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Personally, I like how HN focuses on content and discussions rather than individual users. If I wanted to follow experts, I'd probably curate a selection on a s

Personally, I like how HN focuses on content and discussions rather than individual users. If I wanted to follow experts, I'd probably curate a selection on a social network like Mastodon, or kludge together some RSS feeds. Also, I feel like this tool selects for active commenters, not for knowledgeable experts. Not to mention throwaway accounts. Still a cool project.

robg 2y ago
Thanks! Those are fair points. We're thinking we could uplevel the social layer so you can connect with people of similar interests for deeper connections. In this way we compute not just your contributions but how they relate to others.
- HenryBemis 2y ago
  With such efforts I think it is time for people start deleting their accounts, not because they want/need to hide anything, but some people may want to stay semi-anonymous by using aliases and data mining everything and correlating it with other sources (e.g. LinkedIn) may help identify them and cause trouble (e.g. someone wrote something about their workplace without naming it, but hey, it is "John Doe that works in MegaCorp".
  - codetrotter 2y ago
    > it is time for people start deleting their accounts HN does not let you do that though. At least last time I asked about it, they sent me a response saying that they’d notify me when it became possible to delete an account. And they provided some reasons for why they don’t delete comments and accounts.
    - lukan 2y ago
      It would destroy older comment threads. There are quite some gold nuggets to be found there.
      - codetrotter 2y ago
        Sure, but what is more important? Some random comment threads, or honoring the wishes of the people who have been contributing comments to the site? For me I would prioritize the wishes of the contributors.
        lukan 2y ago
        Well, how about the contributers honoring the wishes of the owners of the plattform? Also my wish as a contributer is that the threads stay like this. So I can come back later and reread them. I often gained value in reading a linked old thread. My advice for people not wishing for that, would be simply to stop commenting instead of demanding the site should change.
        saltcured 2y ago
        Could there be a middle ground to remove the account ID as a correlation between posts? The posts could remain as a graph of replies without retaining who posted which. I know this means someone could still use stylometry to try to reaggregate the posts, but that's less reliable than HN actually telling us that the same authenticated user made all these posts over a decade.
        lukan 2y ago
        I could very much live with that solution.
  - lukan 2y ago
    I thought it goes without saying, that when you post something sensitive, that you don't want to connect openly to your account - you use a throwaway account. HN made it easy to do that.
  - 7thaccount 2y ago
    "Witness Mr. Henry Bemis, a charter member in the fraternity of dreamers. A bookish little man whose passion is the printed page, but who is conspired against by a bank president and a wife and a world full of tongue-cluckers and the unrelenting hands of a clock. But in just a moment, Mr. Bemis will enter a world without bank presidents or wives or clocks or anything else. He'll have a world all to himself... without anyone." -Twilight Zone Episode: Time Enough at Last-
- llm_trw 2y ago
  The social web died, all you're doing it making pitchfork and torch 2.0 for mobs. If you want to add value and not bloody public spectacle rank comments instead of users. I have a bunch of low quality posts here when idiots piss me off, but also share world first research and breakthroughs I've been involved with the rare time the counter party is worth talking to.
  - codetrotter 2y ago
    > rank comments instead of users > I have a bunch of low quality posts here when idiots piss me off It’s ironic because in the second of the parts I quoted you on here you are basically yourself generalizing the users instead of the comments. Is it really “idiots” that piss you off (the users)? Or is it the specific things they said in isolated cases (the comments) that piss you off? Wasn’t your point exactly that this kind of distinction is important?
    - llm_trw 2y ago
      [flagged]
  - tharkun__ 2y ago
    And the OP here seems to willfully ignore the main point his parent was making. He said that not having this focus on a "social layer" made HN better. But then OP says: We're thinking we could uplevel the social layer head => palm
- hluska 2y ago
  It’s great that you finished it but I wish you had taken a little more care to protect users here. Some people I respect a lot are a little more vulnerable because of this
  - fastball 2y ago
    How?
- RobertRoberts 2y ago
  This seems like a slippery slope towards bog-standard social media. Currently, HN is the only place on the internet I am willing to interact with others _because_ it lacks the "social layer" you are recommending. The focus on user comments that are thoughtful, relevant, and respectful _is_ the social connection I value.
llm_trw 2y ago
[flagged]
nstj 2y ago
I concur on the sentiment - I think it’s great we don’t have avatars etc here as it makes it more content focused - But at the same time I think the OP has made an awesome project! Well done
djmips 2y ago
I agree. It's also quite humbling which I think is a good thing.
- l33t7332273 2y ago
  I think that especially in CS, since applications of which touch on nearly every possible field of knowledge, computer scientists often run into trouble of assuming they know more than we do.
  - mrguyorama 2y ago
    CS people are prone to the engineering trap of "I've learned one slightly complex thing so obviously I'm capable of knowing every complex thing". It tends to forget how important sheer quantity of practice is in every field that expects a higher than high school level of education.
nottorp 2y ago
Personally I don't read user names. Easiest way to focus on the comments. Of course, the lack of avatars and signatures and stuff like that helps a lot. I have absolutely no idea who I've had an argument with on HN ever. I'm sure I've had a few.
- viraptor 2y ago
  It's interesting to keep track of some known people. Sometimes you get to see (for example) a thread with cperciva, tptacek and animats - and I think it makes it more fun to read when you know...
  - nottorp 2y ago
    But but ... they're known to you because you read the user names ...
  - AmericanChopper 2y ago
    I’ll often looks at the username if I find a comment either particularly insightful, or particularly stupid. It tends to be the same small collection of users, so I guess I’m agreeing/disagreeing with people quite consistently.
    - pixl97 2y ago
      There is one person here that is like my Polish doppelganger. I'll go to post in a thread and I'll find they already posted the gist of what I was going to say.
  - dewey 2y ago
    There's also https://hnrss.github.io https://hnrss.github.io where you can "subscribe" to a user's comments.
  - splonk 2y ago
    If I see a thread with too many comments from high volume posters, I assume it's low signal. Most of them are very good at commenting in a style that is convincing sounding and popular here, but when they stray into topics that I know well, I often find them to be confident, plausible, and wrong. (And also upvoted above people with correct information who don't have the same name recognition.)
inopinatus 2y ago
The negative space should be the most interesting, since absence trends are the hardest to recognize. What are Hacker News’s quantifiable blind spots? Answers on a postcard.
- philipswood 2y ago
  I've been interested in a map of what gets flagged for a while. Not the negative space, but a list of untolerated content.
chrstr 2y ago
But curating such a list of experts to follow takes quite some effort. It would be great to have a tool that helps with that. And sure, ideally you wouldn't need such a list of trusted experts but just focus on content. There even was a time when this worked - you could just type "what is the best database to use" into a search engine, and get a helpful result. Not anymore. On HN it may still be better than elsewhere, but ultimately it's a similar issue.
ErigmolCt 2y ago
Hacker News encourages more meaningful and relevant discussions

