4 ms·

Thank you. Do you just recall these off the top of your head or do you generally check each post that makes it to the front page, either manually or with a scri

Thank you. Do you just recall these off the top of your head or do you generally check each post that makes it to the front page, either manually or with a script?

kencausey 6y ago
Perhaps you haven't noticed the search field at the bottom of the page? https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=Ur-fascism&sort=byPopularity&type=story https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
- macintux 6y ago
  The “past” link at the top is more convenient for this specific use case.
  - dang 6y ago
    (Edit: never mind I forgot how this works.) That shows past HN front pages (in sort of a weird time-lapsed version that never actually existed) for particular days. How would you use that to get to past threads about a topic?
    - macintux 6y ago
      Sorry, I meant the _other_ past link at the top, the one associated with the article, between "hide" and "favorite". https://hn.algolia.com/?query=Umberto%20Eco%3A%20Ur-Fascism&sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=story&storyText=false&prefix&page=0 https://hn.algolia.com/?query=Umberto%20Eco%3A%20Ur-Fascism&... I'd somehow never looked at the very top past link.
      - dang 6y ago
        Doh! I don't think I ever noticed that we'd overloaded that word that way. Damn it. Of course you're right. I just never use that link because of the keyboard shortcuts I mentioned upthread.
        macintux 6y ago
        I think it's (perversely?) a credit to HN's design that so many people never discover all of its features. The core functionality is front and center, easy to find and use, so the extras don't get in the way. (Having said that, the difficulty of tapping the correct up/down arrow for upvoting and downvoting on tiny phone screens continues to be a real sore spot.)
dang 6y ago
I use HN Search manually but support that in a browser extension that I use for HN moderation. For example, I have keyboard shortcuts to open an HN search tab for the URL or title of a selected post, another to restrict the search to threads that got comments, another to convert search results into a list on HN itself, another to copy the title/URL of a selected post to the clipboard, and so on. (One of these years I will find a way to share this software with HN users, since it's kind of an HN power-reader, besides the mod functions.) That lets me find and scan past threads fairly quickly to find the interesting ones. It's still too manual, though; I need to make more steps towards automation. I'm not sure it can be fully automated because you have to do human interventions to either track down relevant past threads or exclude boring ones. The endgame is probably not to fully automate these lists but to have software generate a starter version and then give the community ways to edit it. The only place that recalling things off the top of my head (or somewhere in the poorly-lit middle of it) plays a role is that often I vaguely remember that there existed a discussion about $X in past years and then tweak the searches till I find it.

Thank you. Do you just recall these off the top of your head or do you generally check each post that makes it to the front page, either manually or with a script?

kencausey 6y ago

Perhaps you haven't noticed the search field at the bottom of the page? https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=Ur-fascism&sort=byPopularity&type=story https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...

macintux 6y ago
The “past” link at the top is more convenient for this specific use case.
- dang 6y ago
  (Edit: never mind I forgot how this works.) That shows past HN front pages (in sort of a weird time-lapsed version that never actually existed) for particular days. How would you use that to get to past threads about a topic?
  - macintux 6y ago
    Sorry, I meant the _other_ past link at the top, the one associated with the article, between "hide" and "favorite". https://hn.algolia.com/?query=Umberto%20Eco%3A%20Ur-Fascism&sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=story&storyText=false&prefix&page=0 https://hn.algolia.com/?query=Umberto%20Eco%3A%20Ur-Fascism&... I'd somehow never looked at the very top past link.
    - dang 6y ago
      Doh! I don't think I ever noticed that we'd overloaded that word that way. Damn it. Of course you're right. I just never use that link because of the keyboard shortcuts I mentioned upthread.
      - macintux 6y ago
        I think it's (perversely?) a credit to HN's design that so many people never discover all of its features. The core functionality is front and center, easy to find and use, so the extras don't get in the way. (Having said that, the difficulty of tapping the correct up/down arrow for upvoting and downvoting on tiny phone screens continues to be a real sore spot.)

dang 6y ago

I use HN Search manually but support that in a browser extension that I use for HN moderation. For example, I have keyboard shortcuts to open an HN search tab for the URL or title of a selected post, another to restrict the search to threads that got comments, another to convert search results into a list on HN itself, another to copy the title/URL of a selected post to the clipboard, and so on. (One of these years I will find a way to share this software with HN users, since it's kind of an HN power-reader, besides the mod functions.) That lets me find and scan past threads fairly quickly to find the interesting ones. It's still too manual, though; I need to make more steps towards automation. I'm not sure it can be fully automated because you have to do human interventions to either track down relevant past threads or exclude boring ones. The endgame is probably not to fully automate these lists but to have software generate a starter version and then give the community ways to edit it. The only place that recalling things off the top of my head (or somewhere in the poorly-lit middle of it) plays a role is that often I vaguely remember that there existed a discussion about $X in past years and then tweak the searches till I find it.