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Any chance getting reply notifications into the roadmap?

by nuker 3y ago

dewey 3y ago
You might be aware of it already and just looking for a native solution but https://www.hnreplies.com https://www.hnreplies.com works well for me for many years now.
wodenokoto 3y ago
If I remember correctly it’s a decision not to have reply notifications. The thinking (as I understand it) is they want to discourage back and forth threads between 2 people.
- PaulHoule 3y ago
  I’d contrast to Tildes where I think reply notifications help keep people engaged in discussions and Mastodon where I think people use favorites to close off a discussion. Tildes is interesting to compare to HN because it is superficially similar but the balance between links and discussions is quite different. That is, I think “Ask HN” is pretty sad and mostly failed (look at how few get a single comment) but linkless discussions on Tildes are pretty lively.
  - brudgers 3y ago
    I just looked at Tildes. I can see why people go there. It's not for me. Just like Twitter, just like Reddit, it would encourage me to type the sort of comments that I try not to write on topics I try not to engage in in ways I try to avoid. Your mileage varies of course and I am glad there is a place where you get what you need.
    - PaulHoule 3y ago
      You can filter unwanted topics out. I don't filter many out, but there are a few that I really need to hide to protect my equanimity. One thing I like on Tildes is that people talk about sports on Tildes but not HN and I'd say sports is a mostly harmless topic.
      - deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
      - brudgers 3y ago
        My typical experience with people talking sports has been very tribal. But that’s my experience not yours of course. One of the reasons I am on HN is the diminished role of tribal opinions . It’s not that I don’t have them, I just don’t think mine are particularly interesting.
        PaulHoule 3y ago
        There are different things I get out of sports socially. Going to a game (could be any sport because I have a project to do sports photography for every team at my Uni) I relish it when the away team has a big tailgate, when they bring a raucous crowd, when I feel like I have to whoop it up for the home team to compete with them. I think it is is a healthy tribalism as I know in my heart I have no malice towards them in fact I am glad they came. Soccer games have a different aspect because the crowd that shows up is very diverse: I hear a lot of languages spoken that are not English because foreign students come, a lot of youth soccer players from elementary school to high school come and boy they understand the game well and are following it closely and spectating actively but there are also staffers who themselves played sports (say field hockey) when they were young who brought along children who weren’t so interest in the game and end up leaving at the half. The feeling I get there is that we are all part of a soccer network that goes all the way down to pickup games and youth leagues and goes up, up, up to MLS and the Premier League and the national teams that go to the world cup so my solidarity is not just to my school but to the whole world of soccer. Personally I am not so into sports talk about who I think is better or who is going to win except in those cases where one team or player is on a different leve at a particular time. If I want to get into a knock-down drag-out, I’d rather get into a discussion about controversial rule changes or the impact of gambling on sport. Myself my interest in sports has spiked lately thanks to the influence of my RSS reader and my photography so it’s also an area where I have a lot to learn from not just the experts but other fanns.
        brudgers 3y ago
- dang 3y ago
  It's more about optimizing for curiosity [1]. Back-and-forths are fine when people are genuinely interested, but tit-for-tat spats are the worst. The former tend to continue while curiosity lasts, while the latter hopefully peter out after a while; in any case we should not be resuscitating them. Push notifications are basically a stack-swap op: they push down what you're interested in right now, in favor of something you were interested in a while ago. This is good for engagement, but on HN we're in the sweet spot of not needing to juice engagement. HN is most valuable when it's as good as possible, not when traffic is highest [2], so we try for quality over quantity. (Not that quality is all that high, but that's a different story. [3]) I'm not sure that PG was particularly against notifications because he added this at one point: Get notifoed when people reply to your comments on Hacker News - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1203104 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1203104 - March 2010 (55 comments) ------- [1] https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=curiosity%20optimiz%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor... [2] https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=yc%20business%20interests%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so... [3] https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=by%3Adang%20cap%20good&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu... (p.s. Past posts by me about this - they just say the same thing but I'm listing them to save myself a search in the future: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27901918 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27901918 (July 2021) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26597139 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26597139 (March 2021) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22937472 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22937472 (April 2020))
stavros 3y ago
I made a Telegram bot for that: https://t.me/hn_replies_bot https://t.me/hn_replies_bot Just message it and tell it your username.

