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What is horrible about it? It doesn't get in your way and allows you to post quickly. This is the only place I've engaged in online conversation for years and t
by smiler 16y ago
What is horrible about it? It doesn't get in your way and allows you to post quickly. This is the only place I've engaged in online conversation for years and that's because it's just so quick and simple. Compared to forums and commenting on blogs & entering captcha's it's very usable!
- Zev 16y agoHave you ever tried using HN on a mobile device? I've been tempted to hack up yet another iOS app for HN, but A. I don't have the time to do it in what i would call the Right Way(tm) -- or a Hacked-Up Way(tm) either and B. it would really be better off as a separate style than a separate app.
- smiler 16y agoYes. I have a Nokia E51, it's just a standard T9 phone with wifi / 3g, as I don't need anything fancy. I've loaded HN on it and can skim the articles for anything interesting when I'm out and about. True I wouldn't write a comment, but it works fine for me for what I need.
- J3L2404 16y agoI use http://ihackernews.com http://ihackernews.com for mobile and it is very readable. The same developer wrote ViewText, which is a nice readability bookmarklet.
- AdamGibbins 16y agoI often browse HN on my android phone (as I am now) with no problems. Page automatically resizes to fit the screen, works nicely.
- billswift 16y agoI like most of the HN interface. The one part I really hate is that when you click the Reply button, most of the context you are replying to, excepting only the direct parent comment, disappears. This is really irritating, and HN is the ONLY site that I visit that does this.
- smiler 16y agoI would agree on that point. Yes, that is my one annoyance.
- loumf 16y agoThat might be on purpose. The HN commenting interface is meant to discourage back-and-forth arguments.
- billswift 16y agoThe problem is that it makes it hard to summarize a set of arguments; for example, to focus on points of agreement or disagreement. Which I think tends to encourage back-and-forth arguments.
- swombat 16y agoHow often have you mis-clicked on an down arrow instead of an up arrow (or vice versa)? Have you ever asked someone who's not a regular to upvote something? That's obviously not something that should be done (but I guess we all sin sometimes... call it a wild unruly youth), but if you do, you'll find that most people don't even see the voting arrows, let alone figure out what they mean. If advanced users still make fairly critical usage errors because of small, opposite buttons right next to each other, and newbies can't learn the fundamentals of the interface, i'd say that makes it fairly bad. On the other hand, as I said, it keeps the barbarians out.
- bendmorris 16y agoMaybe that improves the results. Your score is not a straight up vote from everyone, it's just a sampling from the subset of HN users that can figure out what the buttons do.
- dejb 16y ago> it's just a sampling from the subset of HN users that can figure out what the buttons do Or those who don't experience layout problems. Often there is a significant part of the down arrow that results in an upvote or vice versa. Generally happens in FF for me. I feel like I need to check the URL before clicking.
- smiler 16y agoI can use my mouse, I haven't managed to misclick once.
- simonft1 16y agoWhy do some people have down arrows?
- grayrest 16y agoYou gain the ability to downvote once you've crossed a certain karma threshold.
- jarin 16y agoTake a look at your settings page sometime. Would you have any idea what notifo, showdead, noprocrast, maxvisit, minaway, and delay meant if you didn't look them up or goof around until you figure out what they do?
- smiler 16y agoI haven't really looked at them no - I guess I haven't needed to because it just works?
- araneae 16y agoYeah, I learned my lesson from randomly putting high numbers in there :(
- AdamTReineke 16y agoNew HN user here, and I still have no clue. I even looked for mouseover text. :-(