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Totally off topic -- but why does HN render the text of these "HN Questions" with such a light font? It looks like they've been downvoted 10 times, or something

Totally off topic -- but why does HN render the text of these "HN Questions" with such a light font? It looks like they've been downvoted 10 times, or something. It makes it hard to read, and I can't understand the reason for it.

detaro 5y ago
AFAIK: To discourage use of them, since HN wants the focus to be on link submissions.
- hungryforcodes 5y ago
  Great response, thanks! I like the HN questions -- but I understand maybe that's not their thing. :)
  - ldbooth 5y ago
    The variety of Ask HN is a positive feature this community has over a pure aggregator, IMO.
- city41 5y ago
  If they are discouraged, why do they have their own entry in the header[1]? I always thought the light text was just to separate them visually from the comments. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/ask https://news.ycombinator.com/ask
  - hungryforcodes 5y ago
    Right -- what a good observation. @dang -- any opinion?
    - iamstupidsimple 5y ago
      "@dang" doesn't seem to work. You're best off email hn@ycombinator.com to get their attention
- balaji1 5y ago
  There seems to be a few other undocumented features like these in HN. Or maybe they are documented somewhere and I dunno :)
- andyjohnson0 5y ago
  I'm not sure this is correct. The Ask HN posts that get voted up are usually high quality.
  - rackjack 5y ago
    Text-only posts are down-weighted by whatever ranking algorithm HN uses, so only the high-quality ones will rise to the top (usually).
tailspin2019 5y ago
I'd like to know this too. My brain constantly registers it as (incorrectly) being as a result of having been downvoted.
jrootabega 5y ago
Hmm, I had assumed that they were all getting downvoted!
- detaro 5y ago
  submissions can't be downvoted.
  - jrootabega 5y ago
    Good to know. Unfortunately, since comment upvotes and downvotes are restricted features until you reach a certain level, but one's comments will probably be up/downvoted before getting there, a logical, if wrong, conclusion is that there IS a submission downvote feature, but one just can't see it yet.
mcrider 5y ago
I think its because the user is newly created (i.e., green username).
- deleted 5y ago
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detaro 5y ago

AFAIK: To discourage use of them, since HN wants the focus to be on link submissions.

hungryforcodes 5y ago
Great response, thanks! I like the HN questions -- but I understand maybe that's not their thing. :)
- ldbooth 5y ago
  The variety of Ask HN is a positive feature this community has over a pure aggregator, IMO.
city41 5y ago
If they are discouraged, why do they have their own entry in the header[1]? I always thought the light text was just to separate them visually from the comments. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/ask https://news.ycombinator.com/ask
- hungryforcodes 5y ago
  Right -- what a good observation. @dang -- any opinion?
  - iamstupidsimple 5y ago
    "@dang" doesn't seem to work. You're best off email hn@ycombinator.com to get their attention
balaji1 5y ago
There seems to be a few other undocumented features like these in HN. Or maybe they are documented somewhere and I dunno :)
andyjohnson0 5y ago
I'm not sure this is correct. The Ask HN posts that get voted up are usually high quality.
- rackjack 5y ago
  Text-only posts are down-weighted by whatever ranking algorithm HN uses, so only the high-quality ones will rise to the top (usually).

tailspin2019 5y ago

I'd like to know this too. My brain constantly registers it as (incorrectly) being as a result of having been downvoted.

jrootabega 5y ago

Hmm, I had assumed that they were all getting downvoted!

detaro 5y ago
submissions can't be downvoted.
- jrootabega 5y ago
  Good to know. Unfortunately, since comment upvotes and downvotes are restricted features until you reach a certain level, but one's comments will probably be up/downvoted before getting there, a logical, if wrong, conclusion is that there IS a submission downvote feature, but one just can't see it yet.

mcrider 5y ago

I think its because the user is newly created (i.e., green username).

deleted 5y ago
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