Ask HN: What do you hate most about HN?
134 comments
I disagree. I can't find any encouragement for downvoting things you simply disagree with (I just reread the guidelines to make sure). It's also not my perception this is happening: I do read downvoted comments (or parts of those), and almost always there is a good reason other than disagreement. I frequently see grayed articles coming up again after a while due to something you might call "corrective upvotes" when the only reason for a downvote seems to be a different opinion.
> I've lost track of how many times I've written/seen others comments ...
Interesting to see how far two subjective perceptions of the same thing - yours and mine in this case - can be away from each other ...
> I've lost track of how many times I've written/seen others comments ...
Interesting to see how far two subjective perceptions of the same thing - yours and mine in this case - can be away from each other ...
> I can't find any encouragement for downvoting things you simply disagree with
Paul Graham declared it "OK" 10 years ago (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=117171) and despite realising that it caused problems 2 years later, the problem's never really been fixed.
> Interesting to see how far two subjective perceptions of the same thing
I think this is directly related to the problem.
Bob posts a comment that is not offensive, but 'goes against the grain' for a large part of HN readers, so his comment is downvoted quickly to the point that it doesn't even appear for most people (either literally because they have `showdead` turned off or figuratively because it's greyed out to be almost unreadable, and at the bottom of sometimes long comment threads).
John reads the comment thread and never sees Bob's comment.
John doesn't see the problem because the problem is things not being seen.
Paul Graham declared it "OK" 10 years ago (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=117171) and despite realising that it caused problems 2 years later, the problem's never really been fixed.
> Interesting to see how far two subjective perceptions of the same thing
I think this is directly related to the problem.
Bob posts a comment that is not offensive, but 'goes against the grain' for a large part of HN readers, so his comment is downvoted quickly to the point that it doesn't even appear for most people (either literally because they have `showdead` turned off or figuratively because it's greyed out to be almost unreadable, and at the bottom of sometimes long comment threads).
John reads the comment thread and never sees Bob's comment.
John doesn't see the problem because the problem is things not being seen.
"Disagree" could mean "hold a different ethical, esthetic or political view" or "find something to have serious factual issues".
Do you have a sample link to such a downvoted comment? I generally find that downvotes make sense. When they don’t, the comment often bounces back via upvotes.
I will add to this a little.
Because I disagree with how HN's downvotes work, I have `showdead` enabled, so I can see the comments/articles that have been downvoted simply because of disagreement.
But that also shows all the articles that are clearly just spam - so I can have the spam removed, or I can see the things the HN hive mind disagrees with, but not both.
Because I disagree with how HN's downvotes work, I have `showdead` enabled, so I can see the comments/articles that have been downvoted simply because of disagreement.
But that also shows all the articles that are clearly just spam - so I can have the spam removed, or I can see the things the HN hive mind disagrees with, but not both.
Pretty much what has reddit become (or has always been)
it's not just allowed but encouraged to downvote things that you simply disagree with
Did I say 'encouraged in the guidelines'?
The founder said he thinks it's OK, so people do it.
The founder said he thinks it's OK, so people do it.
To be fair, I don't think most people know about a random comment pg made 10 years ago. You could certainly make the case that it changed the ethos of the place, but I know that I personally disagree with him, and try to make sure never to downvote something I simply disagree with, but thought was well argued.
And here we go, a moderator specifically telling someone 'down voting for disagreement is OK', and linking to a series of posts by pg staging the same thing:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18199276
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18199276
OK, fair enough.
Not sure how I got the opposite impression then.
Not sure how I got the opposite impression then.
Whenever someone has brought up the topic, someone has piped up with "but pg said", linking to that post (or alluding to it) and conveniently never mentioning that even he realised it was a mistake a couple of years later
HN for me is still (touch wood) a relatively high quality discussion forum. That said, I could certainly do without:
- Persistence of myopic and uninformed views about MBAs in tech and finance. No, MBAs do not get cushy jobs in top-tier firms because they know how to build a pricing model in Excel and look nice in a suit. Tons of MBAs have relevant industry experience, and they're there to work, not stifle innovation by implementing stack ranking or whatever in a frenzied rush to cut costs.
- Comments on stories where a company commits wrongdoing: "I don't know why people are surprised, X has always behaved in this way. If you don't want [bad thing], then do [thing that inconveniences you but does nothing to hold the wrongdoer accountable]"
- Elon Musk worship. I used to think it was just aspirational wealth worship, but now I'm starting to think people see him as a sort of Tony Stark figure, a misunderstood genius trying to save the world against all odds.
- Persistence of myopic and uninformed views about MBAs in tech and finance. No, MBAs do not get cushy jobs in top-tier firms because they know how to build a pricing model in Excel and look nice in a suit. Tons of MBAs have relevant industry experience, and they're there to work, not stifle innovation by implementing stack ranking or whatever in a frenzied rush to cut costs.
