4 ms·

To me, feels like more pressing issue would be to increase the ease of tagging, grouping, filtering, ranking, etc. Specifically, if you see existing coverage o

To me, feels like more pressing issue would be to increase the ease of tagging, grouping, filtering, ranking, etc. Specifically, if you see existing coverage of a topic, it’s easy enough to revive it if you’re aware of how HN handles duplicate detection, but there’s no way to enforce users having to vote on comments with fresh eyes, hide comments that don’t have significant new sub-comments, discover significant new sub-comments, etc. Not to mention need for comment notifications and user responsiveness indicators. (Insert yet feature to support various user sub-use cases.) All and all, reliving prior content and/or having a complex multifunctional interface would take away from the centrality and freshness of the home page experience. I have wondered if dang would be open to allowing community to contribute to various approved feature additions; for example, better search, night mode, duplicate detection, etc.

stevekemp 4y ago
Two years ago was the last thread I remember talking about night-mode: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24472535 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24472535
- O__________O 4y ago
  Yes, aware of the thread, honestly not super important feature to me, but aware dang agreed it was okay. Also not saying dang need to do anything, he’s obviously in the best position to decide what’s best. Just pointing out the obvious that people would likely be more than happy to help him save time and amplify value HN provides.
cientifico 4y ago
For me hn.algolia.com solved some of the needs you mention.
- O__________O 4y ago
  While I haven’t documented specific issues it has, Google frequently finds items I recall, but unable to find using YC enterprise search engine service. For clarity, this is how you search HN using Google: https://google.com/search?q=site:news.ycombinator.com https://google.com/search?q=site:news.ycombinator.com
lolinder 4y ago
YC and dang's approach to HN seems to be more or less this: "Somehow we stumbled upon a system that really works. We don't know why it does, but it does, and so we don't want to change things too much too fast lest we break it." And honestly, I love that approach. In my time on HN features have rolled out slowly, and you can tell that they were selected very carefully as being important quality of life improvements that don't fundamentally change the interactions. Most features that people propose that HN needs are likely to substantially or subtly alter the dynamics, with potentially catastrophic results over the long haul.
- O__________O 4y ago
  My impression is dang makes a lot of behind the scenes changes, but few public changes. As such, they’re hard to notice and really become a topic. There a lot of features HN has that most users don’t know about and/or use too.
- marojejian 4y ago
  This may be true. But I think the greater value of HN is in fact the community: the set of people who use it and the norms that have emerged, more than the features. I think encouraging more "slow" conversation would improve this community, and it would not be too risky to test out more default comments notification. I use HN replies (and RSS)... but very few others do, so the the change of getting a reply to this comment is low, even though I got here within a day.
  - lolinder 4y ago
    Hi! I don't use HN replies, but I do go back and check my less-than-day-old comments. When I say a system, I'm including everything, including the community. It's not any one part of HN, it's the way all the parts interact. Seemingly small changes can have a dramatic impact on the way the system operates, which includes the community. Suddenly different voices become amplified while others feel marginalized, and it's hard to predict if that will be a good outcome. I'm not saying that it would for sure be a problem, but I sympathize with dang wanting to be very careful before introducing something like that.

stevekemp 4y ago

Two years ago was the last thread I remember talking about night-mode: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24472535 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24472535

O__________O 4y ago
Yes, aware of the thread, honestly not super important feature to me, but aware dang agreed it was okay. Also not saying dang need to do anything, he’s obviously in the best position to decide what’s best. Just pointing out the obvious that people would likely be more than happy to help him save time and amplify value HN provides.

cientifico 4y ago

For me hn.algolia.com solved some of the needs you mention.

O__________O 4y ago
While I haven’t documented specific issues it has, Google frequently finds items I recall, but unable to find using YC enterprise search engine service. For clarity, this is how you search HN using Google: https://google.com/search?q=site:news.ycombinator.com https://google.com/search?q=site:news.ycombinator.com

lolinder 4y ago

YC and dang's approach to HN seems to be more or less this: "Somehow we stumbled upon a system that really works. We don't know why it does, but it does, and so we don't want to change things too much too fast lest we break it." And honestly, I love that approach. In my time on HN features have rolled out slowly, and you can tell that they were selected very carefully as being important quality of life improvements that don't fundamentally change the interactions. Most features that people propose that HN needs are likely to substantially or subtly alter the dynamics, with potentially catastrophic results over the long haul.

O__________O 4y ago
My impression is dang makes a lot of behind the scenes changes, but few public changes. As such, they’re hard to notice and really become a topic. There a lot of features HN has that most users don’t know about and/or use too.
marojejian 4y ago
This may be true. But I think the greater value of HN is in fact the community: the set of people who use it and the norms that have emerged, more than the features. I think encouraging more "slow" conversation would improve this community, and it would not be too risky to test out more default comments notification. I use HN replies (and RSS)... but very few others do, so the the change of getting a reply to this comment is low, even though I got here within a day.
- lolinder 4y ago
  Hi! I don't use HN replies, but I do go back and check my less-than-day-old comments. When I say a system, I'm including everything, including the community. It's not any one part of HN, it's the way all the parts interact. Seemingly small changes can have a dramatic impact on the way the system operates, which includes the community. Suddenly different voices become amplified while others feel marginalized, and it's hard to predict if that will be a good outcome. I'm not saying that it would for sure be a problem, but I sympathize with dang wanting to be very careful before introducing something like that.