5 ms·

This has been addressed by dang before, one representative pastequote from a recent (ish) comment: Yes, I think we'll continue to avoid the notification system

by pvg 5y ago

This has been addressed by dang before, one representative pastequote from a recent (ish) comment: Yes, I think we'll continue to avoid the notification system, not just because of flamewars but also because (relatedly) it's not so compatible with curiosity. Push notifications seem to jack up the nervous system in a way that's good for engagement but not necessarily for users—we all experience this elsewhere on the internet, and on HN we're in the blessed position of not needing to juice the numbers. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22937472 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22937472

barbazoo 5y ago
I very much appreciate this!
- cft 5y ago
  Upvoted
BeefWellington 5y ago
A take I agree with. I'm glad I'm not bombarded by dozens of blinking status indicators every time I load up HN to see what's interesting today.
warrenm 5y ago
That's incredibly disappointing :(
- stronglikedan 5y ago
  Why? Most users don't want them. And for those that do, there's https://www.hnreplies.com/ https://www.hnreplies.com/, as well as other options mentioned elsewhere here.
  - ziggus 5y ago
    Agreed. In fact, I'd like to see HN go even further and close discussions after some limit has been reached, whether it's time- or attention-based.
    - aaron695 5y ago
    - sokoloff 5y ago
      It looks like they already do, at around 14 days.
  - warrenm 5y ago
    That you have to use one of what ...a dozen[ish] options I've seen posted today to get to what is a fundamentally standard part of every forum experience (except this one) shows how out of touch the HN devs are, imo
    - krapp 5y ago
      They aren't out of touch, they understand the culture. People here want Hacker News to feel like the last thirty years of the web didn't happen. They don't want Hacker News to be modern, least of all to be like other forums. They want the Bohemian indulgence of 90's era web ugliness with complete disregard for standards, and the ascetic purity of painfully minimalist UX that appeals to their contrarian, anti-modern sensibilities.
      - pvg 5y ago
        The design is based directly on the design of several (what we now call) 'Web 2.0' sites so the idea it's a sop to the retro-hipster sensibilities of 90's-longing users itself feels like a bit of an overwrought personal indulgence.
        krapp 5y ago
        “So the most important thing a community site can do is attract the kind of people it wants. A site trying to be as big as possible wants to attract everyone. But a site aiming at a particular subset of users has to attract just those—and just as importantly, repel everyone else. I've made a conscious effort to do this on HN. The graphic design is as plain as possible, and the site rules discourage dramatic link titles. The goal is that the only thing to interest someone arriving at HN for the first time should be the ideas expressed there” http://www.paulgraham.com/hackernews.html http://www.paulgraham.com/hackernews.html I mean, you only have to read literally any thread on HN's design and features, or any of the nigh-weekly threads complaining about the modern web and its complexity, how commodification and capitalism have ruined its creativity and quirkiness, or how javascript exists, to see those sensibilities are alive and well and strongly culturally correlated to the layout of this site and the perception (somewhat inaccurate) that it exists frozen in amber.
kodah 5y ago
I really like the lack of push notifications. Sometimes I'll make a reply during my morning coffee, do some work, then check back in the afternoon to find hundreds of replies and deep threaded discussion. The sense of pride I get from being able to start a healthy thread without more participation is opposed to the jacking of the nervous system dang is reflecting on. In some way, it builds my confidence in this community.
- imdsm 5y ago
  I agree too. I am able to comment and add to a thread without feeling like I have to then defend my opinion or go back and answer replies. There's no responsibility, in a way, with commenting. I can add an anecdote, or ask a rhetorical question, or even crack a joke, and then move on with my curiosity. It's a good system, and makes it feel very calm here.
  - imiric 5y ago
    What makes a forum interesting IMO is the back and forth discussion that sometimes happens, as long as it's respectful and productive. If you don't occasionally check and answer replies, you'd miss out on the chance of having your opinion challenged and having to defend or amend it, which is a good opportunity for growth. Otherwise it's akin to throwing your thoughts into the well and walking away. You might as well do that on Twitter and turn off notifications. I do think HN should have a simple notification system, with a configurable period of up to, say, a week after posting, and having the ability to mute threads. Just so that you don't miss any initial discussion on new posts, but without feeling overwhelmed or distracted by posts that are no longer news.
    - pvg 5y ago
      You also "miss the opportunity" to engage in an endless, repetitive non-constructive back-and-forth which is much more common than a back-and-forth-of-personal-intellectual-growth. It's hard to believe notifications (rather than, say, deliberate personal interest and effort) would help drive the latter while we know for a fact they help generate a lot of the former.
lolsal 5y ago
I also appreciate this.
jzig 5y ago
Then provide a daily or weekly digest. What's the point in contributing to a black hole with no feedback?
- LatteLazy 5y ago
  You can go and check your threads using the Thread link above. If course I now realize this comment is sort of redundant... :)
- aaaaaaaaata 5y ago
  Generally, the people who the site was built for have nothing to prove, but everything to learn, and optimize accordingly.
  - jzig 5y ago
    A lot of assumptions being made there. People can desire discourse without wanting to prove anything.
motohagiography 5y ago
It's a beautifully quiet design. If I want to check if someone came back I can, and sometimes I don't have the energy to look. The quality is the effect of all these little things, and not something one could affect top down in another design. I suspect there is a ton of sophisticated stuff going on behind the scenes, but even if there were, the effect is still too good to complain about.
- JohnBooty 5y ago
  I suspect this too, but I suspect even more credit is due to the dang and the moderators quietly doing tastefully heroic work.
secondaryacct 5y ago
Yeah as a reddit troll myself I enjoy the freedom of never caring and pursuing flaming here... people like me get addicted to the reaction and start writing only to trigger reactions. Here at least I post constructively sometimes.
- tempestn 5y ago
  Given you're aware of doing this, could you take some action to prevent it?
  - aaaaaaaaata 5y ago
    Well, they're here now, right?
  - FranksTV 5y ago
    Yeah, browse hackernews instead of reddit!
giantg2 5y ago
I agree. My preference is not to have any reply notifications. Most of the time the comments or article have aged out of view within a day or two, and no new comments are being posted there anyways. If it is something important and could be positive, you could always try contacting the poster directly if they have an email on their profile.
quesera 5y ago
Strongly agreed! I think the requirement that at least two participants need to make some effort to keep the conversation going, is generally an extremely good thing. For the very rare thread where I hope for a belated reply, I'll keep a tab open and refresh it every day or two until I give up or it expires.
- divbzero 5y ago
  I agree strongly too. Participants in a subthread might not even look again so default action is no reply. This is a great feature because it allows non-constructive subthreads to fade away with ease. Notifications would change this whole dynamic.
walrus01 5y ago
If you use traditional social media such as facebook/instagram/twitter/etc on a mobile device, the best thing you can possibly do in android 9 or later is to disable all forms of push notification for the entire app. Not just in the app's settings but at the operating system level. Anything that would generate a notification requiring a swipe-down from the top of the screen, or making a noise, seeing what the notification is and either clicking on it or swiping it away, disable that entirely. I also allow exactly zero websites to send push notifications via browser on my desktop/laptop workstation systems.

