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A well designed official API would go a long way toward letting a thousand flowers bloom. I know there's web and mobile apps already out there, but IMO the aver

A well designed official API would go a long way toward letting a thousand flowers bloom. I know there's web and mobile apps already out there, but IMO the average quality is not great. Which is not surprising, given the awkwardness of the existing firebase API, which probably keeps many developers away and eats too much of the efforts of those devs that do try their hand.

lukehack 8y ago
IMO, the higher barrier to entry is a benefit to this site. Features that would lower friction increase content dilution. From what I understand, this site is not trying to become Reddit.
- krapp 8y ago
  There is no high barrier to entry here. You literally just have to fill out an HTML form, which everyone knows how to do. It's easier to join HN than it is many other sites, which at least include a second auth factor through email to verify an account. Some sites now require a social media account or validation of a real identity. Lobste.rs won't even talk to you unless someone vouches for you, and they read your existing posts on HN and elsewhere, and decide you're worth letting in. Even 4chan has more friction than HN. And an API, practically by definition, is not a benefit to membership or a draw for whatever HN considers a typical user, much less the sort of "normie" non-technical user HN wants to keep away. The quality of comments is not maintained to a high standard by the API being more difficult to query than it could be, nor would it be diluted by the API being easier to use. And as far as Reddit goes, a lot of content gets posted here from Reddit, and a lot of the userbase here are also Reddit users, making the cultural contempt HN has for Reddit more than a bit hypocritical. A lot of people here, pg included, seem to assume that the "low tech" nature of the featureset here is keeping some flood of unwanted users away but I submit that the title of the site being "Hacker News", it being on a subdomain and the lack of evangelism on mainstream social media do a far better job of gatekeeping than purposely adding "friction" to frustrate people.
  - dang 8y ago
    We are certainly not trying to keep non-technical users away. Where did you get that idea? HN is for the intellectually curious. Many of the posts here are technical but there have always been plenty of non-technical discussions as well.
    - krapp 8y ago
      I was more referring to the community than the staff or its policies. A lot of people here seem to believe the site is supposed to be for technical users and technical content onlym even though that never was the case. The negative impressions people seem to have about "turning into Reddit" or non-technical content diminishing the sites' quality feed into that stereotype, as does the belief that adding "features that reduce friction" would somehow dilute content. But... the guidelines do use the qualifier "anything that good hackers would find interesting" for determining what's on topic, which does lead people to fill in the blanks for what a "good hacker" should find interesting.
- m_fayer 8y ago
  Fair enough, though for what it's worth, I'm not interested in making an HN app that would make it super-smooth, pretty, and compulsively browseable, but rather a couple of power tools to make it easier to participate in and track discussions, and to enable a bit of a "batched, offline" experience.
dang 8y ago
We're planning to make a new API that gives a simple JSON version of any HN URL. Would that count?
- m_fayer 8y ago
  Sure, that would be great. Will there also be endpoints for voting/favoriting/commenting?
  - dang 8y ago
    Good question. I'm not sure. Probably we'll produce a complete read API first and then consider a write one. Maybe with proper credentialing there would be some value in it, since people have written lots of scraping clients that do it anyway.

lukehack 8y ago

IMO, the higher barrier to entry is a benefit to this site. Features that would lower friction increase content dilution. From what I understand, this site is not trying to become Reddit.

krapp 8y ago
There is no high barrier to entry here. You literally just have to fill out an HTML form, which everyone knows how to do. It's easier to join HN than it is many other sites, which at least include a second auth factor through email to verify an account. Some sites now require a social media account or validation of a real identity. Lobste.rs won't even talk to you unless someone vouches for you, and they read your existing posts on HN and elsewhere, and decide you're worth letting in. Even 4chan has more friction than HN. And an API, practically by definition, is not a benefit to membership or a draw for whatever HN considers a typical user, much less the sort of "normie" non-technical user HN wants to keep away. The quality of comments is not maintained to a high standard by the API being more difficult to query than it could be, nor would it be diluted by the API being easier to use. And as far as Reddit goes, a lot of content gets posted here from Reddit, and a lot of the userbase here are also Reddit users, making the cultural contempt HN has for Reddit more than a bit hypocritical. A lot of people here, pg included, seem to assume that the "low tech" nature of the featureset here is keeping some flood of unwanted users away but I submit that the title of the site being "Hacker News", it being on a subdomain and the lack of evangelism on mainstream social media do a far better job of gatekeeping than purposely adding "friction" to frustrate people.
- dang 8y ago
  We are certainly not trying to keep non-technical users away. Where did you get that idea? HN is for the intellectually curious. Many of the posts here are technical but there have always been plenty of non-technical discussions as well.
  - krapp 8y ago
    I was more referring to the community than the staff or its policies. A lot of people here seem to believe the site is supposed to be for technical users and technical content onlym even though that never was the case. The negative impressions people seem to have about "turning into Reddit" or non-technical content diminishing the sites' quality feed into that stereotype, as does the belief that adding "features that reduce friction" would somehow dilute content. But... the guidelines do use the qualifier "anything that good hackers would find interesting" for determining what's on topic, which does lead people to fill in the blanks for what a "good hacker" should find interesting.
m_fayer 8y ago
Fair enough, though for what it's worth, I'm not interested in making an HN app that would make it super-smooth, pretty, and compulsively browseable, but rather a couple of power tools to make it easier to participate in and track discussions, and to enable a bit of a "batched, offline" experience.

dang 8y ago

We're planning to make a new API that gives a simple JSON version of any HN URL. Would that count?

m_fayer 8y ago
Sure, that would be great. Will there also be endpoints for voting/favoriting/commenting?
- dang 8y ago
  Good question. I'm not sure. Probably we'll produce a complete read API first and then consider a write one. Maybe with proper credentialing there would be some value in it, since people have written lots of scraping clients that do it anyway.