -- I asked a question one time but no one answered it. I deleted my question but as I was doing that Kevin Hale (a YC partner) responded back. After he posted it looked like he was talking to no-one. Fortunately, dang emailed me to notify that there was a response and asked if he could bring back my post. If I had gotten a notification about a response, this peculiar situation could have been avoided.
  - jbob2000 10y ago
    I am fine with some users experiencing those peculiar situations, they don't happen for like 99% of the users here. I like that this site is thin on features, it gets rid of all the people who don't need to be here; recruiters, marketers, spammers. If you start answering some of these usability problems, you're just making it easier for all of the web's cruft to jump onto our platform.
- altotrees 10y ago
  I agree with this. Part of what makes Hacker News great, in my opinion, is the fact that it contains few of those usual social media bells and whistles mentioned above. I feel like it places more emphasis on quality content and in-depth responses. I don't really feel the need to "follow" anyone, but do take a look at the top user list from time to time. That is not to say that things like notifications might not be useful, just that I come here more for the content and intelligent thought, and less for the social aspect.
- gr3yh47 10y ago
  specifically comment reply notifications would be a very welcome feature. It's annoying to manually track discussions as an active user.
  - DanBC 10y ago
    There's a risk it promotes flamewars. I'm not sure how to tackle that? Maybe a built in delay bofre accepting replies on notified messages?
    - krapp 10y ago
      I would argue the new comments page promotes flamewars as well, probably moreso than notifications would, since it shows potentially every troll comment. It just begs people to engage in tangential, out-of-context commenting and drive-by voting. The obvious, direct way to deal with it would be to just accept the risk and moderate as usual. There are already plenty of flame-retardant features here, I don't know that we would need more.
  - jbob2000 10y ago
    Yeah, but then HN becomes "serious business". So what if you don't see that there's a reply to your comment? And so what if you don't reply to a discussion? It's just a dinky message board for tech news and that's why it's great.
andrewclunn 10y ago
As somebody who doesn't shy away from posting opinions or responses, which I know might be controversial, I see this allowing the sort of cross-discussion harassment that would penalize such actions (beyond the "I disagree therefore I downside" reaction). Not sure I really want users following me. I'm here for the content, not to make friends. Not saying this is a bad idea, just explaining why it has no appeal to me personally.
- genericone 10y ago
  Agreed, this enables power users to have a richer experience, but this ALSO enables pedants/easily-offended to have a richer pedantic/defensive experience as well. I suppose no-one is thinking about about the majority of readers (lurkers who come to read more interesting exchanges than could be found on reddit) who are caught in the middle that end up with a worse experience as a result. I trust that HN moderators will make the right decision, which is to prevent this type of access from overwhelming the nature of HN.
lotharbot 10y ago
what I'd really like is a sort of universal notification app -- one that I can set to give me this sort of info for HN, and that can watch my threads on the subreddit I use, and possibly other types of message boards and blogs where notifications aren't auto-generated.
- Smirnoff 10y ago
  lotharbot, we thought about this too. There are plenty of popular websites and message boards that don't support watching certain threads and topics. But we need to start somewhere, so we start here. Thanks for you feedback!
petra 10y ago
>> build a feed with notifications for HN users, which will notify about the following items: >> - When a user you follow comments on Hacker News (e.g. ptacek, patio11, dang) Reddit has something like this but they didn't invest in it at all, and even with that it's a terrific source of content for if you as a user invest the effort in collecting friends. If you could take this feature on reddit to the max(for example advanced filtering) and package it as sort of mini-magazines, it would enable users to build terrific resources/magazines/feeds on many varied subjects, by experts, with great content quality, far above the bullshit of ad-driven media. And why reddit and not HN: the best reason is the variety of experts, not availble in HN. Also you could filter by subreddit and other stuff, there's an API, there's already a notification built into reddit(which increases virality).
- Smirnoff 10y ago
  Interesting idea about packaging information/feeds as mini-magazines on reddit. Thanks!
  - petra 10y ago
    If you want to build this and you seek feedback , i'm furyfairy at reddit.
genericone 10y ago
You've effectively changed the dynamic of HN from a content-pull service, to a content-push service, how do you expect the conversations to change as a result? Will discussions become more charged ala Twitter, since people will be immediately informed that someone that offends them has posted a comment/topic? Versus the current norm, which is that the person has to choose to be offended by visiting HN and checking that person's latest comments/posts, is this part of the expected result? If so, I would expect HN to crack down on that, as there is a certain moderation tone that is present here, and I certainly wouldn't like to see HN become twitter.
- Smirnoff 10y ago
  Thanks for your question genericone. I think it depends on the person whether he/she wants to be nice or not. Personally, I take a deep breath and wait for a few hours to reply if I think I am mad or I am offended. Notifications are there for you not to miss something. Once you have that ability, it's up to you how to you use it. I agree that this might create some burden on moderators. We will have to try and see.

jbob2000 10y ago

I don't like it. Hacker news is nice right now because it doesn't have all the crap you want to add. I don't want this site to turn into a "social media game" like reddit. I like that the power users feel limited, it keeps them inline with 98% of the other users here.

