Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: Does anybody use the HN hide button?

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 50 posts

Re: Ask HN: Does anybody use the HN hide button?

#41

Post by llui85 »

messe wrote: post #17
SOLAR_FIELDS wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I use it because on the HN mobile site, it’s fairly easy to fat finger it. I’ve never used it legitimately. So chalk up at least one person who clicks it by accident. I will note that is almost always why I downvote anything as well - the mobile UX encourages accidental clicks like that.

Make that two. I’ve never hit it deliberately, but constantly fat finger it. I’ve a greasemonkey user script to hide it on desktop, but on mobile safari I’m all out of luck.

You might want to take a look at this Safari Extension for userscripts on iOS.

https://github.com/quoid/userscripts

Re: Ask HN: Does anybody use the HN hide button?

#42

Post by Mountain_Skies »

The information density is high enough with the HN design that having content I'm not interested in displaying isn't much of a burden. On a site like slashdot where each story takes up a large chunk of screen space and hangs around, a hide feature is of more value.

Re: Ask HN: Does anybody use the HN hide button?

#43

Post by m_ke »

I coded up a snippet to make the hide button not load a new link after one is hidden. This way I can hide everything that I don’t care and only see 2-3 threads when I come back to HN, saving me a ton of time not having to scan the whole page for new stuff.

Re: Ask HN: Does anybody use the HN hide button?

#44

Post by krapp »

gcatalfamo wrote: post #35
walterbell wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Both the hide and flag buttons have non-trivial consequences, for which thread titles do not provide sufficient context. If they could be limited to the story page, their usage would gain context from comments, and suffer less accidental clicks on mobile. It's also distracting to have 60 link targets occupying tactile and optical real estate on the front page, when they are rarely pressed. Limiting hide/flag to the s…

Or maybe just give the opportunity to _undo_ it by re-clicking it shortly after if misclicked instead of hiding it in the void.

There should be a list of links you've hidden in your profile, you can undo it from there.

Re: Ask HN: Does anybody use the HN hide button?

#45

Post by [deleted] »

dang wrote: post #13

I regret adding it, because I don't think it pays for the complexity it adds. But I haven't had have the nerve to cut it. If people are clicking it mostly by accident, that could be the excuse I need. Also I told pg one time that I wanted to get rid of it and he said "oh don't do that!" I think he used it exactly once.

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: Does anybody use the HN hide button?

#46

Post by krapp »

dang wrote: post #13

I regret adding it, because I don't think it pays for the complexity it adds. But I haven't had have the nerve to cut it. If people are clicking it mostly by accident, that could be the excuse I need. Also I told pg one time that I wanted to get rid of it and he said "oh don't do that!" I think he used it exactly once.

Instead of removing it, you should encourage more people to use it, since it seems feature-blindness is a bit of a problem wrt the design here. Removing it just means the people who were using it will just resort to abusing flagging and complaining about content not being "HN worthy."

Granted, people do that all the time, anyway, but the hide button is at least an outlet for some.

Re: Ask HN: Does anybody use the HN hide button?

#47

Post by mdrzn »

metadat wrote: post #12

I wish there was a profile setting to hide the hide button. I never use it and on mobile hit it on accident at least once or more every few weeks. It is confusing and annoying when a story inexplicably disappears. This discussion has been informative, I hadn't known some of the use-cases for the feature.

Same, also with the "favorite" button. I only click it by mistake.

Re: Ask HN: Does anybody use the HN hide button?

#48

Post by khaledh »

dang wrote: post #13

I regret adding it, because I don't think it pays for the complexity it adds. But I haven't had have the nerve to cut it. If people are clicking it mostly by accident, that could be the excuse I need. Also I told pg one time that I wanted to get rid of it and he said "oh don't do that!" I think he used it exactly once.

Please keep it. It's useful for many people as I can tell from this thread.

While I have your attention (hopefully), there's a bug where if I use the hide link on any page other than the first page, the stories that pop up at the bottom to replace the one I just hid are from the first page stories, not from the page I'm on. I think it's a pagination bug.

Re: Ask HN: Does anybody use the HN hide button?

#49

Post by dang »

krapp wrote: post #46
dang wrote: post #13

I regret adding it, because I don't think it pays for the complexity it adds. But I haven't had have the nerve to cut it. If people are clicking it mostly by accident, that could be the excuse I need. Also I told pg one time that I wanted to get rid of it and he said "oh don't do that!" I think he used it exactly once.

Instead of removing it, you should encourage more people to use it, since it seems feature-blindness is a bit of a problem wrt the design here. Removing it just means the people who were using it will just resort to abusing flagging and complaining about content not being "HN worthy." Granted, people do that all the time, anyway, but the hide button is at least an outlet for some.

I suppose we could remove it temporarily to see what happens...

Re: Ask HN: Does anybody use the HN hide button?

#50

Post by IIsi50MHz »

aorth wrote: post #19

I use it all the time. For me, it's the only way I can signal that I don't think this post belongs on HN. For example, a submission about reintroducing bison on tallgrass prairies. HN is what we want it to be. We all make it. Personally I want to see stories about technology, software, startups, etc.

I got a tiny-tiny mood boost fromethe title of that bison-double-biodiversity-of-tallgrass-prairies entry, but didn't read the post. Merely filed the thought away as "possibly-true, positive trivia, but too lazy too check".
Post reply on HN