Consuming Hacker News(riskfirst.org)
riskfirst.org
Consuming Hacker News
https://riskfirst.org/2019/05/14/Hacker-News
41 comments
Sometimes I do not even read the article at all. Either I read a few comments, and if it seems interesting I go to read the article. And sometime I just read all the comments without even putting an eye on the article. So yes, I strongly agree. HN value is in the comments.
PS: I just notice I did it again here... replying to a comment without having seen the article. I know in general it is better to have read the article before commenting, for sure for top levels comments at least, but in this case my answer is independent of the original content.
PS: I just notice I did it again here... replying to a comment without having seen the article. I know in general it is better to have read the article before commenting, for sure for top levels comments at least, but in this case my answer is independent of the original content.
Sometimes I don't read the article because I have to take the time to ublock my filters (wsj for instance, nature or medium identity redirects, etc)
My process with HN articles is
1. Find a topic that looks interesting or important based on the title
2. Read the top two comments.
3a. If they are incredibly polarized, read the article.
3b. If they are in agreement, just read the comments.
1. Find a topic that looks interesting or important based on the title
2. Read the top two comments.
3a. If they are incredibly polarized, read the article.
3b. If they are in agreement, just read the comments.
That is a recipe for a powerful bubble. HN, while being above average, collectively gets many, many things wrong.
Conventional wisdom says filter bubbles are bad because they hide alternative viewpoints.
But after I've understood and incorporated alternate views and I'm ready to build, then I want to discuss with like-minded people to refine the ideas and take action.
When I'm done with discovery and I'm ready to act, I don't want to keep fighting trolls and pedants, re-litigating stale arguments, weak signal lost in the noise.
More bubble, please.
But after I've understood and incorporated alternate views and I'm ready to build, then I want to discuss with like-minded people to refine the ideas and take action.
When I'm done with discovery and I'm ready to act, I don't want to keep fighting trolls and pedants, re-litigating stale arguments, weak signal lost in the noise.
More bubble, please.
Well a bubble is an imagined abstraction. Like most abstractions, it doesn't actually exist. Its just a way to simplify things. Also, there isn't a clear definition of it either, making things even more muddy.
>HN, while being above average, collectively gets many, many things wrong.
That is to be expected. I mean we have programmers opining on quantum physics, bio-chemistry, economics, sociology, and whatever else hits the front page. I don't know of an online community that restricts their opinions to their own domains.
>HN, while being above average, collectively gets many, many things wrong.
That is to be expected. I mean we have programmers opining on quantum physics, bio-chemistry, economics, sociology, and whatever else hits the front page. I don't know of an online community that restricts their opinions to their own domains.
> Well a bubble is an imagined abstraction. Like most abstractions, it doesn't actually exist. Its just a way to simplify things. Also, there isn't a clear definition of it either, making things even more muddy.
The fact that humans came up with a fuzzy concept to mentally model real-life effects doesn't diminish the existence of those effects. Events occur independently of what names and categories we give them.
For example, hordes of Twitter users have self-selected who they follow until they're exposed to opinions that agree with their own. This is and has been happening out there, in the real world, to real people. Humans, being pattern recognizers, naturally think of this effect in terms of "bubbles" or "echo chambers." These are not defined in a strict mathematical sense, and they don't actually exist, but the phenomenon certainly does.
The fact that humans came up with a fuzzy concept to mentally model real-life effects doesn't diminish the existence of those effects. Events occur independently of what names and categories we give them.
For example, hordes of Twitter users have self-selected who they follow until they're exposed to opinions that agree with their own. This is and has been happening out there, in the real world, to real people. Humans, being pattern recognizers, naturally think of this effect in terms of "bubbles" or "echo chambers." These are not defined in a strict mathematical sense, and they don't actually exist, but the phenomenon certainly does.
>These are not defined in a strict mathematical sense, and they don't actually exist, but the phenomenon certainly does.
That's my point, I'm disputing the central assertion that these phenomenon actually model reality.
