5 ms·

The whole site needs rewriting and modernizing. Considering the audience, it's kind of shocking how stale it is.

krapp 12y ago
I'm tempted to chalk that up to HN being, essentially, a pet project implemented in a toy language as a not entirely open source[0] forum maintained by volunteers. Of course, I don't know but that's my guess, that pg just didn't work very hard on polishing up the parts he didn't find personally interesting. For some reason, people seem to be weirdly elitist about HN's layout, and act as if any slight change to the UI is going to allow the barbarians of the internet to storm the gates, until Hacker News is aught but cat memes and ashes. [0] The language and original forum are, obviously, open source. But AFAIK you can't make pull requests against the code HN is actually running, which has had tons of modifications made to it, because that's special sauce. There used to be a repo for making bug and feature requests but that seems to no longer be active. Of course, you could roll your own minimalistic threaded forum, but getting people to move from HN anywhere other than lobste.rs[1] (if they want more moderation) or reddit (if they want less) might be difficult, unless you're serving some specific niche like DataTau[2]. [1]https://lobste.rs/ https://lobste.rs/ [2]http://www.datatau.com/ http://www.datatau.com/
discreteevent 12y ago
Considering the audience you might be right. I'm not a typical audience member. I read in the evening on a phone with a slow 2.5g connection. For that reason I use opera mini. HN works perfectly on it and the combination of the browser and whatever it is HN does for layout means I can load a HN page faster than anything else on the web. It doesn't seem to matter how many comments there are. So I hope it doesn't change. But you are right. I'm not typical.
SCHiM 12y ago
I have a sneaking suspicion that maybe, just maybe, the looks of HN have helped protect the community against trolls. Everybody knows internet commenting is crude, rude and awful more often than not. In my opinion HN is a glorious example of an online community done right and I'm not sure we should change the site. But who knows, maybe it will even be better if it gets a little make-over.
- vacri 12y ago
  The site in general is good, but the user moderation system is utterly awful. A 'disagree' mod double-functions as a censor, and there's no need because there's also a separate flagging system. My profile page has a bit of a rant about the shortcomings of the mod system here with more detail. The autodetection algorithms probably need tweaking as well - from time to time I see users with polite comment histories mysteriously getting shadowbanned. Sometimes another user will look into it and post a comment to that effect, but without a user-to-user messaging system or a method to reply to dead comments, there's no guarantee that a shadowbanned user will see a friendly message.
  - lake99 12y ago
    Not only does it censor, it gives some people undue power. A few days ago, I commented on a now flagkilled post. Within a couple of hours, some 15-20 other people had commented on it, and each and every post, except mine, was grayed out from downvotes. I had gotten a downvote too, but I had enough votes to counterbalance the briagading. I read the other comments, but did not notice anything nasty or disrespectful in there. This abuse of power is ruining the system for those who have new accounts or only post occasionally.
- krapp 12y ago
  Trolls exist on HN, I assure you. They're not scared off by the simplicity of the layout.
  - ptaipale 12y ago
    They exist but they are not that many. The spartan layout might be one reason.
    - krapp 12y ago
      There might be a correlation, but I doubt it's a strong one. Maybe there just aren't that many unique accounts here, and this isn't a particularly mainstream site. There are reasons to be turned off of Hacker News that go beyond the layout. Imageboards can have pretty low-tech and annoyingly obtuse UX as well but trolls adapt and abound because there are no user accounts and they know they have an audience. Most of the trolling I think i've seen here has been done through throwaway accounts, so who knows whether or not those are sockpuppets of existing accounts or people showing up from /g/ to have some fun?
tptacek 12y ago
That's true if you assume that every feature moves the community forward. But not all of them do; many features regress us. For instance: unlike on Reddit, there's no indication when someone's responded to one of your questions. As a result, very few arguments last more than a few hours here. I'm particularly leery of collapsible threads, although my understanding is we're about to get them anyways.
- frostmatthew 12y ago
  > I'm particularly leery of collapsible threads May I ask why? As someone who considers that the one change/improvement I'd like to see on HN I'm curious what there is to be leery of that I may not have considered.
  - washadjeffmad 12y ago
    Because this isn't like reddit where the most upvoted comments are elevated in otherwise collapsed threads. I've only read some of the most insightful and interesting comments and discussions on HN buried most of the way down the page because they were available for me to see despite their lack of being voted on. On HN, popularity isn't valuable, the ideas are, and non-precollapsed threads support that.
    - aptwebapps 12y ago
      Sometimes the good stuff isn't even on the first page. For example, see [0] (scroll down to the follow up) and the HN discussion [1] referenced there. Also, collapsible threads doesn't have to mean pre-collapsed threads. To me it seems like collapsible threads would help, not harm, in this case because more people would have collapsed the OT first thread and participated in the discussion about the actual topic. I realize there are two assumptions built in to the above that may not always be true: 1) OT threads are bad or less desirable and 2) more people in a discussion is better. 0 http://braythwayt.com/posterous/2012/03/29/a-womans-story.html http://braythwayt.com/posterous/2012/03/29/a-womans-story.ht... 1 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3772292 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3772292
    - 12y ago
beagle3 12y ago
I disagree. A lot of HN's character and culture are a result of how unmodern/unconventional it is. For example, not being able to get reply updates by email means you have to come back to the site to check, for example. Is that good or bad? I don't know the answer, but it selects a different audience. A modern HN would be a different HN community and culture.
- cpach 12y ago
  It is actually possible to get e-mail notifications via this external service: http://hnnotify.com/ http://hnnotify.com/
  - psquid 12y ago
    However, that still makes it a conscious choice to engage with the service that way - the default way is still checking back, and that shapes the general usage patterns of the site, even if some people have concluded it benefits them more to modify their experience.
    - cpach 12y ago
      Yes, good point.