by pvg 5y ago

barbazoo 5y ago

I very much appreciate this!

cft 5y ago
Upvoted

BeefWellington 5y ago

A take I agree with. I'm glad I'm not bombarded by dozens of blinking status indicators every time I load up HN to see what's interesting today.

warrenm 5y ago

That's incredibly disappointing :(

stronglikedan 5y ago
Why? Most users don't want them. And for those that do, there's https://www.hnreplies.com/ https://www.hnreplies.com/, as well as other options mentioned elsewhere here.
- ziggus 5y ago
  Agreed. In fact, I'd like to see HN go even further and close discussions after some limit has been reached, whether it's time- or attention-based.
  - aaron695 5y ago
  - sokoloff 5y ago
    It looks like they already do, at around 14 days.
- warrenm 5y ago
  That you have to use one of what ...a dozen[ish] options I've seen posted today to get to what is a fundamentally standard part of every forum experience (except this one) shows how out of touch the HN devs are, imo
  - krapp 5y ago
    They aren't out of touch, they understand the culture. People here want Hacker News to feel like the last thirty years of the web didn't happen. They don't want Hacker News to be modern, least of all to be like other forums. They want the Bohemian indulgence of 90's era web ugliness with complete disregard for standards, and the ascetic purity of painfully minimalist UX that appeals to their contrarian, anti-modern sensibilities.
    - pvg 5y ago
      The design is based directly on the design of several (what we now call) 'Web 2.0' sites so the idea it's a sop to the retro-hipster sensibilities of 90's-longing users itself feels like a bit of an overwrought personal indulgence.
      - krapp 5y ago
        “So the most important thing a community site can do is attract the kind of people it wants. A site trying to be as big as possible wants to attract everyone. But a site aiming at a particular subset of users has to attract just those—and just as importantly, repel everyone else. I've made a conscious effort to do this on HN. The graphic design is as plain as possible, and the site rules discourage dramatic link titles. The goal is that the only thing to interest someone arriving at HN for the first time should be the ideas expressed there” http://www.paulgraham.com/hackernews.html http://www.paulgraham.com/hackernews.html I mean, you only have to read literally any thread on HN's design and features, or any of the nigh-weekly threads complaining about the modern web and its complexity, how commodification and capitalism have ruined its creativity and quirkiness, or how javascript exists, to see those sensibilities are alive and well and strongly culturally correlated to the layout of this site and the perception (somewhat inaccurate) that it exists frozen in amber.