- Comments on stories where a company commits wrongdoing: "I don't know why people are surprised, X has always behaved in this way. If you don't want [bad thing], then do [thing that inconveniences you but does nothing to hold the wrongdoer accountable]"
- Elon Musk worship. I used to think it was just aspirational wealth worship, but now I'm starting to think people see him as a sort of Tony Stark figure, a misunderstood genius trying to save the world against all odds.
I hate how politically ambivalent and "both sides are the same" people here are, despite it being shown again and again that this is simply not the case.
I hate how free speech is unduly prioritized over everything else, even when it marginalizes people and whittles away at our separation of powers.
I hate how often social issues are eye-rolled or actively decried. I hate how rarely policies such as WeWork's meat ban or California's mandate to put women on corporate boards are discussed in good faith. I don't always agree with these kinds of drastic actions, but I enjoy talking them over with my social science friends. You simply can't find this kind of discussion here.
I hate how engineers often don't see themselves as rich. I make FANG salary and feel absurdly wealthy. My grad school friends are squeaking by on $30k a year. I hate how "get as rich as humanly possible" seems to be the unstated goal of so many tech founders, and how any discussion of CEO salary caps or wealth redistribution is quickly shut down.
It bothers me that such an intelligent community is often seemingly devoid of deeply-held values. People here aren't nearly angry enough about the political clusterfuck going on in the US. People here want to make nice and are unwilling to burn bridges to stand up for what's right.
And finally, I hate how people have the gall to say that they'd rather shut their ears and avoid politics altogether, even when it's affecting everyone around them in drastic ways.
A furious and motivated Silicon Valley could change so much in the world. Instead, we'd rather just shrug and collect our paychecks.
I hate how free speech is unduly prioritized over everything else, even when it marginalizes people and whittles away at our separation of powers.
I hate how often social issues are eye-rolled or actively decried. I hate how rarely policies such as WeWork's meat ban or California's mandate to put women on corporate boards are discussed in good faith. I don't always agree with these kinds of drastic actions, but I enjoy talking them over with my social science friends. You simply can't find this kind of discussion here.
I hate how engineers often don't see themselves as rich. I make FANG salary and feel absurdly wealthy. My grad school friends are squeaking by on $30k a year. I hate how "get as rich as humanly possible" seems to be the unstated goal of so many tech founders, and how any discussion of CEO salary caps or wealth redistribution is quickly shut down.
It bothers me that such an intelligent community is often seemingly devoid of deeply-held values. People here aren't nearly angry enough about the political clusterfuck going on in the US. People here want to make nice and are unwilling to burn bridges to stand up for what's right.
And finally, I hate how people have the gall to say that they'd rather shut their ears and avoid politics altogether, even when it's affecting everyone around them in drastic ways.
A furious and motivated Silicon Valley could change so much in the world. Instead, we'd rather just shrug and collect our paychecks.
I've seen a lot of comments on HN saying how good the level discussion is here. It's true if it's talking about JS engines or term sheets, but when it starts moving towards social issues or politics, I see better discussions on Facebook.
Thanks for the stimulating post! I do have a few comments/disagreements -
> And finally, I hate how people have the gall to say that they'd rather shut their ears and avoid politics altogether, even when it's affecting everyone around them in drastic ways.
I mean, it's kind of explicitly the idea of this forum to not involve discussions of politics. I guess you could claim otherwise, but I for one think it's legitimate to have a place where people choose not to talk about politics. Not literally every discussion has to be about politically charged topics.
(Which is not to say they don't get discussed here anyway.)
> It bothers me that such an intelligent community is often seemingly devoid of deeply-held values. People here aren't nearly angry enough about the political clusterfuck going on in the US. People here want to make nice and are unwilling to burn bridges to stand up for what's right.
I'm not in the US. But, there's a lot to be said for calming down - it seems to me that a big part of the problem today is exactly that too many people are too emotional/angry about everything, without necessarily having a reason to be. The reason there's a political clusterfuck, to me at least, seems to be exactly because people are willing to burn bridges, refuse to compromise, refuse to listen to one another, etc.
And btw, as to your "deeply held values" thing - this is a technical/business forum. It makes sense that the forum as a whole doesn't have "values" - it's made up of a very diverse group of people (well, not very diverse actually, but that's another problem). A diverse group of people getting together to talk about e.g. sports, wouldn't necessarily be expected to have more shared values than just people in general have.
> I hate how politically ambivalent and "both sides are the same" people here are, despite it being shown again and again that this is simply not the case.
Look, it's not that I disagree with all of your post or something, I thought it was well written and interesting. But you seem to be operating under the assumption that your view of things is clearly right, and other's views are wrong, which is why it makes you angry that others don't buy in wholesale to your views or values. For example, you write "It bothers me that such an intelligent community is often seemingly devoid of deeply-held values.", but also write "I hate how free speech is unduly prioritized over everything else, even when it marginalizes people and whittles away at our separation of powers.". Some people's deeply held values are that free speech is prioritized over (almost) everything else. You might not agree with that deeply held value, but it is one that supposedly the community here values (I don't know if that's actually true).
