Solving The Hacker News Problem

#1

Post by tianyicui » Tue, Feb 22, 2011, 11:44 PM UTC

Solving The Hacker News Problem
al3x.net

Re: Solving The Hacker News Problem

#2

Post by tianyicui » Tue, Feb 22, 2011, 11:53 PM UTC

IMO, a tag system like StackOverflow or Quora seems a good way to go.

Re: Solving The Hacker News Problem

#3

Post by vidar » Tue, Feb 22, 2011, 11:55 PM UTC

Perhaps pg is too busy these days to really tend to HN? God knows I would be if I were carrying his load.

Re: Solving The Hacker News Problem

#4

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Feb 22, 2011, 11:56 PM UTC

[deleted]

Re: Solving The Hacker News Problem

#5

Post by dools » Tue, Feb 22, 2011, 11:58 PM UTC

vidar wrote: post #3

Perhaps pg is too busy these days to really tend to HN? God knows I would be if I were carrying his load.

Nope, I got an email from him the other day telling me not to editorialise in submission titles after I posted that Nissan Leaf HTML5 extravaganza with the heading "Behold: We don't need flash for anything anymore. Ever".

I'm sure that post itself rankled our OP.

Re: Solving The Hacker News Problem

#6

Post by mcav » Wed, Feb 23, 2011, 12:00 AM UTC

[deleted] wrote: post #4

[deleted]

If he wanted to advertise for BankSimple, he could've done a heck of a lot better than a passing reference in a blog post about HN.

Re: Solving The Hacker News Problem

#7

Post by tptacek » Wed, Feb 23, 2011, 12:00 AM UTC

tianyicui wrote: post #2

IMO, a tag system like StackOverflow or Quora seems a good way to go.

Tags concede defeat, fragmenting one dysfunctional community into a whole spectrum of subcommunities. How will we handle the tag for "good enough for '08 Hacker News"?

Re: Solving The Hacker News Problem

#8

Post by tptacek » Wed, Feb 23, 2011, 12:02 AM UTC

For what it's worth: I feel safe saying that most high-karma users of HN have a variety of severe concerns with it. My experience asking this question over email has generally been one of getting gigantic essay-length responses.

In my official capacity as "representative of people dorky enough to have karma this high", we do officially declare: stuff's broken. Needs unbreaking.

Re: Solving The Hacker News Problem

#9

Post by rudiger » Wed, Feb 23, 2011, 12:06 AM UTC

dools wrote: post #5

vidar wrote: post #3

Perhaps pg is too busy these days to really tend to HN? God knows I would be if I were carrying his load.

Nope, I got an email from him the other day telling me not to editorialise in submission titles after I posted that Nissan Leaf HTML5 extravaganza with the heading "Behold: We don't need flash for anything anymore. Ever". I'm sure that post itself rankled our OP.

Question: Why'd you give it such a sensational title?

Re: Solving The Hacker News Problem

#10

Post by jcsalterego » Wed, Feb 23, 2011, 12:07 AM UTC

It seems there's always been reluctance to add features, for the sake of simplicity. Personal messages, for example, would have been useful in many, many instances, but instead we find ourselves checking out the plain-text profile and finding alternate methods of communication.

This limitation has also sprouted ancillary sites attached to the HN Tree of Life, such as searchyc.com, hackermonthly.com, and hnrecap.com as mentioned in the post.

In a similar vein, carving out a sub-HN seems to be: a) downloading the source code, b) bringing it online at another domain and c) announcing via "Tell HN".

All in all, unless someone with >10^5 karma decides to take the time and add some community features to HN (for various values of "community" and "features"), we're all going to continue and see more noise and many different signals.

As an aside, I wholeheartedly appreciate the name, "Bloomfilter."