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

Just Ask HN (or more precisely, url-less) posts

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 54 posts

Re: Just Ask HN (or more precisely, url-less) posts

#31

Post by rasikjain »

pg wrote: post #29
rasikjain wrote: post #27

Thanks a ton PG for this new feature. How are these ASK posts are ordered? by the Points, Comments or Time Based? I have been using http://ask.searchyc.com/ for checking ASK related posts. They also have the feature of highlighting the post in BOLD font if the post is commented heavily. Going to bookmark this new ASK url.

For now the same algorithm as the frontpage (points divided by time to a power).

Thanks PG for the reply.

I can only see 31 posts under ASK. Is it just me or any other user also see only 31 posts?

Re: Just Ask HN (or more precisely, url-less) posts

#32

Post by petercooper »

pg wrote: post #28
petercooper wrote: post #26

A worthy feature for sure, but moving something that's been commonly used for years to squeeze something else in is a negative UI experience. The "threads" link is no longer where it used to be. I'd guess the earliest it should go would be before "jobs" as I doubt the average HN user clicks "jobs" or "submit" more than once a day (if that often), whereas "threads" is the way to a common activity. Twitter did somethin…

Better now?

Totally :-)

Re: Just Ask HN (or more precisely, url-less) posts

#33

Post by pxlpshr »

rms wrote: post #8

Great feature, thanks. A parallel feature for "rate my startup" posts would be useful; those self-posts also tend to get lost.

+1. This is what I miss the most as HN becomes more popular and slants toward a karma-game of news submission.

I would also like to be able to submit a URL and description for readers who click on comments as a way to provide context and clarification around why I submitted a URL without having to post another comment. Adding a comment later doesn't guarantee it will be at the top unless everyone collectively votes it up which is hit or miss.

Re: Just Ask HN (or more precisely, url-less) posts

#35

Post by itistoday »

toni wrote: post #18
itistoday wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree, but to prevent it from cluttering it could be implemented as a drop-down menu.

There is a Greasemoneky script which exactly does that: http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/58915

That's two awesome Greasemonkey scripts in one day for me! That's enough to get me to install this awesome add-on. Thanks!

(P.S. The other is for searching your YouTube favorites: http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/62580)

Re: Just Ask HN (or more precisely, url-less) posts

#36

Post by rms »

ig1 wrote: post #21
rms wrote: post #8

Great feature, thanks. A parallel feature for "rate my startup" posts would be useful; those self-posts also tend to get lost.

It doesn't seem to happen as much any more, but historically people used to post "rate my startup" posts without a url and just link to the start-up in the body of the text. If people did that now it'd show up in the Ask section, so maybe we should return to that practice.

That's a good point, the existing functionality is good enough as long as you make it an "Ask HN."

Re: Just Ask HN (or more precisely, url-less) posts

#37

Post by jacquesm »

andrewljohnson wrote: post #24

Great, now just move all of these off the front page entirely, and we'll be good to go. I know self-posts are algorithmically docked already, but I think I would prefer that HN was set up like StackOverflow where all meta-posts were cordoned off from the real stories.

Ask HN posts are not meta posts, they can be but only a relatively small part of them are.

Meta posts are posts discussing HN itself, Ask HN posts range from startup-reviews to job advice and all kinds of other stuff.

Re: Just Ask HN (or more precisely, url-less) posts

#38

Post by andrewljohnson »

jacquesm wrote: post #37
andrewljohnson wrote: post #24

Great, now just move all of these off the front page entirely, and we'll be good to go. I know self-posts are algorithmically docked already, but I think I would prefer that HN was set up like StackOverflow where all meta-posts were cordoned off from the real stories.

Ask HN posts are not meta posts, they can be but only a relatively small part of them are. Meta posts are posts discussing HN itself, Ask HN posts range from startup-reviews to job advice and all kinds of other stuff.

Ok, sure... but I still say please still rope them off in the same fashion.

They are already discouraged from making the front page, and we might as well banish them completely.

Re: Just Ask HN (or more precisely, url-less) posts

#39

Post by pg »

rasikjain wrote: post #31
pg wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For now the same algorithm as the frontpage (points divided by time to a power).

Thanks PG for the reply. I can only see 31 posts under ASK. Is it just me or any other user also see only 31 posts?

For speed it skims the url-less posts out of the sorted list I keep for the frontpage, which needs to be made longer to be used for this as well. I just cranked up the length a bit; should be ok now.

Re: Just Ask HN (or more precisely, url-less) posts

#40

Post by psawaya »

pg wrote: post #28
petercooper wrote: post #26

A worthy feature for sure, but moving something that's been commonly used for years to squeeze something else in is a negative UI experience. The "threads" link is no longer where it used to be. I'd guess the earliest it should go would be before "jobs" as I doubt the average HN user clicks "jobs" or "submit" more than once a day (if that often), whereas "threads" is the way to a common activity. Twitter did somethin…

Better now?

I think the top bar is a little screwed up on the jobs page - the word jobs appears twice. Here's how it looks to me:

new | threads | comments | ask | jobs | submit | jobs

Post reply on HN