>For example, hordes of Twitter users have self-selected who they follow until they're exposed to opinions that agree with their own. This is and has been happening out there, in the real world, to real people.
You can always point to people who unfollow others when exposed to world-view-contradicting opinions. But it hasn't been shown that they always do it, or do it for the same reason in every case. people can and do exhibit contradictory behavior, or have the wrong information, or are simply enjoying the drama, or are trolling, etc. The existence of these and other factors, which are just observations (not models) of human behavior, go against the nice and easy explanations of someone being in a bubble.
We like to put people inside neat little boxes with labels on them. Like you said - " Events occur independently of what names and categories we give them.".
That's my point, I'm disputing the central assertion that these phenomenon actually model reality.
>For example, hordes of Twitter users have self-selected who they follow until they're exposed to opinions that agree with their own. This is and has been happening out there, in the real world, to real people.
You can always point to people who unfollow others when exposed to world-view-contradicting opinions. But it hasn't been shown that they always do it, or do it for the same reason in every case. people can and do exhibit contradictory behavior, or have the wrong information, or are simply enjoying the drama, or are trolling, etc. The existence of these and other factors, which are just observations (not models) of human behavior, go against the nice and easy explanations of someone being in a bubble.
We like to put people inside neat little boxes with labels on them. Like you said - " Events occur independently of what names and categories we give them.".
> But it hasn't been shown that they always do it, or do it for the same reason in every case.
We don't need them to always do it, or for any reason. The fact is that it does happen, as evidenced by, e.g., https://www.cnet.com/news/twitter-echo-chambers-are-very-rea...
We don't need them to always do it, or for any reason. The fact is that it does happen, as evidenced by, e.g., https://www.cnet.com/news/twitter-echo-chambers-are-very-rea...
Shockingly, I read the actual study.
"However, as we focused on politically-savvy users on Twitter, the reader should not infer that our observations generalize immediately to other settings, or that echo chamber effects are as pronounced for the general public."
Exactly what I said - " But it hasn't been shown that they always do it, or do it for the same reason in every case."
I don't know why you are pointing to a study that agrees with me.
"However, as we focused on politically-savvy users on Twitter, the reader should not infer that our observations generalize immediately to other settings, or that echo chamber effects are as pronounced for the general public."
Exactly what I said - " But it hasn't been shown that they always do it, or do it for the same reason in every case."
I don't know why you are pointing to a study that agrees with me.
> for a lot of people, including me, a lot of the value of HN is in the comments
If I have enough time to kill I usually read the comments first in order to figure out if the article is worth reading
If I have enough time to kill I usually read the comments first in order to figure out if the article is worth reading
I think a really useful interface / AI project would be to write something that categorizes all the comments being made to an article.
That way I could dive into specific comments on topics that interest me, and also decide which comment branches to follow.
I have no idea how this might be implemented though.
That way I could dive into specific comments on topics that interest me, and also decide which comment branches to follow.
I have no idea how this might be implemented though.
I also find the comments more valuable and often reference a better version of the article so my path is:
title-->comments-->article (often a better link or summary than the original).
> a lot of the value of HN is in the comments
I'd say this is rarely the case, the exception being technical posts where alternatives, etc are discussed. Most of the content on 'hacker' 'news' are product announcement spam and tesla/bitcoin/737/facebook drama posts that continue beating the respective dead horses. The comments sections for these are filled folks having 'discussions' inspired by the article title by throwing anecdotes at each other, and armchair investigators throwing anecdotes at each other in vain attempts to argue for/against whatever they interpret the article title to mean.
Very often I find myself just visiting 'hacker' 'news' while signed out to find interesting articles to read in all the drama noise and obvious spam.
n-gate.com, while meant to be a very sarcastic take on HN, is surprisingly accurate in their descriptions.
I'd say this is rarely the case, the exception being technical posts where alternatives, etc are discussed. Most of the content on 'hacker' 'news' are product announcement spam and tesla/bitcoin/737/facebook drama posts that continue beating the respective dead horses. The comments sections for these are filled folks having 'discussions' inspired by the article title by throwing anecdotes at each other, and armchair investigators throwing anecdotes at each other in vain attempts to argue for/against whatever they interpret the article title to mean.