kodah 5y ago

I really like the lack of push notifications. Sometimes I'll make a reply during my morning coffee, do some work, then check back in the afternoon to find hundreds of replies and deep threaded discussion. The sense of pride I get from being able to start a healthy thread without more participation is opposed to the jacking of the nervous system dang is reflecting on. In some way, it builds my confidence in this community.

imdsm 5y ago
I agree too. I am able to comment and add to a thread without feeling like I have to then defend my opinion or go back and answer replies. There's no responsibility, in a way, with commenting. I can add an anecdote, or ask a rhetorical question, or even crack a joke, and then move on with my curiosity. It's a good system, and makes it feel very calm here.
- imiric 5y ago
  What makes a forum interesting IMO is the back and forth discussion that sometimes happens, as long as it's respectful and productive. If you don't occasionally check and answer replies, you'd miss out on the chance of having your opinion challenged and having to defend or amend it, which is a good opportunity for growth. Otherwise it's akin to throwing your thoughts into the well and walking away. You might as well do that on Twitter and turn off notifications. I do think HN should have a simple notification system, with a configurable period of up to, say, a week after posting, and having the ability to mute threads. Just so that you don't miss any initial discussion on new posts, but without feeling overwhelmed or distracted by posts that are no longer news.
  - pvg 5y ago
    You also "miss the opportunity" to engage in an endless, repetitive non-constructive back-and-forth which is much more common than a back-and-forth-of-personal-intellectual-growth. It's hard to believe notifications (rather than, say, deliberate personal interest and effort) would help drive the latter while we know for a fact they help generate a lot of the former.

lolsal 5y ago

I also appreciate this.

jzig 5y ago

Then provide a daily or weekly digest. What's the point in contributing to a black hole with no feedback?

LatteLazy 5y ago
You can go and check your threads using the Thread link above. If course I now realize this comment is sort of redundant... :)
aaaaaaaaata 5y ago
Generally, the people who the site was built for have nothing to prove, but everything to learn, and optimize accordingly.
- jzig 5y ago
  A lot of assumptions being made there. People can desire discourse without wanting to prove anything.

motohagiography 5y ago

It's a beautifully quiet design. If I want to check if someone came back I can, and sometimes I don't have the energy to look. The quality is the effect of all these little things, and not something one could affect top down in another design. I suspect there is a ton of sophisticated stuff going on behind the scenes, but even if there were, the effect is still too good to complain about.

JohnBooty 5y ago
I suspect this too, but I suspect even more credit is due to the dang and the moderators quietly doing tastefully heroic work.

secondaryacct 5y ago

Yeah as a reddit troll myself I enjoy the freedom of never caring and pursuing flaming here... people like me get addicted to the reaction and start writing only to trigger reactions. Here at least I post constructively sometimes.

tempestn 5y ago
Given you're aware of doing this, could you take some action to prevent it?
- aaaaaaaaata 5y ago
  Well, they're here now, right?
- FranksTV 5y ago
  Yeah, browse hackernews instead of reddit!

giantg2 5y ago

I agree. My preference is not to have any reply notifications. Most of the time the comments or article have aged out of view within a day or two, and no new comments are being posted there anyways. If it is something important and could be positive, you could always try contacting the poster directly if they have an email on their profile.

quesera 5y ago

Strongly agreed! I think the requirement that at least two participants need to make some effort to keep the conversation going, is generally an extremely good thing. For the very rare thread where I hope for a belated reply, I'll keep a tab open and refresh it every day or two until I give up or it expires.

divbzero 5y ago
I agree strongly too. Participants in a subthread might not even look again so default action is no reply. This is a great feature because it allows non-constructive subthreads to fade away with ease. Notifications would change this whole dynamic.

walrus01 5y ago

If you use traditional social media such as facebook/instagram/twitter/etc on a mobile device, the best thing you can possibly do in android 9 or later is to disable all forms of push notification for the entire app. Not just in the app's settings but at the operating system level. Anything that would generate a notification requiring a swipe-down from the top of the screen, or making a noise, seeing what the notification is and either clicking on it or swiping it away, disable that entirely. I also allow exactly zero websites to send push notifications via browser on my desktop/laptop workstation systems.