> And finally, I hate how people have the gall to say that they'd rather shut their ears and avoid politics altogether, even when it's affecting everyone around them in drastic ways.
I mean, it's kind of explicitly the idea of this forum to not involve discussions of politics. I guess you could claim otherwise, but I for one think it's legitimate to have a place where people choose not to talk about politics. Not literally every discussion has to be about politically charged topics.
(Which is not to say they don't get discussed here anyway.)
> It bothers me that such an intelligent community is often seemingly devoid of deeply-held values. People here aren't nearly angry enough about the political clusterfuck going on in the US. People here want to make nice and are unwilling to burn bridges to stand up for what's right.
I'm not in the US. But, there's a lot to be said for calming down - it seems to me that a big part of the problem today is exactly that too many people are too emotional/angry about everything, without necessarily having a reason to be. The reason there's a political clusterfuck, to me at least, seems to be exactly because people are willing to burn bridges, refuse to compromise, refuse to listen to one another, etc.
And btw, as to your "deeply held values" thing - this is a technical/business forum. It makes sense that the forum as a whole doesn't have "values" - it's made up of a very diverse group of people (well, not very diverse actually, but that's another problem). A diverse group of people getting together to talk about e.g. sports, wouldn't necessarily be expected to have more shared values than just people in general have.
> I hate how politically ambivalent and "both sides are the same" people here are, despite it being shown again and again that this is simply not the case.
Look, it's not that I disagree with all of your post or something, I thought it was well written and interesting. But you seem to be operating under the assumption that your view of things is clearly right, and other's views are wrong, which is why it makes you angry that others don't buy in wholesale to your views or values. For example, you write "It bothers me that such an intelligent community is often seemingly devoid of deeply-held values.", but also write "I hate how free speech is unduly prioritized over everything else, even when it marginalizes people and whittles away at our separation of powers.". Some people's deeply held values are that free speech is prioritized over (almost) everything else. You might not agree with that deeply held value, but it is one that supposedly the community here values (I don't know if that's actually true).
Purely on usability, my pet peeves are these:
1. The sizes of the voting buttons and the expand/collapse links are terrible. They’re so tiny (and the voting buttons placed so close to each other) that even a mouse cursor is not a proper tool to target them. On touchscreens, it’s way worse. The “tap targets” are very tiny for fingers and very difficult to use. Having to zoom in just to use one of those buttons is painful.
2. While looking at some child comment way down on a discussion, there’s no easy and quick way to figure out which comment it’s a reply to. It’s cumbersome and next to impossible. So I don’t even bother reading nested comments after the first or second reply to a comment. There ought to be a way to collapse all other comments above it and just leave the main one that it’s a reply to.
3. Very limited formatting options, with the default way of treating newlines tripping up many people. This results in a long piece of text that’s not easily readable. Just a day or two ago, I saw a YC recruitment ad post that someone had just copy pasted from elsewhere but forgot to use additional newlines to suit the HN formatting requirements. [1] It was a big wall of unreadable text in many places. This is not the first time that something like this has happened.
[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18169707
1. The sizes of the voting buttons and the expand/collapse links are terrible. They’re so tiny (and the voting buttons placed so close to each other) that even a mouse cursor is not a proper tool to target them. On touchscreens, it’s way worse. The “tap targets” are very tiny for fingers and very difficult to use. Having to zoom in just to use one of those buttons is painful.
2. While looking at some child comment way down on a discussion, there’s no easy and quick way to figure out which comment it’s a reply to. It’s cumbersome and next to impossible. So I don’t even bother reading nested comments after the first or second reply to a comment. There ought to be a way to collapse all other comments above it and just leave the main one that it’s a reply to.
3. Very limited formatting options, with the default way of treating newlines tripping up many people. This results in a long piece of text that’s not easily readable. Just a day or two ago, I saw a YC recruitment ad post that someone had just copy pasted from elsewhere but forgot to use additional newlines to suit the HN formatting requirements. [1] It was a big wall of unreadable text in many places. This is not the first time that something like this has happened.
[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18169707
For #2 you can click a comment's posting time, and from there repeatedly click "parent" to see the conversation history.
You may have already alluded to this as it's not exactly "easy and quick"; though as it's arguably both, I'm commenting in case others haven't discovered it.
You may have already alluded to this as it's not exactly "easy and quick"; though as it's arguably both, I'm commenting in case others haven't discovered it.
1. The sizes of the voting buttons and the expand/collapse links are terrible.
[deleted]
The community. There’s a whole lot of sexism. Overall it feels like all the part of the tech industry that make me feel skeeved out to work in it. When people try to speak up about it they get downvoted, flagged, and/or chided for off-topic discussions about it get shut down as off topic or not following the rules.
It’s hard to escape the feeling that it’s a community of almost all wealthy/privileged cis men.
