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Hacker News gives "Unknown or expired link" Often when I click "More"

news.ycombinator.com

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Re: Hacker News gives "Unknown or expired link" Often when I click "More"

#21

Post by kelnos »

danhood wrote: post #10

Happens to me all of the time - it's pretty annoying. It would be great if HN used pretty URLs (e.g. http://news.ycombinator.com/news/2 ), or at least URLs that didn't expire.

The problem is, "what is page 2"? Ok, so it's "items 31 through 60." But that changes, very frequently. So when you hit the main page (results 1-30), HN has to remember what 31-60 is at that particular point in time, so when you later hit the More link, it can give you 31-60 for a time in the past.

Obviously it can't remember an infinite number of these, there's a limit, and how quickly you hit that limit probably depends on a combination of how many people are hitting the home page, and how often the order of items in the list is changing.

When HN was younger, you wouldn't see the expired link message that often, as fewer people were hitting the site, and the item order changed less frequently.

At least that's my theory.

Re: Hacker News gives "Unknown or expired link" Often when I click "More"

#22

Post by nantes »

malingo wrote: post #19
Todd wrote: post #9

I've been noticing it more frequently as well. It has changed the way I use HN. Now, I quickly scan the first page and open interesting stories in tabs. Then I quickly click More and do the same. Wash, rinse, repeat two or three times depending on how busy I am. Another related issue: the expired page is remarkably stark and unfinished in comparison with the rest of the site. A minor nit, but since it shows up so oft…

I've often resorted to doing the same thing, but one problem with that is having to go back to the HN site to find the story to vote on it or comment. If a large number of people are pushing stories out to new tabs and ultimately ignoring the HN site after that, might it begin to affect the voting / ranking ?

And so, I have resorted to opening both the article and the discuss link, as you can still vote from there.

Re: Hacker News gives "Unknown or expired link" Often when I click "More"

#23

Post by bmm6o »

kelnos wrote: post #21
danhood wrote: post #10

Happens to me all of the time - it's pretty annoying. It would be great if HN used pretty URLs (e.g. http://news.ycombinator.com/news/2 ), or at least URLs that didn't expire.

The problem is, "what is page 2"? Ok, so it's "items 31 through 60." But that changes, very frequently. So when you hit the main page (results 1-30), HN has to remember what 31-60 is at that particular point in time, so when you later hit the More link, it can give you 31-60 for a time in the past. Obviously it can't remember an infinite number of these, there's a limit, and how quickly you hit that limit probably de…

> The problem is, "what is page 2"?

Sure, most solutions to this problem will involve compromises and won't be perfect, but just about anything would be an improvement over the current situation.

Re: Hacker News gives "Unknown or expired link" Often when I click "More"

#27

Post by kelnos »

bmm6o wrote: post #23
kelnos wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is, "what is page 2"? Ok, so it's "items 31 through 60." But that changes, very frequently. So when you hit the main page (results 1-30), HN has to remember what 31-60 is at that particular point in time, so when you later hit the More link, it can give you 31-60 for a time in the past. Obviously it can't remember an infinite number of these, there's a limit, and how quickly you hit that limit probably de…

> The problem is, "what is page 2"? Sure, most solutions to this problem will involve compromises and won't be perfect, but just about anything would be an improvement over the current situation.

Yeah, good point. Considering that I have to go back to the front page and I lose the "older" page 2 results anyway, it'd be far preferable to just send me to a newer page 2. Could likely pretty easily implement that with a fallback query param, so the link could be something like "?fnid=foo&startitem=31" or whatever. If the fnid is no longer valid, fall back to the startitem param.

Re: Hacker News gives "Unknown or expired link" Often when I click "More"

#28

Post by underwater »

kelnos wrote: post #21
danhood wrote: post #10

Happens to me all of the time - it's pretty annoying. It would be great if HN used pretty URLs (e.g. http://news.ycombinator.com/news/2 ), or at least URLs that didn't expire.

The problem is, "what is page 2"? Ok, so it's "items 31 through 60." But that changes, very frequently. So when you hit the main page (results 1-30), HN has to remember what 31-60 is at that particular point in time, so when you later hit the More link, it can give you 31-60 for a time in the past. Obviously it can't remember an infinite number of these, there's a limit, and how quickly you hit that limit probably de…

Well currently the pagination implemented using a closure so there is obviously some state that is kept on the server and used to calculate what should appear when "next page" is clicked.

Why can't the link to page 2 include the data that would be available to the closure? That way the client is responsible for keeping track of the user's session, and not the server.

Edit: Here is the source: https://github.com/nex3/arc/blob/master/news.arc#L948 Looking at that has made me realise I can't read Lisp.

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