Show HN: Hacker News Outliers(hn.moritz.pm)
hn.moritz.pm
Show HN: Hacker News Outliers
https://hn.moritz.pm
57 comments
For those of us who prefer RSS feeds, you can get the exact same thing using this URL:
https://hnrss.org/newest?points=500
(thanks to the guys at https://hnrss.github.io/, who offer multiple customizable RSS feeds for HN)
(thanks to the guys at https://hnrss.github.io/, who offer multiple customizable RSS feeds for HN)
Can also be achieved using algolia, with the search "points>500" and then sorted by date, also available as a json API. (that's what hnrss uses)
https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
When I scan for outlier submissions on the front page I look for:
* Submissions for high comment number to vote ratio. This sometimes means it’s a submission with a political bent, leading to flame wars; you can easily tell this by the title. However, sometimes this ratio is high for unexpected submissions, I check these to see what the discussion is about.
* Submissions that are voted to first page with, say, >20 votes, but have either no comments or a single comment. These are usually are topics that people unanimously agree with nothing much to say. These are relatively rare, I’d say maybe once or twice a month but are interesting.
* Submissions for high comment number to vote ratio. This sometimes means it’s a submission with a political bent, leading to flame wars; you can easily tell this by the title. However, sometimes this ratio is high for unexpected submissions, I check these to see what the discussion is about.
* Submissions that are voted to first page with, say, >20 votes, but have either no comments or a single comment. These are usually are topics that people unanimously agree with nothing much to say. These are relatively rare, I’d say maybe once or twice a month but are interesting.
> Submissions that are voted to first page with, say, >20 votes, but have either no comments or a single comment. [...] These are relatively rare [...]
Curiously enough, there's one just like that on the frontpage now.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39419195
Curiously enough, there's one just like that on the frontpage now.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39419195
Some of us upvote to read later and I think if the title's interesting enough, you'll get those upvotes.
I don't know if I will, formally, title this as HN Outliers. It is more like a ranking. Using the outliers word alone has many different meanings.
Not really a ranking either (it's ordered chronologically e.g.), but true it is a very specific form of outlier, and not what I expected based on the name.
I was expecting some clever way to find those stories worth reading but that did not make the cut somehow.
I suspect OP was going for something along the lines of Malcolm Gladwell's usage of "outliers" (unusually successful people)
I often find the comments more interesting than many of the linked submissions. It would be nice if there were an outliers list of comments showing comments upvoted more than 25 and more than 50% of the linked submission's up votes.
That is sadly not possible, as the API (intentionally) does not give you the number of upvotes for a comment. Only for the whole article.
How is this "outliers"? These are just the submissions that are really popular
Posts with more than 500 upvotes are rare, therefore making them outliers.
While technically correct, is this really how "outliers" is generally used? I tend to think of it as "the forgotten few," not "the select few."
Yes, in statistics when something is noticeably detached from most that's an outlier
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outlier
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outlier
Ah ya, of course, which of course is appropriate here. I was thinking of it in a social context... which is actually also somewhat appropriate here, but likely less so.
Seems to be working more or less like https://news.ycombinator.com/best except in different order + different UI
Two related, though not quite identical, lists provided by HN are:
https://news.ycombinator.com/best
https://news.ycombinator.com/over?points=500
https://news.ycombinator.com/best
https://news.ycombinator.com/over?points=500
I was building something like this for personal use but for Reddit to beat my reddit addiction (before they fucked up their API).
I called it Detox for Reddit and you could connect your reddit account to get your subreddits and then it would check distribution of scores for that subreddit and only send you the really good stuff in a daily digest e-mail.
The idea was that it would prevent the FOMO that made me check Reddit more often to avoid missing the good stuff among the sludge.
I wasn't planning on monetizing but monetization strategy would have been a limited number of subreddits (3-5) in a free version, all your subreddits in a small monthly subscription (like 1-2$) and then a larger fee to enable NSFW subreddits.
If reddit allowed them, I would have advertised directly on reddit in ADHD and other relevant subreddits like Productivity etc.