It’s hard to escape the feeling that it’s a community of almost all wealthy/privileged cis men.
This. As a woman it sometimes makes me want to ragequit not just HN but the industry as a whole.
And then people wonder why women don’t want to go into tech and make even more assumptions about our not being interested. Nope, it’s just that a whole lot of us quite understandably would rather work in a field where we’re not constantly made to feel unwelcome.
And then people wonder why women don’t want to go into tech and make even more assumptions about our not being interested. Nope, it’s just that a whole lot of us quite understandably would rather work in a field where we’re not constantly made to feel unwelcome.
Long text quotes in fixed width format (indented by 2 spaces).
In hyperbolic terms i'd say that HN will become a consumer electronics & politics platform read by "metoo" developers who call them selves founders in exchange for giving up their pension and their rights as a employee. More will be driven to do the same because they read a story on HN covertly plugged by the only client of the previously mentioned metoo guy.
Tongue in cheek, this is a exaggerated version of the trend i see and that's what i hate most about HN.
There's a lot of casual elitism in many threads. However, I've not found anywhere else on the internet with such a high quality level of discourse so it doesn't bother me too much.
Casual elitism is indeed what irks me here a bit as well.
1. The thing I now dislike about HN are the posts that get upvoted. Yes, eternal September and all, but this has persisted through the slower summer months and I don't see it ever returning to the high S/N ratio of the recent past. I find myself more often finding gems on pages 3+ with top posts just being a general feed.
2. Discussions are now becoming rare. So many posts sit on the front page with many upvotes and zero comments.
3. Downvote misuse as mentioned is irksome but not fatal. My problem with them is the UI for them. Upvote if you agree, so downvote symmetrically (and incorrectly) implies disagree. Downvote should really be represented as 'flag' with a type such as factually incorrect, disruptive, adding nothing to the discussion, or other poor conduct (as mentioned in other replies regarding the guidelines).
2. Discussions are now becoming rare. So many posts sit on the front page with many upvotes and zero comments.
3. Downvote misuse as mentioned is irksome but not fatal. My problem with them is the UI for them. Upvote if you agree, so downvote symmetrically (and incorrectly) implies disagree. Downvote should really be represented as 'flag' with a type such as factually incorrect, disruptive, adding nothing to the discussion, or other poor conduct (as mentioned in other replies regarding the guidelines).
So many posts sit on the front page with many upvotes and zero comments.
There's a weird mechanism that punishes posts with comments, because they are deemed "controversial".
Regarding downvoting - just disable it. What makes the echo chamber even worse is that only users with a certain amount of points are able to downvote. So people who have already avoided being downvoted by others get to effectively police who else amasses the required number of points to be able to downvote. It's a vicious cycle where only a group of like minded people will be able to downvote.
There's a weird mechanism that punishes posts with comments, because they are deemed "controversial".
Regarding downvoting - just disable it. What makes the echo chamber even worse is that only users with a certain amount of points are able to downvote. So people who have already avoided being downvoted by others get to effectively police who else amasses the required number of points to be able to downvote. It's a vicious cycle where only a group of like minded people will be able to downvote.
This exactly illustrates the problem with downvote as the UI. Think of the same in terms of flagging unacceptable behavior. Then it makes sense and is positive. Only those who learn what is acceptable get to moderate.
Two downvotes, no comment as to why, either folks think it funny or just won't get it.
I don't really hate anything about HN.
In terms of the community, I would like to see more people recognize fake leading questions that are answered by alt accounts promoting some product. Those don't get flagged fast enough.
I am also not a fan of news site reporters challenging anything that doesn't have several references to back it up. It takes away from discussions and becomes an academic research article. In my experience, links do not equate to facts. They are just more opinions on some other site.
In terms of the community, I would like to see more people recognize fake leading questions that are answered by alt accounts promoting some product. Those don't get flagged fast enough.
I am also not a fan of news site reporters challenging anything that doesn't have several references to back it up. It takes away from discussions and becomes an academic research article. In my experience, links do not equate to facts. They are just more opinions on some other site.
Leading questions and/or alt accounts are my biggest gripes right now. I called out an account for being a Facebook employee or something the other day. They were literally copy pasting the same response over and over. It was a paragraph from some Facebook documentation.
Another alt account suggested I should be banned for calling out the other user.
Another alt account suggested I should be banned for calling out the other user.
Probably best to just flag it or send an email to HN. It's easy to spot people doing it, but we should have proof if we are calling someone out by name.
Honestly nothing at all. It's a decent site that does what it says on the tin. In my ideal world we'd have more hacker and less news but I can always visit /show if I'm in a particularly tech mood.