robg 2y ago

Thanks! Those are fair points. We're thinking we could uplevel the social layer so you can connect with people of similar interests for deeper connections. In this way we compute not just your contributions but how they relate to others.

HenryBemis 2y ago
With such efforts I think it is time for people start deleting their accounts, not because they want/need to hide anything, but some people may want to stay semi-anonymous by using aliases and data mining everything and correlating it with other sources (e.g. LinkedIn) may help identify them and cause trouble (e.g. someone wrote something about their workplace without naming it, but hey, it is "John Doe that works in MegaCorp".
- codetrotter 2y ago
  > it is time for people start deleting their accounts HN does not let you do that though. At least last time I asked about it, they sent me a response saying that they’d notify me when it became possible to delete an account. And they provided some reasons for why they don’t delete comments and accounts.
  - lukan 2y ago
    It would destroy older comment threads. There are quite some gold nuggets to be found there.
    - codetrotter 2y ago
      Sure, but what is more important? Some random comment threads, or honoring the wishes of the people who have been contributing comments to the site? For me I would prioritize the wishes of the contributors.
      - lukan 2y ago
        Well, how about the contributers honoring the wishes of the owners of the plattform? Also my wish as a contributer is that the threads stay like this. So I can come back later and reread them. I often gained value in reading a linked old thread. My advice for people not wishing for that, would be simply to stop commenting instead of demanding the site should change.
        saltcured 2y ago
        Could there be a middle ground to remove the account ID as a correlation between posts? The posts could remain as a graph of replies without retaining who posted which. I know this means someone could still use stylometry to try to reaggregate the posts, but that's less reliable than HN actually telling us that the same authenticated user made all these posts over a decade.
        lukan 2y ago
        I could very much live with that solution.
- lukan 2y ago
  I thought it goes without saying, that when you post something sensitive, that you don't want to connect openly to your account - you use a throwaway account. HN made it easy to do that.
- 7thaccount 2y ago
  "Witness Mr. Henry Bemis, a charter member in the fraternity of dreamers. A bookish little man whose passion is the printed page, but who is conspired against by a bank president and a wife and a world full of tongue-cluckers and the unrelenting hands of a clock. But in just a moment, Mr. Bemis will enter a world without bank presidents or wives or clocks or anything else. He'll have a world all to himself... without anyone." -Twilight Zone Episode: Time Enough at Last-
llm_trw 2y ago
The social web died, all you're doing it making pitchfork and torch 2.0 for mobs. If you want to add value and not bloody public spectacle rank comments instead of users. I have a bunch of low quality posts here when idiots piss me off, but also share world first research and breakthroughs I've been involved with the rare time the counter party is worth talking to.
- codetrotter 2y ago
  > rank comments instead of users > I have a bunch of low quality posts here when idiots piss me off It’s ironic because in the second of the parts I quoted you on here you are basically yourself generalizing the users instead of the comments. Is it really “idiots” that piss you off (the users)? Or is it the specific things they said in isolated cases (the comments) that piss you off? Wasn’t your point exactly that this kind of distinction is important?
  - llm_trw 2y ago
    [flagged]
- tharkun__ 2y ago
  And the OP here seems to willfully ignore the main point his parent was making. He said that not having this focus on a "social layer" made HN better. But then OP says: We're thinking we could uplevel the social layer head => palm
hluska 2y ago
It’s great that you finished it but I wish you had taken a little more care to protect users here. Some people I respect a lot are a little more vulnerable because of this
- fastball 2y ago
  How?
RobertRoberts 2y ago
This seems like a slippery slope towards bog-standard social media. Currently, HN is the only place on the internet I am willing to interact with others _because_ it lacks the "social layer" you are recommending. The focus on user comments that are thoughtful, relevant, and respectful _is_ the social connection I value.