Any chance getting reply notifications into the roadmap?

by nuker 3y ago

Any chance getting reply notifications into the roadmap?

You might be aware of it already and just looking for a native solution but https://www.hnreplies.com https://www.hnreplies.com works well for me for many years now.

wodenokoto 3y ago

If I remember correctly it’s a decision not to have reply notifications. The thinking (as I understand it) is they want to discourage back and forth threads between 2 people.

PaulHoule 3y ago
I’d contrast to Tildes where I think reply notifications help keep people engaged in discussions and Mastodon where I think people use favorites to close off a discussion. Tildes is interesting to compare to HN because it is superficially similar but the balance between links and discussions is quite different. That is, I think “Ask HN” is pretty sad and mostly failed (look at how few get a single comment) but linkless discussions on Tildes are pretty lively.
- brudgers 3y ago
  I just looked at Tildes. I can see why people go there. It's not for me. Just like Twitter, just like Reddit, it would encourage me to type the sort of comments that I try not to write on topics I try not to engage in in ways I try to avoid. Your mileage varies of course and I am glad there is a place where you get what you need.
  - PaulHoule 3y ago
    You can filter unwanted topics out. I don't filter many out, but there are a few that I really need to hide to protect my equanimity. One thing I like on Tildes is that people talk about sports on Tildes but not HN and I'd say sports is a mostly harmless topic.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    - brudgers 3y ago
      My typical experience with people talking sports has been very tribal. But that’s my experience not yours of course. One of the reasons I am on HN is the diminished role of tribal opinions . It’s not that I don’t have them, I just don’t think mine are particularly interesting.
      - PaulHoule 3y ago
        There are different things I get out of sports socially. Going to a game (could be any sport because I have a project to do sports photography for every team at my Uni) I relish it when the away team has a big tailgate, when they bring a raucous crowd, when I feel like I have to whoop it up for the home team to compete with them. I think it is is a healthy tribalism as I know in my heart I have no malice towards them in fact I am glad they came. Soccer games have a different aspect because the crowd that shows up is very diverse: I hear a lot of languages spoken that are not English because foreign students come, a lot of youth soccer players from elementary school to high school come and boy they understand the game well and are following it closely and spectating actively but there are also staffers who themselves played sports (say field hockey) when they were young who brought along children who weren’t so interest in the game and end up leaving at the half. The feeling I get there is that we are all part of a soccer network that goes all the way down to pickup games and youth leagues and goes up, up, up to MLS and the Premier League and the national teams that go to the world cup so my solidarity is not just to my school but to the whole world of soccer. Personally I am not so into sports talk about who I think is better or who is going to win except in those cases where one team or player is on a different leve at a particular time. If I want to get into a knock-down drag-out, I’d rather get into a discussion about controversial rule changes or the impact of gambling on sport. Myself my interest in sports has spiked lately thanks to the influence of my RSS reader and my photography so it’s also an area where I have a lot to learn from not just the experts but other fanns.
        brudgers 3y ago
dang 3y ago
It's more about optimizing for curiosity [1]. Back-and-forths are fine when people are genuinely interested, but tit-for-tat spats are the worst. The former tend to continue while curiosity lasts, while the latter hopefully peter out after a while; in any case we should not be resuscitating them. Push notifications are basically a stack-swap op: they push down what you're interested in right now, in favor of something you were interested in a while ago. This is good for engagement, but on HN we're in the sweet spot of not needing to juice engagement. HN is most valuable when it's as good as possible, not when traffic is highest [2], so we try for quality over quantity. (Not that quality is all that high, but that's a different story. [3]) I'm not sure that PG was particularly against notifications because he added this at one point: Get notifoed when people reply to your comments on Hacker News - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1203104 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1203104 - March 2010 (55 comments) ------- [1] https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=curiosity%20optimiz%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor... [2] https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=yc%20business%20interests%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so... [3] https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=by%3Adang%20cap%20good&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu... (p.s. Past posts by me about this - they just say the same thing but I'm listing them to save myself a search in the future: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27901918 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27901918 (July 2021) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26597139 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26597139 (March 2021) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22937472 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22937472 (April 2020))

stavros 3y ago

I made a Telegram bot for that: https://t.me/hn_replies_bot https://t.me/hn_replies_bot Just message it and tell it your username.