I guess I would like to be able to add a reason to a flag. Always feel a bit weird just hitting flag and hoping there's someone on the other end that can interpret what I'm flagging
I guess I would like to be able to add a reason to a flag. Always feel a bit weird just hitting flag and hoping there's someone on the other end that can interpret what I'm flagging
- hellbanning
- downvotes without discourse
- no differentiation between a vote for agree/disagree vs bump/vote-down
- downvotes without discourse
- no differentiation between a vote for agree/disagree vs bump/vote-down
There is not much of a need to distinguish disagreement downvoting versus bad quality here. In a technical forum, these two are very closely aligned: you disagree with something because it gets the facts wrong.
If you disagree with something which is mere opinion, it is in fact legitimate to downvote it on grounds that it is just someone venting their opinion.
If you disagree with something technically, and you have all the facts straight, it is legitimate to downvote it based on inaccurate content.
So basically, from all angles, disagree-downvoting works fine around here.
If you disagree with something which is mere opinion, it is in fact legitimate to downvote it on grounds that it is just someone venting their opinion.
If you disagree with something technically, and you have all the facts straight, it is legitimate to downvote it based on inaccurate content.
So basically, from all angles, disagree-downvoting works fine around here.
If only.
As has been demonstrated in the news recently, not all technical issues are purely technical. Bias in Amazon’s AI hiring tool. Election results being impacted by Facebook’s algorithms.
If someone downvotes on grounds that it is someone just venting (a fairly charged term in my opinion) their opinion...
- downvoting without discourse
I see no reason a downvote shouldn’t require accompanying rationale. If provided it would indeed make a agree / bump distinction superfluous. Looks like my points 2 & 3 should have had an “or” involved.
As has been demonstrated in the news recently, not all technical issues are purely technical. Bias in Amazon’s AI hiring tool. Election results being impacted by Facebook’s algorithms.
If someone downvotes on grounds that it is someone just venting (a fairly charged term in my opinion) their opinion...
- downvoting without discourse
I see no reason a downvote shouldn’t require accompanying rationale. If provided it would indeed make a agree / bump distinction superfluous. Looks like my points 2 & 3 should have had an “or” involved.
While not repeating existing complaints I have that others have made...
1) This community takes itself far too seriously.
2) The kerning is too damn small, and so are the vote arrows. Why is a forum, whose purpose is to be read, so difficult to read at length?
3) I, an idiot who has contributed nothing of value either to society or to this community, have more karma than Alan Kay[0], proving that karma doesn't measure anything worthwhile and should be done away with.
[0]https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=alankay1
1) This community takes itself far too seriously.
2) The kerning is too damn small, and so are the vote arrows. Why is a forum, whose purpose is to be read, so difficult to read at length?
3) I, an idiot who has contributed nothing of value either to society or to this community, have more karma than Alan Kay[0], proving that karma doesn't measure anything worthwhile and should be done away with.
[0]https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=alankay1
You've also been here three times as long as Alan Kay. You may well have contributed more here than he has.
> The kerning is too damn small, and so are the vote arrows. Why is a forum, whose purpose is to be read, so difficult to read at length?
Suppose HN had this simple feature: an editable field associated with your account where you could drop in a piece of CSS. When you're logged in, HN spits out that piece of CSS into the web page, just for you.
Suppose HN had this simple feature: an editable field associated with your account where you could drop in a piece of CSS. When you're logged in, HN spits out that piece of CSS into the web page, just for you.
Custom styles would be nice... I've always wondered why the only editable part of an account is the color of the topbar.
But they don't even have to go that far to improve readability, just apply some basic typography rules and eliminate the unnecessary grey on grey text. On text submissions, the latter is done purposely to make them difficult to read, which is not only malicious, but counterproductive for a forum.
Look at the way Medium articles are formatted - designed for readability, not designed to discourage it. Hacker News should look like that, IMHO.
But they don't even have to go that far to improve readability, just apply some basic typography rules and eliminate the unnecessary grey on grey text. On text submissions, the latter is done purposely to make them difficult to read, which is not only malicious, but counterproductive for a forum.
Look at the way Medium articles are formatted - designed for readability, not designed to discourage it. Hacker News should look like that, IMHO.
That a small minority of people with exceptionally high karma can kill posts and threads that they dislike for ideological reasons.
The only ability users have to kill posts comes from flagging, which is something everyone over a low (> 30) karma threshold can do. It also requires quite a few flags to kill a post.
In my experience, when certain users with sufficiently high karma flag a post or comment thread it is tantamount to "killing" it. Perhaps I'm mistaken in my perception of how flags work here. This is one of the more opaque aspects of how the site works.
That can't be your experience, because it doesn't happen; there's literally nothing in the software that works that way.
How it does work isn't much more complicated than what I just said.
How it does work isn't much more complicated than what I just said.
[deleted]
What about that a small minority of people (moderators, like you) can kill posts and threads that they dislike for ideological reasons?
We don't kill posts for ideological reasons, though ideologically passionate readers sometimes feel that we do.
You may not be killing posts due to picking sides within the debates, but the vision of how HN should be is a kind of ideology, and steering it toward that form is enforcement of that ideology.