So I like your idea, I think it works as is but would be enhanced by having customizable thresholds or actual calculation of outliers so you can say give me the top 5% or 1% of posts.
I called it Detox for Reddit and you could connect your reddit account to get your subreddits and then it would check distribution of scores for that subreddit and only send you the really good stuff in a daily digest e-mail.
The idea was that it would prevent the FOMO that made me check Reddit more often to avoid missing the good stuff among the sludge.
I wasn't planning on monetizing but monetization strategy would have been a limited number of subreddits (3-5) in a free version, all your subreddits in a small monthly subscription (like 1-2$) and then a larger fee to enable NSFW subreddits.
If reddit allowed them, I would have advertised directly on reddit in ADHD and other relevant subreddits like Productivity etc.
So I like your idea, I think it works as is but would be enhanced by having customizable thresholds or actual calculation of outliers so you can say give me the top 5% or 1% of posts.
The free Reddit API is generous enough for this use case. I think it allows about one call per second per API user.
I made a Telegram bot very similar to what you described (but free since it's just a few lines of code) https://t.me/MySubredditsBot
I made a Telegram bot very similar to what you described (but free since it's just a few lines of code) https://t.me/MySubredditsBot
Lots of cool stuff to do with HN data! I'm just finishing a blog post about the most discussed topics on Hacker News after analyzing and categorizing all front-page posts: https://www.kadoa.com/blog/top-trends-on-hacker-news
If this post reaches the list would be a cool inception.
From my experience and seeing the patterns on Hacker News, this won't. The comment sentiments are a mix already with negativity already going south pretty fast. I feel like this might fall off before hitting 100.
Edit/Update: My bad. 100, it is. :-)
Edit/Update: My bad. 100, it is. :-)
I came back to check on your prediction and it turns out you were wrong :)
Currently at 107 points and of course still on the front page (at #24).
Currently at 107 points and of course still on the front page (at #24).
Maybe dates in yyyy-mm-dd so non US users won't be tricked by 03/01/2024? Or this could be one of those rare places where today, yesterday and 2 days ago would be appropriate. But then, when does today starts? HN time zone (Pacific time?)
Congrats on building it and putting it out there, it looks really slick
I do have to say I think you'll miss out on a lot of what makes HN great if you only read those "main" articles
I do have to say I think you'll miss out on a lot of what makes HN great if you only read those "main" articles
My preferred alt frontend for HN is https://hckrnews.com
I use it in "Top 20" mode. It helps me keep up with the bigger stories just by checking in once a day. Loads super fast, has worked great for many years now.
I use it in "Top 20" mode. It helps me keep up with the bigger stories just by checking in once a day. Loads super fast, has worked great for many years now.
An interesting added metric/filter would be posts that hit the front-page but then shortly after still exist on the site but are not available via navigating "next" from the main page.
I made a Telegram channel which does the same, with a 1000 threshold: https://t.me/top_of_hacker_news
I use https://flutterhackernews.web.app/ for top, best, new stories.
HN Best?
How is this meaningful different than /best
https://news.ycombinator.com/best
How is this meaningful different than /best
https://news.ycombinator.com/best
It doesn't use a ranking algorithm and just gives you anything over the threshhold in the chronological order. Best is similar but to catch up quickly I find this basic implementation more approachable
Browsing on mobile, I think it would provide a better user experience to open links in the same tab.
if you like this you gotta try https://news.ycombinator.com/newest
They are amazing. A collection of single vote items. Future 500+ ones yet to be found.
They are amazing. A collection of single vote items. Future 500+ ones yet to be found.
> The UI is almost identical to the HN frontpage
Well, for one HN works without Javascript, while that URL yields just a blank page.
Well, for one HN works without Javascript, while that URL yields just a blank page.
Whole different story but do we really have to insist on not delivering any first party frontend logic in 2024? It's minimal and most code is on the server. Also it's a small footprint and proven to be fast (Preact). This site has a 100 performance score on Google Pagespeed, JS doesn't mean bad UX.
