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How about adding this to the header or footer? http://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Aycombinator.com> ; Search
Ok, I'll try it for a while. It really doesn't seem like it's worth adding a link for something so trivial though.
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Make something people want , right? If the majority of folks here want search, and given that it wouldn't take much time to add a link to SearchYC, why not do it?
The reason I wouldn't add a link to SearchYC is the same that I don't add a link to one of the HN iPhone apps: I don't know the authors or the app well enough to anoint it as official. I don't mind if people want to build stuff on top of HN, but I have a much higher threshold for making something part of HN.
In all the time that I've been using it I think I've seen it down only twice, HN over the same period numerous times.
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I think you mostly want search when you decide to submit a link. Since you don't want to submit a duplicate article, you have to check searchyc first.
I think it very much depends on how you use HN, if you use it just for the consumption of 'news' then I can see why you would not need search as much, but HN is much more than that. It's an awesome resource, there are plenty of comments that are literally gems when you're stuck on something or starting with some new tech and that's when search comes in really handy. For instance, how to start with clojure: http://new…
First, I'd stare at the Clojure webpage, and try some examples in the REPL. I'd feel like I'm not grokking idiomatic Clojure, so I'd try some Google searches, but find nothing compelling. I'd hit random Clojure links on Hacker News and Reddit for a few weeks, but give up and move to a language with a more active community.
A year later, I'd accidentally find it at the bottom of an unrelated post and yell "If only I had that a year ago!"
From another thread, here's an explanation of what WebMynd actually does: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1329398 There is a misconception that it is somehow competitive or equivalent to searchyc - it is not. And that the reason that searchyc is not linked to from HN is because WebMynd is - that is not the case.
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Even if people said they'd prefer I focused on adding features like search rather than the quality of submissions and comments, which is unlikely, I still wouldn't.
I find it hard to believe that a programmer of your caliber would make it seem as though an off-site submission is such a big deal that it would take away significant time from working on the quality of the submissions and comments. I'm not 1% the programmer that you are and it wouldn't take me more than 15 minutes to put a search box (after all, it's just a piece of static text) in the HN footer. See, all those 'qua…
Ironically, this thread, though a complete bike-shed waste of time in itself, is not entirely bad, because it's also causing me to spend time thinking about the kind of problem I should be thinking about. One of the big questions I've been mulling over is what to do about points on comments. I'm increasingly inclined not to display them, because an upvote or downvote is equivalent to a very inarticulate comment. And this subthread is an argument for doing so, because the only reason I felt obliged to respond to you is the number of points your comment got. If points weren't displayed I wouldn't have felt I had to respond.
Basically, points exacerbate the "someone is wrong on the Internet" trap.
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Now why would you do that? If you agree with the need for a search then you could say why, maybe there is a use case that is good enough for Paul to cross that line and make it happen, this is not a popularity contest, it simply gets me that such a basic and much needed feature is missing and I feel that if Paul practices what he preaches that he should have implemented it long ago. HN is not a democracy, the 'shall…
It seems pointless to say why: the reasons are obvious, and stating them is not getting you anywhere. Why is a whole bunch of people showing that they want search not a compelling 'why'? Even if popularity contests aren't the best decision, the results of a vote in a small community seems like a reasonable signal to want.
'Why would I do that?' Jeez, why does downvoting cause such a kneejerk reaction? Even if karma means something - which it does not! - PG has plenty of it if anybody does.
I was just trying to help you. I wasn't really thinking about search before you posted, and now I'll go back to doing that. Whatever..
Update: deleted baiting to downvote which is apparently also bad form according to the guidelines.
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How about adding this to the header or footer? http://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Aycombinator.com> ; Search
Ok, I'll try it for a while. It really doesn't seem like it's worth adding a link for something so trivial though.
Edit: Or maybe if you're the type of person who can't figure it out, you're not the type of person who should be posting on HackerNews in the first place?
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Now why would you do that? If you agree with the need for a search then you could say why, maybe there is a use case that is good enough for Paul to cross that line and make it happen, this is not a popularity contest, it simply gets me that such a basic and much needed feature is missing and I feel that if Paul practices what he preaches that he should have implemented it long ago. HN is not a democracy, the 'shall…
I guess I thought you really wanted a vote. It just seemed like the simplest way to hack it. It seems pointless to say why: the reasons are obvious, and stating them is not getting you anywhere. Why is a whole bunch of people showing that they want search not a compelling 'why'? Even if popularity contests aren't the best decision, the results of a vote in a small community seems like a reasonable signal to want. 'Wh…
To ask people to downvote or upvote others is really bad form here.
The explanation is a lot less involved than your question: what makes users happy is not features, but the quality of the submissions and comments. So I focus on the latter instead of the former. The result is a spartan site with good content. There's a YC funded startup that may solve the problem. If they do I'll use them. But frankly the issue is not at the top of my list. This is a classic example of how one shoul…
While I agree with you, I think you're looking at it the wrong way. No user will leave HN because of search-issues, but a lot of users will be very happy if the site had good search.
imo it makes sense to do a trivial thing and make a lot of users happy. So while you're correct in saying that "quality of the submissions and comments" are more important, I see no reason why quality of content should preclude a decent search feature.