4 ms·

Ask HN: Does anyone else miss "Ask HN?"

43 points by Magneus 16y ago

Hey gang, It seems that fewer and fewer discussion threads are prefaced with "Ask HN." I'm not sure if it was ever a formal rule, but I find it much easier to parse through the headlines when "Ask HN" clearly marks all discussion-only items, while its absence indicates a news item. Are other people feeling the same way? If so, how do we encourage this practice to continue?

someperson 16y ago
pg recently created this page: http://news.ycombinator.com/ask http://news.ycombinator.com/ask
- Magneus 16y ago
  Given, and it surely promotes their visibility when you're looking for discussion threads explicitly. However, I find that when discussion/ask threads are mixed in with the aggregate, it's easier on the brain when they're clearly labeled as such. Maybe I need a cognitive tune-up, but I find that I often will scan through the headlines, notice an ambiguously-titled thread, and have to do a quick judgment call: "Hm, is this a poorly-titled discussion thread or a rhetorically-titled headline?" My argument is simply to remove those minor hiccups to improve the experience of digging through the firehose of content that comes through HN.
  - _delirium 16y ago
    One possibility would be for the HN code to somehow visually distinguish them, with a slightly different shade or other indicator.
    - Magneus 16y ago
      Excellent idea. This would be a good solution if pg has the time to hack it together.
    - kgermino 16y ago
      They are already visually distinguished. You have to look but every story post shows the domain after the title while ask (URL-less) posts do not. Between this and the ask page I never have problems finding question posts. Changing the color or doing something else to try and distinguish the ask posts would probably only detract from the simply look of HN.
- profquail 16y ago
  I think the poster's point was that "Ask HN" posts are becoming less common (either posted less frequently, or just aren't voted up to the front page as often as they used to be). I'll admit that I miss this a lot too, to the point where I often just go through and upvote all except the most trival "Ask HN" posts. The ability to ask for good advice from a very smart group of people was once one of the best features of this site.
  - samwillis 16y ago
    I had a look through /newest and there seems to be roughly one new Ask HN post an hour although with the quantity of new submissions that HN get every hour they quickly move off the first page. I suspect that the posts don't stay visible on /newest long enough for a discussion to start and for the normal voter to find it worth voting for. I submitted an Ask HN post yesterday and it was off the bottom of /newest in little over an hour and a half, that is not long enough for a discussion to have become interesting. I don't know if there is something that could or should be changed to improve this, maybe an /ask/newest?
    - justliving 16y ago
      +1 for /ask/newest
    - njl 16y ago
      I had a couple of submissions that I thought were pretty reasonable, but disappeared without a trace. I now make it a habit to go through /newest when I visit HN. I view it as a little work to curate a community that I get a lot of value from.
  - axod 16y ago
    I think the recent problem has been an overwhelming amount of iPad/iPhone/Apple news,opinion,opinion on opinion etc which has pushed everything else out. Hopefully it'll settle down soon. It's great there is now the 'ask' page though which means at least that we can see such posts.
- elblanco 16y ago
  Weird, my last askhn isn't on that page.
chrislo 16y ago
The other thing I miss is Hacker Hacker News (http://hackerhackernews.com/ http://hackerhackernews.com/) - I wish something like that were built into HN.
- thedjpetersen 16y ago
  It appears that he provides the source from the main page(http://bitbucket.org/sqs/hhn/src http://bitbucket.org/sqs/hhn/src) so if you wanted you could get something close to it running if you want.
imp 16y ago
I've found myself going through the HN archives when I'm looking for advice. Part of the issue with fewer ask HN questions may be that a lot of common questions have now been answered. I do think those posts are more fun to read and comment on though.
- nekopa 16y ago
  Agreed. I have wanted to ask quite a few questions here, but a lot of times a look on searchyc has found the answers. I found it especially useful for finding books about certain subjects.
deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
jacquesm 16y ago
All the ask hn's are now grouped together and linked from the top of every page. It's actually much easier to find them now because they effectively have a longer life than they ever did before.
elblanco 16y ago
I tried one recently that went nowhere. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1263934 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1263934 I think they just aren't popular anymore.