That's a pretty nuanced academic point compared to "HN is run by right-wing groupthink" or "HN is run by SJWs", which is the level I'm talking about. The answer to both of those is no.
Comments beginning with "This".
The comments when all comments seem to be concentrated in a couple of threads rehashing the same issues.
All stories concerning the housing problem in SF. Nobody cares, move on, it's just a city. Yes I know there must be a disproportional amount of SF residents in this forum, but nobody still cares about your housing problems :)
The comments when all comments seem to be concentrated in a couple of threads rehashing the same issues.
All stories concerning the housing problem in SF. Nobody cares, move on, it's just a city. Yes I know there must be a disproportional amount of SF residents in this forum, but nobody still cares about your housing problems :)
Not a hate, but a minor gripe: the light gray text fails WCAG accessibility guidelines.
Front page quality seems to have deteriorated. I brought this up in an Ask HN and I think I came off as self-righteous and that was my fault.
But I think the crux of the issue is I just don't get how certain low-quality stuff makes the front-page and a lot of high-quality stuff from new gets missed.
I've actually created an RSS feed that grabs anything in New that has gotten at least 1 upvote. It's a lot of content but at least it is going beyond what is displayed on the front page.
But I think the crux of the issue is I just don't get how certain low-quality stuff makes the front-page and a lot of high-quality stuff from new gets missed.
I've actually created an RSS feed that grabs anything in New that has gotten at least 1 upvote. It's a lot of content but at least it is going beyond what is displayed on the front page.
low-quality stuff makes the front-page and a lot of high-quality stuff from new gets missed
People who don't look beyond the front pages (news or newest) are missing a lot.
The bland, low diversity of the frontpage.
If HN were to release the votes dataset to trustworthy AI/ML partners, wonders could be extracted from that. I'm sure I'd be way less interested in what the mob wants to hear about, compared to what is upvoted by antirez, pron, chrisseaton, BrendanEich, just to name a few.
PageRank could be run on that to identify articles that are low noise but key to people at the edge; as well as ALS for a personalized selection.
If HN were to release the votes dataset to trustworthy AI/ML partners, wonders could be extracted from that. I'm sure I'd be way less interested in what the mob wants to hear about, compared to what is upvoted by antirez, pron, chrisseaton, BrendanEich, just to name a few.
PageRank could be run on that to identify articles that are low noise but key to people at the edge; as well as ALS for a personalized selection.
My main dislike is a technical feature: that every response to a comment does not link back to the parent comment. This often makes discussions difficult to follow. (Indentation helps very little when reponse threads grow over multiple pages.)
that every response to a comment does not link back to the parent comment
What I do in this case is to close the tree (-) when reaching a comment less indented, so I can continue the current responses and remember where I was.
Not ideal, but it helps me.
Not ideal, but it helps me.
There's nothing I hate, but there are changes I would like to see. The biggest is that I wish it was easier to see when somebody has replied to me.
http://www.hnreplies.com works reasonably well for email notifications.
Aggressively throttling comments. I think it's about five comments and then HN cuts you off from commenting. Not really conducive to discussions.
Downvote fading. It hints at the current practice in some quarters of reversing Voltaire's maxim to the effect “I may not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.” which becomes I don't like what you say so I'll make it difficult for others (especially those with poor eye sight) to read it.
Me, and people like me who bring flamebait to HN and risk turning it into /.,reddit or worse, 4ch. Sometimes I just forget and get all troll-y and flame-y, and I hate that shit.
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Not that I hate something, but it would be interesting to know why this "Ask HN" is now listed # 27 in the "ask" list, with 22 points, 41 comments and 1 hour of age, right after # 26 with 15 points, 12 comments and 1 day of age ...
Nothing. Everyone's input is a Rorschach test. All data, even down votes, is valuable.
"Hate" is rooted in fear.
"Hate" is rooted in fear.
The way some people approach the status quo as normative or inevitable.
The downvotes when you even bring up a possible alternative to "the narrative."
Personally, I hate the number of people pushing borderline-paranoid conspiracy theory drivel here.
What is "the narrative," specifically?
The fact that the Microsoft astroturfing brigade discovered this place a few year ago.
My pet peeve is “us vs. them” mentality. The persistent need for an “enemy” that we good guys are opposed to. the flavor-of-the-month/year/decade tech company tribalism.
That is, people who speak positively of <for-profit corporation we currently like> are wholesome and motivated only by spreading truth. People who speak positively of <for-profit corporation we don’t currently like> are astroturfers and shills.
Definitely not unique to HN.
That is, people who speak positively of <for-profit corporation we currently like> are wholesome and motivated only by spreading truth. People who speak positively of <for-profit corporation we don’t currently like> are astroturfers and shills.
Definitely not unique to HN.
I hate how quickly new stories disappear from the main "new" page.