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
Smirnoff 10y ago
Hi jbob2000. I understand your concerns. In fact I have got a few people tell me that they like the HN the way it because of the great content. Don't get us wrong, we don't want to change that. What we do want is to give some people the ability to make their experience richer. This is not for everyone but it can be helpful for some people. Personal anecdote -- I asked a question one time but no one answered it. I deleted my question but as I was doing that Kevin Hale (a YC partner) responded back. After he posted it looked like he was talking to no-one. Fortunately, dang emailed me to notify that there was a response and asked if he could bring back my post. If I had gotten a notification about a response, this peculiar situation could have been avoided.
- jbob2000 10y ago
  I am fine with some users experiencing those peculiar situations, they don't happen for like 99% of the users here. I like that this site is thin on features, it gets rid of all the people who don't need to be here; recruiters, marketers, spammers. If you start answering some of these usability problems, you're just making it easier for all of the web's cruft to jump onto our platform.
altotrees 10y ago
I agree with this. Part of what makes Hacker News great, in my opinion, is the fact that it contains few of those usual social media bells and whistles mentioned above. I feel like it places more emphasis on quality content and in-depth responses. I don't really feel the need to "follow" anyone, but do take a look at the top user list from time to time. That is not to say that things like notifications might not be useful, just that I come here more for the content and intelligent thought, and less for the social aspect.
gr3yh47 10y ago
specifically comment reply notifications would be a very welcome feature. It's annoying to manually track discussions as an active user.
- DanBC 10y ago
  There's a risk it promotes flamewars. I'm not sure how to tackle that? Maybe a built in delay bofre accepting replies on notified messages?
  - krapp 10y ago
    I would argue the new comments page promotes flamewars as well, probably moreso than notifications would, since it shows potentially every troll comment. It just begs people to engage in tangential, out-of-context commenting and drive-by voting. The obvious, direct way to deal with it would be to just accept the risk and moderate as usual. There are already plenty of flame-retardant features here, I don't know that we would need more.
- jbob2000 10y ago
  Yeah, but then HN becomes "serious business". So what if you don't see that there's a reply to your comment? And so what if you don't reply to a discussion? It's just a dinky message board for tech news and that's why it's great.

andrewclunn 10y ago

As somebody who doesn't shy away from posting opinions or responses, which I know might be controversial, I see this allowing the sort of cross-discussion harassment that would penalize such actions (beyond the "I disagree therefore I downside" reaction). Not sure I really want users following me. I'm here for the content, not to make friends. Not saying this is a bad idea, just explaining why it has no appeal to me personally.

genericone 10y ago
Agreed, this enables power users to have a richer experience, but this ALSO enables pedants/easily-offended to have a richer pedantic/defensive experience as well. I suppose no-one is thinking about about the majority of readers (lurkers who come to read more interesting exchanges than could be found on reddit) who are caught in the middle that end up with a worse experience as a result. I trust that HN moderators will make the right decision, which is to prevent this type of access from overwhelming the nature of HN.

lotharbot 10y ago

what I'd really like is a sort of universal notification app -- one that I can set to give me this sort of info for HN, and that can watch my threads on the subreddit I use, and possibly other types of message boards and blogs where notifications aren't auto-generated.

Smirnoff 10y ago
lotharbot, we thought about this too. There are plenty of popular websites and message boards that don't support watching certain threads and topics. But we need to start somewhere, so we start here. Thanks for you feedback!

petra 10y ago

>> build a feed with notifications for HN users, which will notify about the following items: >> - When a user you follow comments on Hacker News (e.g. ptacek, patio11, dang) Reddit has something like this but they didn't invest in it at all, and even with that it's a terrific source of content for if you as a user invest the effort in collecting friends. If you could take this feature on reddit to the max(for example advanced filtering) and package it as sort of mini-magazines, it would enable users to build terrific resources/magazines/feeds on many varied subjects, by experts, with great content quality, far above the bullshit of ad-driven media. And why reddit and not HN: the best reason is the variety of experts, not availble in HN. Also you could filter by subreddit and other stuff, there's an API, there's already a notification built into reddit(which increases virality).

Smirnoff 10y ago
Interesting idea about packaging information/feeds as mini-magazines on reddit. Thanks!
- petra 10y ago
  If you want to build this and you seek feedback , i'm furyfairy at reddit.

genericone 10y ago

You've effectively changed the dynamic of HN from a content-pull service, to a content-push service, how do you expect the conversations to change as a result? Will discussions become more charged ala Twitter, since people will be immediately informed that someone that offends them has posted a comment/topic? Versus the current norm, which is that the person has to choose to be offended by visiting HN and checking that person's latest comments/posts, is this part of the expected result? If so, I would expect HN to crack down on that, as there is a certain moderation tone that is present here, and I certainly wouldn't like to see HN become twitter.

Smirnoff 10y ago
Thanks for your question genericone. I think it depends on the person whether he/she wants to be nice or not. Personally, I take a deep breath and wait for a few hours to reply if I think I am mad or I am offended. Notifications are there for you not to miss something. Once you have that ability, it's up to you how to you use it. I agree that this might create some burden on moderators. We will have to try and see.