krapp 12y ago

I'm tempted to chalk that up to HN being, essentially, a pet project implemented in a toy language as a not entirely open source[0] forum maintained by volunteers. Of course, I don't know but that's my guess, that pg just didn't work very hard on polishing up the parts he didn't find personally interesting. For some reason, people seem to be weirdly elitist about HN's layout, and act as if any slight change to the UI is going to allow the barbarians of the internet to storm the gates, until Hacker News is aught but cat memes and ashes. [0] The language and original forum are, obviously, open source. But AFAIK you can't make pull requests against the code HN is actually running, which has had tons of modifications made to it, because that's special sauce. There used to be a repo for making bug and feature requests but that seems to no longer be active. Of course, you could roll your own minimalistic threaded forum, but getting people to move from HN anywhere other than lobste.rs[1] (if they want more moderation) or reddit (if they want less) might be difficult, unless you're serving some specific niche like DataTau[2]. [1]https://lobste.rs/ https://lobste.rs/ [2]http://www.datatau.com/ http://www.datatau.com/

discreteevent 12y ago

Considering the audience you might be right. I'm not a typical audience member. I read in the evening on a phone with a slow 2.5g connection. For that reason I use opera mini. HN works perfectly on it and the combination of the browser and whatever it is HN does for layout means I can load a HN page faster than anything else on the web. It doesn't seem to matter how many comments there are. So I hope it doesn't change. But you are right. I'm not typical.

SCHiM 12y ago

I have a sneaking suspicion that maybe, just maybe, the looks of HN have helped protect the community against trolls. Everybody knows internet commenting is crude, rude and awful more often than not. In my opinion HN is a glorious example of an online community done right and I'm not sure we should change the site. But who knows, maybe it will even be better if it gets a little make-over.

vacri 12y ago
The site in general is good, but the user moderation system is utterly awful. A 'disagree' mod double-functions as a censor, and there's no need because there's also a separate flagging system. My profile page has a bit of a rant about the shortcomings of the mod system here with more detail. The autodetection algorithms probably need tweaking as well - from time to time I see users with polite comment histories mysteriously getting shadowbanned. Sometimes another user will look into it and post a comment to that effect, but without a user-to-user messaging system or a method to reply to dead comments, there's no guarantee that a shadowbanned user will see a friendly message.
- lake99 12y ago
  Not only does it censor, it gives some people undue power. A few days ago, I commented on a now flagkilled post. Within a couple of hours, some 15-20 other people had commented on it, and each and every post, except mine, was grayed out from downvotes. I had gotten a downvote too, but I had enough votes to counterbalance the briagading. I read the other comments, but did not notice anything nasty or disrespectful in there. This abuse of power is ruining the system for those who have new accounts or only post occasionally.
krapp 12y ago
Trolls exist on HN, I assure you. They're not scared off by the simplicity of the layout.
- ptaipale 12y ago
  They exist but they are not that many. The spartan layout might be one reason.
  - krapp 12y ago
    There might be a correlation, but I doubt it's a strong one. Maybe there just aren't that many unique accounts here, and this isn't a particularly mainstream site. There are reasons to be turned off of Hacker News that go beyond the layout. Imageboards can have pretty low-tech and annoyingly obtuse UX as well but trolls adapt and abound because there are no user accounts and they know they have an audience. Most of the trolling I think i've seen here has been done through throwaway accounts, so who knows whether or not those are sockpuppets of existing accounts or people showing up from /g/ to have some fun?

tptacek 12y ago

That's true if you assume that every feature moves the community forward. But not all of them do; many features regress us. For instance: unlike on Reddit, there's no indication when someone's responded to one of your questions. As a result, very few arguments last more than a few hours here. I'm particularly leery of collapsible threads, although my understanding is we're about to get them anyways.

frostmatthew 12y ago
> I'm particularly leery of collapsible threads May I ask why? As someone who considers that the one change/improvement I'd like to see on HN I'm curious what there is to be leery of that I may not have considered.
- washadjeffmad 12y ago
  Because this isn't like reddit where the most upvoted comments are elevated in otherwise collapsed threads. I've only read some of the most insightful and interesting comments and discussions on HN buried most of the way down the page because they were available for me to see despite their lack of being voted on. On HN, popularity isn't valuable, the ideas are, and non-precollapsed threads support that.
  - aptwebapps 12y ago
    Sometimes the good stuff isn't even on the first page. For example, see [0] (scroll down to the follow up) and the HN discussion [1] referenced there. Also, collapsible threads doesn't have to mean pre-collapsed threads. To me it seems like collapsible threads would help, not harm, in this case because more people would have collapsed the OT first thread and participated in the discussion about the actual topic. I realize there are two assumptions built in to the above that may not always be true: 1) OT threads are bad or less desirable and 2) more people in a discussion is better. 0 http://braythwayt.com/posterous/2012/03/29/a-womans-story.html http://braythwayt.com/posterous/2012/03/29/a-womans-story.ht... 1 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3772292 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3772292
  - 12y ago

beagle3 12y ago

I disagree. A lot of HN's character and culture are a result of how unmodern/unconventional it is. For example, not being able to get reply updates by email means you have to come back to the site to check, for example. Is that good or bad? I don't know the answer, but it selects a different audience. A modern HN would be a different HN community and culture.

cpach 12y ago
It is actually possible to get e-mail notifications via this external service: http://hnnotify.com/ http://hnnotify.com/
- psquid 12y ago
  However, that still makes it a conscious choice to engage with the service that way - the default way is still checking back, and that shapes the general usage patterns of the site, even if some people have concluded it benefits them more to modify their experience.
  - cpach 12y ago
    Yes, good point.