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Ask HN: No more than 3 articles on a topic on homepage

4 points by jusben1369 13y ago

Is it fair to ask moderators to keep it to say 3 or 4 articles at the most on the home page about a single topic? I feel like when a major event happens HN becomes overwhelmed on a single topic to the detriment of representing a broader array of current topics in technology.

EthanHeilman 13y ago
I disagree, I think we can solve this problem without placing a hard limit on the number of articles on the home page. Consider: 1. That to place a limit on the number of articles on a particular topic on the homepage you must be able to group articles into topics. 2. If you can group articles into topics why not implement either: (a). a filter control which filters out topics based on user selection or (b). a second "diversity of topics" page HN which includes only the top articles on HN per topic (a log plot of HN).
mindcrime 13y ago
I do not support this. Yes, there are "surges" around particular events... but guess what? They eventually end and that topic settles in with everything else. Just give it a few days - and maybe take heart in that fact that so many HN users are so obviously passionate about certain topics.
gus_massa 13y ago
This is a filtered noPRISM-version of HN: http://hnapp.com/filter/bb4abe7a00d09a35b95c6763f09c0cfb http://hnapp.com/filter/bb4abe7a00d09a35b95c6763f09c0cfb I found it in a comment from a few days ago ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5846416 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5846416 ). It's a bit outdated, you should add "Snowden" to the filtered words. (hint: To read the HN comments, click on the points/comments numbers.)
devonbarrett 13y ago
Quick question; do you remember when Aaron Swartz died? Pretty much every article on the homepage was about that. Would you have requested the same ruling then? I think this is more to do with a persons engagement on the topic in question. Hacker News works by following the consensus of what the majority want to see. So I think it is working correctly.
- jusben1369 13y ago
  Yes on the Aaron Swartz question.
DanBC 13y ago
Visit new. Upvote interesting new submissions. Contribute to good articles. Ignore submissions that are not interesting to you. Consider flagging articles that you think do not belong on HN. A plug in / extension / script to allow users to filter certain topics would be brilliant, I think. Allowing mods to limit the number of topics would just cause a great deal of meta outrage. It's bad enough when people flag. It'd be awful if mods controlled the front page.
krapp 13y ago
A lot of users seem to feel it's an important topic which still merits discussion. Some sort of topic filter, or a tagging system might help (or use hnapp.com or whatever third party thing is available), but putting a hard limit on something that other people want to talk about is pointless censorship. It's a discussion forum, and this seems to resonate with the community.
deleted 13y ago
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4 points by jusben1369 13y ago

EthanHeilman 13y ago

I disagree, I think we can solve this problem without placing a hard limit on the number of articles on the home page. Consider: 1. That to place a limit on the number of articles on a particular topic on the homepage you must be able to group articles into topics. 2. If you can group articles into topics why not implement either: (a). a filter control which filters out topics based on user selection or (b). a second "diversity of topics" page HN which includes only the top articles on HN per topic (a log plot of HN).

mindcrime 13y ago

I do not support this. Yes, there are "surges" around particular events... but guess what? They eventually end and that topic settles in with everything else. Just give it a few days - and maybe take heart in that fact that so many HN users are so obviously passionate about certain topics.

gus_massa 13y ago

This is a filtered noPRISM-version of HN: http://hnapp.com/filter/bb4abe7a00d09a35b95c6763f09c0cfb http://hnapp.com/filter/bb4abe7a00d09a35b95c6763f09c0cfb I found it in a comment from a few days ago ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5846416 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5846416 ). It's a bit outdated, you should add "Snowden" to the filtered words. (hint: To read the HN comments, click on the points/comments numbers.)

devonbarrett 13y ago

Quick question; do you remember when Aaron Swartz died? Pretty much every article on the homepage was about that. Would you have requested the same ruling then? I think this is more to do with a persons engagement on the topic in question. Hacker News works by following the consensus of what the majority want to see. So I think it is working correctly.

jusben1369 13y ago
Yes on the Aaron Swartz question.

DanBC 13y ago

Visit new. Upvote interesting new submissions. Contribute to good articles. Ignore submissions that are not interesting to you. Consider flagging articles that you think do not belong on HN. A plug in / extension / script to allow users to filter certain topics would be brilliant, I think. Allowing mods to limit the number of topics would just cause a great deal of meta outrage. It's bad enough when people flag. It'd be awful if mods controlled the front page.

krapp 13y ago

A lot of users seem to feel it's an important topic which still merits discussion. Some sort of topic filter, or a tagging system might help (or use hnapp.com or whatever third party thing is available), but putting a hard limit on something that other people want to talk about is pointless censorship. It's a discussion forum, and this seems to resonate with the community.

deleted 13y ago

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