5 ms·

Then, when editing one's HN profile, it could indicate it better (whether the info is shown publicly or not).

by cawel 19y ago

dcurtis 19y ago
But News.YC prides itself on having both a terrible user interface and a terrible user experience. What kind of site calls a feature "noprocrast" without giving any detailed information about what it does? Only news.yc! --edit I wonder why I am being modded down. Maybe I said it too sarcastically. News.YC really does have a terrible interface. Look at the account settings page-- imagine yourself as a user who has never been there before. It's confusing and poorly documented. I love this site for the content and the simplicity, but Paul Graham is a programmer and spent very little time on the user experience, which makes sense. I don't blame him. But it is still a bad interface. I'm pretty sure 99% of people who fill out the "email" field expect their email to somehow be visible to other users. It's right next to another field that IS visible.
- bayareaguy 19y ago
  Don't sweat the small stuff.
- dkokelley 19y ago
  Think of it as a filter for non-technical types.
- DaniFong 19y ago
  Shiny graphics do not a user experience make.
  - dcurtis 19y ago
    Of course not. Craigslist has an amazing masterpiece of an interface and uses no icons/pictures at all.
    - DaniFong 19y ago
      There seems to be some disagreement over what we mean by 'user interface' and 'user experience'. Those who downmodded you probably thought 'I like using YC news just fine thanks.' When I hit the little ycn button on my dash, i'm immediately greeted with a list of interesting articles, flanked by comments that are worth reading. That's the most important part of the user experience for us, so here we stay.
      - dcurtis 19y ago
        Ah. The content here is great. I'm not denying that YC is awesome. It just has a sub-par interface. Compared to other sites, it has a terrible UI. It's not very user friendly, and it could be much more so.
pg 19y ago
What kind of site calls a feature "noprocrast" without giving any detailed information about what it does? A site for the kind of people who'd try it to find out. Actually, it is explained in News News (http://ycombinator.com/newsnews.html http://ycombinator.com/newsnews.html), but maybe most people don't bother looking at that.
- dkokelley 19y ago
  I honestly like it better without any explanation. It reminds us that HN is not for everyone, but only those who will actually dig to find stuff out. I googled those features after I joined to learn about them, and I like it better that way.
pg 19y ago
Yeah, I'll add a note about that.
- anewaccountname 19y ago
  By the way, while we are on this topic--can you confirm that passwords are not stored in plain-text?
  - pg 19y ago
    Sure. You can see for yourself in the source: http://ycombinator.com/arc/arc1.tar http://ycombinator.com/arc/arc1.tar
    - brett 19y ago
      On disk at least. They're temporarily logged to memory in the clear: (def good-login (user pw ip) (let record (list (seconds) ip user pw) (if (and user pw (aand (shash pw) (is it (hpasswords* user)))) (do (unless (user->cookie* user) (cook-user user)) (enq-limit record good-logins*) user) (do (enq-limit record bad-logins*) nil)))) It might be good to pull the pw out of the record list: ... (let record (list (seconds) ip user) ...
      - pg 19y ago
        Ok, I took it out. Turns out nothing later ever needs the pw anyway.
  - jsjenkins168 19y ago
    I hope you are not reusing an important password for this site.. Even if they are hashed on the disk, they are sent insecurely to the server when you log in.

Then, when editing one's HN profile, it could indicate it better (whether the info is shown publicly or not).

by cawel 19y ago

Then, when editing one's HN profile, it could indicate it better (whether the info is shown publicly or not).

But News.YC prides itself on having both a terrible user interface and a terrible user experience. What kind of site calls a feature "noprocrast" without giving any detailed information about what it does? Only news.yc! --edit I wonder why I am being modded down. Maybe I said it too sarcastically. News.YC really does have a terrible interface. Look at the account settings page-- imagine yourself as a user who has never been there before. It's confusing and poorly documented. I love this site for the content and the simplicity, but Paul Graham is a programmer and spent very little time on the user experience, which makes sense. I don't blame him. But it is still a bad interface. I'm pretty sure 99% of people who fill out the "email" field expect their email to somehow be visible to other users. It's right next to another field that IS visible.

bayareaguy 19y ago
Don't sweat the small stuff.
dkokelley 19y ago
Think of it as a filter for non-technical types.
DaniFong 19y ago
Shiny graphics do not a user experience make.
- dcurtis 19y ago
  Of course not. Craigslist has an amazing masterpiece of an interface and uses no icons/pictures at all.
  - DaniFong 19y ago
    There seems to be some disagreement over what we mean by 'user interface' and 'user experience'. Those who downmodded you probably thought 'I like using YC news just fine thanks.' When I hit the little ycn button on my dash, i'm immediately greeted with a list of interesting articles, flanked by comments that are worth reading. That's the most important part of the user experience for us, so here we stay.
    - dcurtis 19y ago
      Ah. The content here is great. I'm not denying that YC is awesome. It just has a sub-par interface. Compared to other sites, it has a terrible UI. It's not very user friendly, and it could be much more so.

pg 19y ago

What kind of site calls a feature "noprocrast" without giving any detailed information about what it does? A site for the kind of people who'd try it to find out. Actually, it is explained in News News (http://ycombinator.com/newsnews.html http://ycombinator.com/newsnews.html), but maybe most people don't bother looking at that.

dkokelley 19y ago
I honestly like it better without any explanation. It reminds us that HN is not for everyone, but only those who will actually dig to find stuff out. I googled those features after I joined to learn about them, and I like it better that way.

pg 19y ago

Yeah, I'll add a note about that.

anewaccountname 19y ago
By the way, while we are on this topic--can you confirm that passwords are not stored in plain-text?
- pg 19y ago
  Sure. You can see for yourself in the source: http://ycombinator.com/arc/arc1.tar http://ycombinator.com/arc/arc1.tar
  - brett 19y ago
    On disk at least. They're temporarily logged to memory in the clear: (def good-login (user pw ip) (let record (list (seconds) ip user pw) (if (and user pw (aand (shash pw) (is it (hpasswords* user)))) (do (unless (user->cookie* user) (cook-user user)) (enq-limit record good-logins*) user) (do (enq-limit record bad-logins*) nil)))) It might be good to pull the pw out of the record list: ... (let record (list (seconds) ip user) ...
    - pg 19y ago
      Ok, I took it out. Turns out nothing later ever needs the pw anyway.
- jsjenkins168 19y ago
  I hope you are not reusing an important password for this site.. Even if they are hashed on the disk, they are sent insecurely to the server when you log in.