Blocking third party scripts and cookies is one thing, but not wanting first party script just forces the developer to use server-side templating for their static content which means you either deliver everything from the same origin (bad for latency) or chain a CDN in front that picks out static content to cache (I don't think that's compatible with the web 2.0 ideology). So it's not ideal too
Blocking third party scripts and cookies is one thing, but not wanting first party script just forces the developer to use server-side templating for their static content which means you either deliver everything from the same origin (bad for latency) or chain a CDN in front that picks out static content to cache (I don't think that's compatible with the web 2.0 ideology). So it's not ideal too
It's a super weird phenomenon. These people (who are mostly not web developers) have enough of a technical understanding of how websites work to disable a huge part of the browser, that they think shouldn't be needed, and then complain about websites not working.
From a web developer's perspective, it doesn't make any sense to me because JS is just one part of the web standard. If you're not going to support it, then why do you expect any websites to work?
It's like if I deleted gcc from a linux machine and then tried to build a package, and then complained that it wasn't building, because "it shouldn't use C." Well, C is an expected part of the operating system and so the package author has decided to use it. You've broken your system.
From a web developer's perspective, it doesn't make any sense to me because JS is just one part of the web standard. If you're not going to support it, then why do you expect any websites to work?
It's like if I deleted gcc from a linux machine and then tried to build a package, and then complained that it wasn't building, because "it shouldn't use C." Well, C is an expected part of the operating system and so the package author has decided to use it. You've broken your system.
There is no good reason that this kind of content would need any client-side logic. Not being able to view it with tools like w3m is an unnecessary limitation.
It’s also ironic that the one thing HTML was designed for, namely presenting static content, is now deemed unworkable without having to run custom client-side code.
It’s also ironic that the one thing HTML was designed for, namely presenting static content, is now deemed unworkable without having to run custom client-side code.
> There is no good reason that this kind of content would need any client-side logic.
One such reason might be that it allows the developer to host their frontend statically, which usually is much simpler to set up and operate.
I would find it fair to appreciate that the author provides their service for free to the world. So while it might be true that their website isn’t fully compatible with certain client-side tools, that kind of support doesn’t come for free, and it also may not align with the goals of the author. (Which in this case apparently are educational ones, and not to maximise accessibility for a broadest-possible audience.)
One such reason might be that it allows the developer to host their frontend statically, which usually is much simpler to set up and operate.
I would find it fair to appreciate that the author provides their service for free to the world. So while it might be true that their website isn’t fully compatible with certain client-side tools, that kind of support doesn’t come for free, and it also may not align with the goals of the author. (Which in this case apparently are educational ones, and not to maximise accessibility for a broadest-possible audience.)
If the commenter had said, "I can't view this with w3m," I'd understand that more. What's frustrating is that most of these comments are from people using an extension like NoScript or who have disabled JavaScript in their browser settings, based on (misguided IMO) privacy or security fears.
There's nothing wrong with tampering with your browser by disabling JavaScript, but you have to understand that what you're doing is unsupported by websites. It's unreasonable to complain that the website is broken when you disabled the technologies that the web developer chose to use.
There's nothing wrong with tampering with your browser by disabling JavaScript, but you have to understand that what you're doing is unsupported by websites. It's unreasonable to complain that the website is broken when you disabled the technologies that the web developer chose to use.
> It’s also ironic that the one thing HTML was designed for, namely presenting static content, is now deemed unworkable without having to run custom client-side code.
Because the content here is dynamic. It changes every 30 minutes, even if it's just the scores. HTML was not designed to serve dynamic content.
Because the content here is dynamic. It changes every 30 minutes, even if it's just the scores. HTML was not designed to serve dynamic content.
That’s not dynamic content. It’s okay to have some optional JavaScript to dynamically update the scores or whatever. But that’s no reason not to show the main/initial content without JavaScript. As a user I certainly prefer regular content to not update by itself, though.
> Whole different story but do we really have to insist on not delivering any first party frontend logic in 2024?
Yes. Not all users may be able-bodied, or humans.
Yes. Not all users may be able-bodied, or humans.
Crazy you think that robots and screen assistant tools can't execute JavaScript.
Googlebot has been able to do this for well over a decade. Time to get out of 2001 era thinking.