Have a look at the other possible views listed here:
https://news.ycombinator.com/lists
For example it’s possible to go back in time, e.g. here is the front page from yesterday:
https://news.ycombinator.com/front?day=2018-10-09
https://news.ycombinator.com/lists
For example it’s possible to go back in time, e.g. here is the front page from yesterday:
https://news.ycombinator.com/front?day=2018-10-09
This site may provide a more complete picture of noteworthy links and conversations than the HN homepage:
https://hn.algolia.com/?query=&sort=byPopularity&prefix&page...
It might be interesting to provide a view showing top stories since a user's last visit, whether it was 4 hours ago or 4 months ago.
It might be interesting to provide a view showing top stories since a user's last visit, whether it was 4 hours ago or 4 months ago.
I've found that http://hckrnews.com/ is a better "front page" for HN; it bills itself as "a chronologic list of items that have made it onto the Hacker News homepage".
Thanks for sharing. This is how I interact with HN. I typically sort by top 20 of the day.
I was referring to this page, not the home page:
https://news.ycombinator.com/newest
https://news.ycombinator.com/newest
I hate the "Then you must believe/support X" pattern (as a response to someone stating some position that is only faintly related to X). It puts words in the previous poster's mouth. It also hijacks the conversation, because X wasn't the topic, nor even near the topic.
I hate the number of people who want to argue but not listen.
I hate the number of people who want to argue but not listen.
1. Failure of not being able to evolve with time, and improve.
2. Degradation of value out of commenting system.
3. The bias quotient and compartmentalized thinking process towards stories being selected for front page.
4. The influx of Redditors.
Not being able to delete accounts.
GDPR to the rescue!
HN isn't an e-commerce site. Nowhere are you required to put in your real name, credit card info, date of birth, shipping address or anything of the sort.
Your account consists of an alias name, and two profile fields "about:" and "email:" that are optional, and can be reverted to blank at any time. HN doesn't even perform e-mail validation.
You can't delete your posts once they are older than a few hours. Not yourself, anyway; if you ask the site operators, maybe something can be arranged.
Ideas: don't post stuff you want later to delete, and if you do, be sure to change your mind within an hour. Use the "delay:" profile field to delay the appearance of your comments, which gives you a chance to edit or delete them before anyone sees them.
If you see a posting or comment that reveals someone's personal info, flag it. If it persists, contact the site.
Your account consists of an alias name, and two profile fields "about:" and "email:" that are optional, and can be reverted to blank at any time. HN doesn't even perform e-mail validation.
You can't delete your posts once they are older than a few hours. Not yourself, anyway; if you ask the site operators, maybe something can be arranged.
Ideas: don't post stuff you want later to delete, and if you do, be sure to change your mind within an hour. Use the "delay:" profile field to delay the appearance of your comments, which gives you a chance to edit or delete them before anyone sees them.
If you see a posting or comment that reveals someone's personal info, flag it. If it persists, contact the site.
The fact that a more recent link with more upvotes can already be on the second page, while a link with a few upvotes and few comments is on the main page for more than a day. Apparently some links are artificially "buffed".
I dislike the poor handling of asterisks in comments. How can I type the following identifier in-line in a regular paragraph (not code indent):
*eval-hook*
But that would require rewriting the markdown function, which would make it more complex, which would make it less elegant and more... bad...
I’ve been here for awhile (just about eight years), and the single biggest change I’ve noticed is the increasing presence of what I’ll call a “bourgeois tech monoculture.”
This place used to be weirder, with more obscure links and discussions filled with academics and hackers. If you search the older archives, there are some really incredible conversations. Now it mostly seems to be nytimes articles commented on by upper-middle class engineers.
This place used to be weirder, with more obscure links and discussions filled with academics and hackers. If you search the older archives, there are some really incredible conversations. Now it mostly seems to be nytimes articles commented on by upper-middle class engineers.
Agreed. I definitely felt like it was far more obscure and hacker-y five years ago. I remember things like Beej's guide to Network Programming were (https://beej.us/guide/bgnet/) formed the crux of the content - now there's far more "thought-pieces".
Agreed, I wished more individual content made it through. I'm trying to keep an eye on the /new queue and upvote it early, but it's tricky. And my pet peeve, people submitting dupes over and over instead of checking before posting doesn't help, since it's mostly mainstream stuff that gets repeated, drowning the niche out even further.
Are there any other communities that have a feel similar to the old HN, in your opinion?
Unfortunately no, I think this sort of trend has essentially eaten most major communication channels. Even reddit is 10x more tame, “middle class average” and predictably corporate than the forum culture the internet had ~1995-2010, before winner-take-all social media sites ate everything.
Agreed, reddit is now full of corporate fanboys.
Once a site/forum hits enough critical mass it's guaranteed to become corporate.
Social media exists to 1) push ads, or 2) shape consensus.
The end state of both is $$$.
Social media exists to 1) push ads, or 2) shape consensus.
The end state of both is $$$.
I consider HN being too corporate already. But I think there is an easy solution, where voting power just needs to be adjusted for at least those corporate domains and maybe in general to give more weight to diverse domains.
