Why I stopped reading HN (2010) • Hacker News Board

Re: Why I stopped reading HN (2010)

#231

Post by karmakaze » Thu, Oct 08, 2020, 3:45 PM UTC

mrfredward wrote: post #226

partingshots wrote: post #220

> It’s gotten to the point now where I sometimes think about writing a comment to “send it out to gain karma” in the same way that I think about “sending off a unit to collect resources” in an RTS. This was an extraordinarily poignant quote that I empathize with greatly. The only reason I’m sharing it as a comment is because I believe that I can now also gain some karma with it as well. What does this mean? Are these…

The same author has a post from 2013 (3 years after "Why I stopped reading HN") addressing what is lost when programmers chase internet points. https://sealedabstract.com/rants/hey-programmers-we-need-to-... It resonates with me because I often find myself scrolling HN when I was meaning to be working on a project, both at work and at home.

I don't know if this[0] will help with your scrolling but it helps with mine. I made it so I could more quickly scan new stories today not mixed amongst popular stories from past days. It also groups common themes (e.g. covid, etc) so I can scan/skip them as a group, leaving the unclassified/interesting stories at the top. Any/all feedback welcome.

[0] https://hackerer.news/

Re: Why I stopped reading HN (2010)

#232

Post by mLuby » Thu, Oct 08, 2020, 3:46 PM UTC

partingshots wrote: post #220

> It’s gotten to the point now where I sometimes think about writing a comment to “send it out to gain karma” in the same way that I think about “sending off a unit to collect resources” in an RTS. This was an extraordinarily poignant quote that I empathize with greatly. The only reason I’m sharing it as a comment is because I believe that I can now also gain some karma with it as well. What does this mean? Are these…

I receive this post's stimulus, condense my individual thoughts into a new stimulus, and output it as a post for future readers. Sometimes I receive stimuli from those readers (votes, responses) and the cycle feeds back on itself, usually attenuating until the conversation fades out but occasionally amplifying in intensity until the conversation fails spectacularly (ban, rage-quit, Godwin's law, etc). We're the neurons in this society's brain.

On karma points (roughly how aligned is the individual's signaling with the group's signaling), it's useful to the individual for calibrating their (outputted) opinions to better align with the group's. That was a critical piece of surviving as a social creatures.

Re: Why I stopped reading HN (2010)

#233

Post by Nemi » Thu, Oct 08, 2020, 3:48 PM UTC

RubenvanE wrote: post #32

These sentiments are quite familiar to me. That's why I've been building my own HN copy ( https://hackerdaily.io ). It shows all posts per day, which has a few benefits: 1. It doesn't become an addictive slot machine that updates every minute. 2. The conversations have already happened, which makes it easier to see which threads are interesting and informative and which are not. It also uses an outline.com like style…

I just want to say that you NAILED a UX issue I see with Hackernews comments, at least for me - when I am reading through the comments on a HN post, I often find myself several layers deep into a conversation that I realize I am not interested in any more. Either some facet of the topic, or maybe a side conversation (like the one we having now about HackerDaily). I want to "jump out" of this conversation and back to the "main topic", but I have to scroll up until I get to root of this topic and click the collapse sign (-) next to the parent to easily get to the next conversation tree. However, I may be pages and pages down from where this conversation started and have to page up and up and up. Alternatively, I can page down and down and down to try to find where this topic ends. Neither works very well.

But what you do is provide a line of minus signs (-) at the top left that grows and shrinks with the tree and at any time I can click one of these to collapse a parent post! This is great! Being a UX aficionado I am tickled that you have not only seen the same pain, but found an elegant solution for it. Well done!

Re: Why I stopped reading HN (2010)

#234

Post by mturmon » Thu, Oct 08, 2020, 3:48 PM UTC

DanBC wrote: post #156

Here's the front page from 10 years ago if people want to compare: https://news.ycombinator.com/front?day=2010-10-07

OP complains about being drawn to post comments to harvest karma. IIRC, 10 years ago, the comment karma was displayed next to the comment itself.

This was removed because it was generating positive vote feedback loops (reinforcing both upvotes and downvotes).

I'm not suggesting simple technical fixes can be enough to remove the objections such as OP -- rather, that both a continuous oversight of technical stuff, and granular moderation, seem to be needed.

