Making the HN URLs more human readable would also make them much longer. However, the longer URLs could provide a form of site structure if the URLs are 'editab

Making the HN URLs more human readable would also make them much longer. However, the longer URLs could provide a form of site structure if the URLs are 'editable' e.g. https://news.ycombinator.com/2016/05/25/regressive-web-apps Then, if you edit the URL, you can get all stories for today: https://news.ycombinator.com/2016/05/25/ All stories for the month (which would require pagination): https://news.ycombinator.com/2016/05/ And all stories for 2016: https://news.ycombinator.com/2016/ And finally, back to the home page https://news.ycombinator.com/ Note: all these pages don't have to be explictly linked or displayed on Hacker News, they might appear only when someone edits the URL in their browser. Edit: Just to add...here's a lengthy, but very detailed post by an ex-BBC employee about using URLs to model the complex data for BBC programmes Designing a URL structure for BBC programmes http://smethur.st/posts/176135860 http://smethur.st/posts/176135860