Very often I find myself just visiting 'hacker' 'news' while signed out to find interesting articles to read in all the drama noise and obvious spam.
n-gate.com, while meant to be a very sarcastic take on HN, is surprisingly accurate in their descriptions.
Another website is hckrnews.com, which is an aggregate of all HN posts by time. It’s really useful if you want to capture all items, as it has a feature that shows you where left off
I browse HN via RSS aggregator; so I catch all the articles, the thing is designed for keeping track of what you've read, integrates with daily reading flow along with all the other RSS feeds. Bonus points, my RSS aggregator of choice has a nice mobile reading experience too so my browsing experience tracks seamlessly across my various platforms.
I've been using hckrnews as well, can't beat it!
> We like to think about filter bubbles with respect to political divisions on Facebook. Users are relentlessly profiled and marketed-against there. However, they are a natural consequence of the HN algorithm too.
No way, there's just one ranking algorithm for everyone.
No way, there's just one ranking algorithm for everyone.
I'm starting to find the "new" page more relevant to me than the front page...
If you have the time, a lot of good stuff flies through without getting upvoted (enough). But this is great for me as my job is to curate such stuff for elsewhere ;-)
Recently 2 kubernetes digests have ceased. A weekly search for kubernetes and another one for k8s on all HN give me my personal digest.
I occasionally go to Show, Ask HN. Ask has some really good discussions,advice kind of posts.
I like Hacker News Daily, created by @cperciva:
http://www.daemonology.net/hn-daily/
It lists the 10 highest-rated stories each day. I added the RSS feed to my news reader so I can see the biggest items even if I don't happen to read HN that day.
http://www.daemonology.net/hn-daily/
It lists the 10 highest-rated stories each day. I added the RSS feed to my news reader so I can see the biggest items even if I don't happen to read HN that day.
I perfer the 'unlinkable' digest myself.
Most know what I mean.
Most know what I mean.
I'm confused about the mention of filter bubbles in this context. Generally, they're only bad when they're highly customized to what the individual user wants to see (because it will heavily bias toward their current beliefs).
Maybe it's the negative connotation I have to them due to Facebook so I'm wondering why this is mentioned here. I would expect the "proper" use of a filter bubble to be the application mentioned: not tailored to each individual user but rather highlighting what the entire community will find relevant, in this case based presumable on votes (though we wouldn't know if clicks are also a factor given the proprietary algorithm).
Of course, I suppose an entire community like HN could develop a macro bubble but one might presume an entire community should already have diverse perspectives which could keep it more balanced.
Maybe it's the negative connotation I have to them due to Facebook so I'm wondering why this is mentioned here. I would expect the "proper" use of a filter bubble to be the application mentioned: not tailored to each individual user but rather highlighting what the entire community will find relevant, in this case based presumable on votes (though we wouldn't know if clicks are also a factor given the proprietary algorithm).
Of course, I suppose an entire community like HN could develop a macro bubble but one might presume an entire community should already have diverse perspectives which could keep it more balanced.
I am on HN mainly for the comments.
The way I usually learn about interesting threads (which I mostly like to read after a while so they have enough comments) is the HackerNewsletter[0].
Also (shameless plug), I built AskHN Digest[1], a weekly recap of the top threads of AskHN with their top comments, to make sure I don't miss any good content from the section. Many times the comments there have been insightful and made it worth visiting the thread after a while, when most people had the chance to comment on it.
[0] https://hackernewsletter.com
[1] https://askhndigest.com
Edit: formatting
The way I usually learn about interesting threads (which I mostly like to read after a while so they have enough comments) is the HackerNewsletter[0].
Also (shameless plug), I built AskHN Digest[1], a weekly recap of the top threads of AskHN with their top comments, to make sure I don't miss any good content from the section. Many times the comments there have been insightful and made it worth visiting the thread after a while, when most people had the chance to comment on it.