43 points by Magneus 16y ago

someperson 16y ago

pg recently created this page: http://news.ycombinator.com/ask http://news.ycombinator.com/ask

Magneus 16y ago
Given, and it surely promotes their visibility when you're looking for discussion threads explicitly. However, I find that when discussion/ask threads are mixed in with the aggregate, it's easier on the brain when they're clearly labeled as such. Maybe I need a cognitive tune-up, but I find that I often will scan through the headlines, notice an ambiguously-titled thread, and have to do a quick judgment call: "Hm, is this a poorly-titled discussion thread or a rhetorically-titled headline?" My argument is simply to remove those minor hiccups to improve the experience of digging through the firehose of content that comes through HN.
- _delirium 16y ago
  One possibility would be for the HN code to somehow visually distinguish them, with a slightly different shade or other indicator.
  - Magneus 16y ago
    Excellent idea. This would be a good solution if pg has the time to hack it together.
  - kgermino 16y ago
    They are already visually distinguished. You have to look but every story post shows the domain after the title while ask (URL-less) posts do not. Between this and the ask page I never have problems finding question posts. Changing the color or doing something else to try and distinguish the ask posts would probably only detract from the simply look of HN.
profquail 16y ago
I think the poster's point was that "Ask HN" posts are becoming less common (either posted less frequently, or just aren't voted up to the front page as often as they used to be). I'll admit that I miss this a lot too, to the point where I often just go through and upvote all except the most trival "Ask HN" posts. The ability to ask for good advice from a very smart group of people was once one of the best features of this site.
- samwillis 16y ago
  I had a look through /newest and there seems to be roughly one new Ask HN post an hour although with the quantity of new submissions that HN get every hour they quickly move off the first page. I suspect that the posts don't stay visible on /newest long enough for a discussion to start and for the normal voter to find it worth voting for. I submitted an Ask HN post yesterday and it was off the bottom of /newest in little over an hour and a half, that is not long enough for a discussion to have become interesting. I don't know if there is something that could or should be changed to improve this, maybe an /ask/newest?
  - justliving 16y ago
    +1 for /ask/newest
  - njl 16y ago
    I had a couple of submissions that I thought were pretty reasonable, but disappeared without a trace. I now make it a habit to go through /newest when I visit HN. I view it as a little work to curate a community that I get a lot of value from.
- axod 16y ago
  I think the recent problem has been an overwhelming amount of iPad/iPhone/Apple news,opinion,opinion on opinion etc which has pushed everything else out. Hopefully it'll settle down soon. It's great there is now the 'ask' page though which means at least that we can see such posts.
elblanco 16y ago
Weird, my last askhn isn't on that page.

chrislo 16y ago

The other thing I miss is Hacker Hacker News (http://hackerhackernews.com/ http://hackerhackernews.com/) - I wish something like that were built into HN.

thedjpetersen 16y ago
It appears that he provides the source from the main page(http://bitbucket.org/sqs/hhn/src http://bitbucket.org/sqs/hhn/src) so if you wanted you could get something close to it running if you want.

imp 16y ago

I've found myself going through the HN archives when I'm looking for advice. Part of the issue with fewer ask HN questions may be that a lot of common questions have now been answered. I do think those posts are more fun to read and comment on though.

nekopa 16y ago
Agreed. I have wanted to ask quite a few questions here, but a lot of times a look on searchyc has found the answers. I found it especially useful for finding books about certain subjects.

deleted 16y ago

[deleted]

jacquesm 16y ago

All the ask hn's are now grouped together and linked from the top of every page. It's actually much easier to find them now because they effectively have a longer life than they ever did before.

elblanco 16y ago

I tried one recently that went nowhere. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1263934 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1263934 I think they just aren't popular anymore.