Googlebot has been able to do this for well over a decade. Time to get out of 2001 era thinking.
TL;DR: on that site, 77% of first-party bandwidth is Javascript. Serving HTML instead of Json would cut the bandwidth by 4.4.
> It's minimal and most code is on the server. Also it's a small footprint and proven to be fast (Preact). This site has a 100 performance score on Google Pagespeed,
Yes, it's nicely minimal in a number of aspects. Good point.
> JS doesn't mean bad UX.
For those who run their browser with scripts off by default it is.
Disabling JS and cookies by default has another nice benefit: on a number of sites, the stupid content-obcsuring cookie banner just does not exist (as well as ads, of course). And pages load time is much better.
> Blocking third party scripts and cookies is one thing, but not wanting first party script just forces the developer to use server-side templating for their static content which means you either deliver everything from the same origin (bad for latency) or chain a CDN in front that picks out static content to cache (I don't think that's compatible with the web 2.0 ideology).
That doesn't hold.
If a server can format data into a Json, it can format the same data into HTML and serve it the same. In the specific case of this site, the generated HTML has the same lifetime as the generated Json.
From the site: "It is updated every 2 hours."
Ironically, because this site is nicely minimal in a number of aspects, one can play with statistics. Not counting cloudflare beacon js, I measure
1.16k HTML, 1.56k CSS, 18.44k JS, 1.05k favicon.svg, 1.61k JSON payload.
Therefore 77% of bandwidth used is Javascript:
All in all, serving a full HTML page instead of a HTML shell + custom JS + Json totally makes sense.
The good news is, for the past year I have started to hear seasoned web developers complain more about the sad state web development has been for years, and longing for some simplicity. Wait and see.
Kudos to the author for embracing minimalism. You can go a step further.
> It's minimal and most code is on the server. Also it's a small footprint and proven to be fast (Preact). This site has a 100 performance score on Google Pagespeed,
Yes, it's nicely minimal in a number of aspects. Good point.
> JS doesn't mean bad UX.
For those who run their browser with scripts off by default it is.
Disabling JS and cookies by default has another nice benefit: on a number of sites, the stupid content-obcsuring cookie banner just does not exist (as well as ads, of course). And pages load time is much better.
> Blocking third party scripts and cookies is one thing, but not wanting first party script just forces the developer to use server-side templating for their static content which means you either deliver everything from the same origin (bad for latency) or chain a CDN in front that picks out static content to cache (I don't think that's compatible with the web 2.0 ideology).
That doesn't hold.
If a server can format data into a Json, it can format the same data into HTML and serve it the same. In the specific case of this site, the generated HTML has the same lifetime as the generated Json.
From the site: "It is updated every 2 hours."
Ironically, because this site is nicely minimal in a number of aspects, one can play with statistics. Not counting cloudflare beacon js, I measure
1.16k HTML, 1.56k CSS, 18.44k JS, 1.05k favicon.svg, 1.61k JSON payload.
Therefore 77% of bandwidth used is Javascript:
p=(1.16+1.56+1.05+1.61) ; j=18.44 ; 100*j/(j+p)=77
p=(1.16+1.56+1.05+1.61) ; j=18.44 ; (j+p)/p = 4.4
All in all, serving a full HTML page instead of a HTML shell + custom JS + Json totally makes sense.
The good news is, for the past year I have started to hear seasoned web developers complain more about the sad state web development has been for years, and longing for some simplicity. Wait and see.
Kudos to the author for embracing minimalism. You can go a step further.
I mean, instead of using a fixed threshold at 500, if you use a live threshold determined by the recent average upvotes, then yeah I'd have no qualms with calling them outliers.
It's just that this method is susceptible to votecount inflation, a la Reddit from 2014 to 2024.
It's just that this method is susceptible to votecount inflation, a la Reddit from 2014 to 2024.
Submission embeddings?
bitcoin
https://hn.moritz.pm/
It's quite simple because I wanted to learn from the project. But I think it's useful, to get a summary of what was important over the last days.
The UI is almost identical to the HN frontpage, you can click on the comments to view the thread and on the username to see the profile. The rest of the cards takes you to the submitted URL.