llm_trw 2y ago

[flagged]

nstj 2y ago

I concur on the sentiment - I think it’s great we don’t have avatars etc here as it makes it more content focused - But at the same time I think the OP has made an awesome project! Well done

djmips 2y ago

I agree. It's also quite humbling which I think is a good thing.

l33t7332273 2y ago
I think that especially in CS, since applications of which touch on nearly every possible field of knowledge, computer scientists often run into trouble of assuming they know more than we do.
- mrguyorama 2y ago
  CS people are prone to the engineering trap of "I've learned one slightly complex thing so obviously I'm capable of knowing every complex thing". It tends to forget how important sheer quantity of practice is in every field that expects a higher than high school level of education.

nottorp 2y ago

Personally I don't read user names. Easiest way to focus on the comments. Of course, the lack of avatars and signatures and stuff like that helps a lot. I have absolutely no idea who I've had an argument with on HN ever. I'm sure I've had a few.

viraptor 2y ago
It's interesting to keep track of some known people. Sometimes you get to see (for example) a thread with cperciva, tptacek and animats - and I think it makes it more fun to read when you know...
- nottorp 2y ago
  But but ... they're known to you because you read the user names ...
- AmericanChopper 2y ago
  I’ll often looks at the username if I find a comment either particularly insightful, or particularly stupid. It tends to be the same small collection of users, so I guess I’m agreeing/disagreeing with people quite consistently.
  - pixl97 2y ago
    There is one person here that is like my Polish doppelganger. I'll go to post in a thread and I'll find they already posted the gist of what I was going to say.
- dewey 2y ago
  There's also https://hnrss.github.io https://hnrss.github.io where you can "subscribe" to a user's comments.
- splonk 2y ago
  If I see a thread with too many comments from high volume posters, I assume it's low signal. Most of them are very good at commenting in a style that is convincing sounding and popular here, but when they stray into topics that I know well, I often find them to be confident, plausible, and wrong. (And also upvoted above people with correct information who don't have the same name recognition.)

inopinatus 2y ago

The negative space should be the most interesting, since absence trends are the hardest to recognize. What are Hacker News’s quantifiable blind spots? Answers on a postcard.

philipswood 2y ago
I've been interested in a map of what gets flagged for a while. Not the negative space, but a list of untolerated content.

chrstr 2y ago

But curating such a list of experts to follow takes quite some effort. It would be great to have a tool that helps with that. And sure, ideally you wouldn't need such a list of trusted experts but just focus on content. There even was a time when this worked - you could just type "what is the best database to use" into a search engine, and get a helpful result. Not anymore. On HN it may still be better than elsewhere, but ultimately it's a similar issue.

ErigmolCt 2y ago

Hacker News encourages more meaningful and relevant discussions