Secure scuttle butt has an interesting old school tech community feel, but it's not a site per se and is really just a p2p social network.
There's a place called lobste.rs but it's unfortunately invite only. Seems relatively active.
Couldn't this be said of the broader diversification of demographics/interests/end goals within the tech worker and hackers communities at large?
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You have to constantly look at articles, they become stale within literally a few hours.
Not stale because of the content, but of the activity in comments. A few hours go by and they stop.
Not stale because of the content, but of the activity in comments. A few hours go by and they stop.
Lack of content filtering and/or segregation by topic.
Pagination.
There could be an option to opt in for single page rendering.
There could be an option to opt in for single page rendering.
besides the things already mentioned (comments throttling after 5 comments, elitist downvoting only for likeminded who gain karma and fading downvoted comments, site almost useless on touch devices) comments not collapsed by default irritates me a lot, sometimes i am not interested in lengthy discussion under parent but curious about completely different comment
That discussions have a short life, and flame out. I read these on rss. by the time I get here... everyone is gone. so sad.
I use feedly to review HN and it would be so much better if the top two or three comments were included in the RSS feed.
That this valuable feedback-to-the-site post has been pushed off the first Ask-HN page >:-(
I miss Michael O. Church.
Not that I always agreed with him, but he was really interesting, and his comments consistently made me think about my own biases and opinions in ways few others ever have.
Not that I always agreed with him, but he was really interesting, and his comments consistently made me think about my own biases and opinions in ways few others ever have.
I disliked the lack of understanding of Terry Davis circumstance.
The low-quality tech-related articles/blog posts that drown the front page from sources like Economist, Vice Motherboard, NY Times, and so on.
I suggest using an RSS reader that supports advanced filters. There are many other benefits to RSS even without that, for example not having to rescan over links you've already read or, worse, never going to click.
As far as I know, there isn't a great solution for filtering out links on all pages. You could add sites to uBlock Origin, but you still have to click the link before you figure out it's a blacklisted site. I made a FF plugin for myself that hides links to sites I don't care to ever visit. Technically, it applies css to elements matching regular expressions. So far I've only used it to apply "visibility: hidden" to elements containing a small, but growing, list of domains. It's not perfect, it's not even really good, but I've been happy with it for a few years. If you're interested in trying it, I had to publish it to Add-on page to make it usable (I hate that Mozilla doesn't let us conveniently run any add-on from a local code base), it's called "ssure". It recently started working on FF mobile too, but it's a bit of a pain to configure there.
As far as I know, there isn't a great solution for filtering out links on all pages. You could add sites to uBlock Origin, but you still have to click the link before you figure out it's a blacklisted site. I made a FF plugin for myself that hides links to sites I don't care to ever visit. Technically, it applies css to elements matching regular expressions. So far I've only used it to apply "visibility: hidden" to elements containing a small, but growing, list of domains. It's not perfect, it's not even really good, but I've been happy with it for a few years. If you're interested in trying it, I had to publish it to Add-on page to make it usable (I hate that Mozilla doesn't let us conveniently run any add-on from a local code base), it's called "ssure". It recently started working on FF mobile too, but it's a bit of a pain to configure there.
The lack of a native dark theme.
I use Dark Reader for Chrome. The dark mode on HN makes the comments easy to read.
Link: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/dark-reader/eimadp...
Link: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/dark-reader/eimadp...
At night, I simply invert all the colors with "xcalib -invert -alter"
Lack of GDPR compliance.
All the news that isn't hacker news. News about startups, venture capitalists, and other silicon valley douchebaggery isn't hacker news. That's business news. Get it out of my face.
You do realize this is run by YC? Of course there is going to be news about startups.
I’m sure everyone is very aware of that. Awareness of it doesn’t make it any less obnoxious.
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The only gripe I have with HN is wrongthink, so I won't voice it here. Other than that, I love the site and its community.
Do you mean unpopular opinions or thoughtcrime? I post unpopular opinions all the time. Sometimes I get a few downvotes, then in other timezones it swings back the other way, usually. I am not even sure why.
I suspect that it's not timezones. I think some people, when they see posts that they feel are unjustly downvoted, vote them up just to cancel a downvote, even if they wouldn't have upvoted the post otherwise.
This has been my experience. I very politely and respectfully commented on why I wouldn't support a certain web browser that's gaining attention. The comment swung to the minimum (-4) quickly, but settled on 0 over the next few days.
I hate the insipid social justice warriors here.
a) the voter isn't required to identify their reason for down voting b) it's not just allowed but encouraged to downvote things that you simply disagree with
Those two things wouldn't mean much if it was just a number. But it isn't. The site actively hides comments as they get down-voted, and people down vote things they simply disagree with.
In case you hadn't realised, that's basically a recipe for an echo chamber. I've lost track of how many times I've written/seen others comments that are either factually true, or at least informative while subjective, down voted into oblivion because they don't follow the standing ideals of a large percentage of those who vote.