[0] https://hackernewsletter.com
[1] https://askhndigest.com
Edit: formatting
The RSS feed (https://news.ycombinator.com/rss) comes into FreshRSS (https://github.com/FreshRSS/FreshRSS)
Usually just skim the comments to gather insight as quickly as possible, if there seems to be a strong signal with depth, I'll add the HN page to Pocket (https://getpocket.com) and check back later when I clear through all the backlog of interesting things
HN has replaced Reddit for me. I'm still reading Slashdot, two decades later, it usually just dupes HN.
Also Lobsters (https://lobste.rs) has some decent content, similar position in that it often dupes HN, but interesting regardless
Usually just skim the comments to gather insight as quickly as possible, if there seems to be a strong signal with depth, I'll add the HN page to Pocket (https://getpocket.com) and check back later when I clear through all the backlog of interesting things
HN has replaced Reddit for me. I'm still reading Slashdot, two decades later, it usually just dupes HN.
Also Lobsters (https://lobste.rs) has some decent content, similar position in that it often dupes HN, but interesting regardless
Recently, I’ve been hearing about Skimfeed, which aggregates 12-or-so articles from a bunch of news sources including HN.
The top link in Skimfeed's HN section is that post itself!
The top link in Skimfeed's HN section is that post itself!
I use an old FF version running greasemonkey just to browse HN. My GM script concats two pages of posts, filters out any posts that have less votes than x/hr since being posted, and highlights ones that have a list of keywords I'm interested in.
I love FF, but it's a constantly shifting target esp wrt greasemonkey! I gave up trying to convert my old scripts.
I love FF, but it's a constantly shifting target esp wrt greasemonkey! I gave up trying to convert my old scripts.
Sounds like a lot of work. There's a Telegram channel that posts all links when they hit a score of 50, so you don't need to filter and you know what you've read and what you haven't (@news_ycombinator on Telegram).
It's basically the same idea as the good old Google Reader.
It's basically the same idea as the good old Google Reader.
Did not know about AlerHN but signed up and added some search terms relevant to my main personal work project.
I use RSS to see the latest news stories. No need for any other third party webpage, IMO.
there was a ML experiment back in 2015 to categorize the posts: https://monkeylearn.com/blog/hacker-news-categorizer-with-ma...
sadly it is no longer live. Could be a great side-project!
sadly it is no longer live. Could be a great side-project!
No mentions of n-gate?
Not by anyone following the Prime Directive.
They still don't have https. I would visit, but I block outbound web traffic that isn't port 443.
What do I need to google to understand this reference?
[deleted]
"n-gate", which should lead you to http://n-gate.com/hackernews/
I wrote a script which opens a bunch of random HN links in new tabs. In firefox you have to over-ride the default amount of tabs you can open and change it to something like 9999. I once shared the script on HN under a different account, and it got no interest at all. The idea behind the script is that it presents random articles, so there is no bias behind the webpage you are reading. I use the script all the time and it's great to be presented with articles you otherwise would not have clicked. It's not hard to write such a script, but it gets trickier when you start to add filters to it. So for example, you may want to omit opening links with 'Soylent', 'Drone' or 'Trump' in the title.
So, rather than tools for submission-based skimming/alerts, I'd like to see advanced tools based on comments: Some ideas:
* Number of comments divided by submission points is a rough measure of contentious topics in the HN community, esp. if this is > 1. Recent example: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19970544. Sort front page by this score. Another obvious measure would be the number of grayed out and flagged comments.
* Identify comments leading to discussions and highlight them. Since comment scores are hidden this has to be done trough analysis of replies (maybe keywords "good reply" or number of replies).
* Identify comments that are informational, simple measure would be to count the number of links; harder to do would be to analyze the "factfullness".
Just some random thoughts.
P.S. I offer myself as a cautionary example of getting too much into HN: This is the first site I skim on my phone when I get up (to get awake, you know) and I easily spend more than an hour every day (who am I kidding, more like two hours). This is idiotic! Don't let your idea debt (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11027684) accumulate.