Re: Why I stopped reading HN (2010)

#235

Post by 0-_-0 » Thu, Oct 08, 2020, 3:54 PM UTC

Nemi wrote: post #233

RubenvanE wrote: post #32

These sentiments are quite familiar to me. That's why I've been building my own HN copy ( https://hackerdaily.io ). It shows all posts per day, which has a few benefits: 1. It doesn't become an addictive slot machine that updates every minute. 2. The conversations have already happened, which makes it easier to see which threads are interesting and informative and which are not. It also uses an outline.com like style…

I just want to say that you NAILED a UX issue I see with Hackernews comments, at least for me - when I am reading through the comments on a HN post, I often find myself several layers deep into a conversation that I realize I am not interested in any more. Either some facet of the topic, or maybe a side conversation (like the one we having now about HackerDaily). I want to "jump out" of this conversation and back to…

Isn't that the same thing that the [-] sign doesn in HN? Works the same way for me.

Re: Why I stopped reading HN (2010)

#236

Post by bondarchuk » Thu, Oct 08, 2020, 3:54 PM UTC

muttled wrote: post #230

mncharity wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why isn't there a greater emphasis on filtering controlled by readers ? "Don't show me anything said by someone who joined after I did". "Show only pairs with historical ratings above this threshold from raters in the weighted set generated by crawling thusly from this seed set." "Prioritize anything on topic X which multiple people from this set like." At 8am: "Don't show me anything this classifier thinks is a pun"…

Perhaps something like the Nest thermostat approach might be best: have something that learns your preferences based on time, day of the week, and other factors. Maybe it attempts to see what kind of mood you're in?

No, please, no. It will end up like youtube: spend one evening watching chess videos, and suddenly all your recommendations are chess videos. And afterwards on a meta level there is anxiety with everything you click on and how it might influence your filters.

Re: Why I stopped reading HN (2010)

#237

Post by claytoneast » Thu, Oct 08, 2020, 3:56 PM UTC

RubenvanE wrote: post #32

These sentiments are quite familiar to me. That's why I've been building my own HN copy ( https://hackerdaily.io ). It shows all posts per day, which has a few benefits: 1. It doesn't become an addictive slot machine that updates every minute. 2. The conversations have already happened, which makes it easier to see which threads are interesting and informative and which are not. It also uses an outline.com like style…

I've wanted something like this for a long time, and had resigned myself to using the algolia search, sorting by votes, and looking at the previous week. This is awesome. Thank you for making this!!!

Re: Why I stopped reading HN (2010)

#238

Post by Nemi » Thu, Oct 08, 2020, 4:01 PM UTC

0-_-0 wrote: post #235

Nemi wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just want to say that you NAILED a UX issue I see with Hackernews comments, at least for me - when I am reading through the comments on a HN post, I often find myself several layers deep into a conversation that I realize I am not interested in any more. Either some facet of the topic, or maybe a side conversation (like the one we having now about HackerDaily). I want to "jump out" of this conversation and back to…

Isn't that the same thing that the [-] sign doesn in HN? Works the same way for me.

But scroll down. As you scroll down, the line of minus signs grows. When you are 6 comments deep into a conversation (where each comment is a reply to the last. The comments are all indented to the right), there is a line of 6 minus signs at the top left (------).

If you click on the second minus sign on the left, it collapses the conversation up to that parent without having to scroll up to that level.

Re: Why I stopped reading HN (2010)

#239

Post by dfxm12 » Thu, Oct 08, 2020, 4:06 PM UTC

partingshots wrote: post #220

> It’s gotten to the point now where I sometimes think about writing a comment to “send it out to gain karma” in the same way that I think about “sending off a unit to collect resources” in an RTS. This was an extraordinarily poignant quote that I empathize with greatly. The only reason I’m sharing it as a comment is because I believe that I can now also gain some karma with it as well. What does this mean? Are these…

Are these the beginning signs of an addiction to fake internet points?

Probably.

I wonder if karma was hidden from us if it would do something to curb this compulsiveness. Seeing instant feedback, a number going up or down is very stimulating compared to nothing, or even a very broad "over 0/under 0" status as a middle ground.

Re: Why I stopped reading HN (2010)

#240

Post by peejfancher » Thu, Oct 08, 2020, 4:08 PM UTC

partingshots wrote: post #220

> It’s gotten to the point now where I sometimes think about writing a comment to “send it out to gain karma” in the same way that I think about “sending off a unit to collect resources” in an RTS. This was an extraordinarily poignant quote that I empathize with greatly. The only reason I’m sharing it as a comment is because I believe that I can now also gain some karma with it as well. What does this mean? Are these…

I've had -3 karma for about 6 years now. Kind of proud of it. My only comment was trying to be helpful with a link but it got downvoted a bit.