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Tell HN: An Observation

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Re: Tell HN: An Observation

#71

Post by percept »

One more try:

1) Why not limit submissions on HN to one per day?

That way, people will only submit their most relevant links. If a story is important enough, then either 1) someone else can submit it and this will invite broader participation on the site, or 2) it won't be submitted today and can be added tomorrow (and it probably wasn't that important to begin with).

2) HN articles used to relate to either hacking or startups (stories about education, economics, etc. were typically found on Digg and Reddit). Why not return to this formula?

Re: Tell HN: An Observation

#72

Post by omfut »

edanm wrote: post #10

I read HN quite a lot, and I have to say, I rarely get around to reading the New page. Honestly, it takes me a lot of time to just go through most of the stuff that hits the front page (including comments), so I usually don't have the time to check out more articles whose quality hasn't even been vetted. I think HN really should implement a way around this. The most obvious is to randomly show new articles on the fro…

same here. I rarely go the new page section. Sometimes i navigate to 1-2 top pages. Thats about it. I definitely think there should be way to show the new article. Maybe we should have a page called upcoming/new pages that shows latest ones.

Re: Tell HN: An Observation

#73

Post by TrevorJ »

edanm wrote: post #10

I read HN quite a lot, and I have to say, I rarely get around to reading the New page. Honestly, it takes me a lot of time to just go through most of the stuff that hits the front page (including comments), so I usually don't have the time to check out more articles whose quality hasn't even been vetted. I think HN really should implement a way around this. The most obvious is to randomly show new articles on the fro…

Yeah, I see the 'new' page as a place for super-contributors to help sort and upvote the good stuff so more people can read it on page one.

Re: Tell HN: An Observation

#74

Post by alnayyir »

jackowayed wrote: post #70
todayiamme wrote: post #55

I think that the real problem in operation over here is information deluge. People aren't reading stuff on that page because it overflows on a minute by minute basis. So let's say, if I click to read a long article and I come back to upvote it. This would mean that I am putting a flag for others to read it, but in this time frame it has moved beyond the first new page. Hence, the stories that tend to get upvoted are…

It seems like eliminating the ability for noobs with less than, say, 20 karma from submitting stories would fix this and get rid of a lot of the spam that gets posted. I know it seems unwelcoming to noobs, but we already have a tiered system where you need N karma for your votes to count, to downvote, to submit polls, etc. I didn't submit anything for months after joining, which I think is the best way to go. Through…

I honestly think this is the way to go, especially if you figure out a good damper on frivolous commentary.

Re: Tell HN: An Observation

#75

Post by alnayyir »

jacquesm wrote: post #17
DanielBMarkham wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks Jacques. As usual, we agree. Sometimes I wonder why I reply to your comments at all, since we agree so much. :) I think what bugged me was the lack of drive-by readers. HN is pretty much the only site I submit to. I have no aspirations of blogging as a business. I blog because I want to, and I'd blog if nobody came by. So heck with the score or the front-page status. And no, it doesn't bug me that a large perc…

As for the original topic of your submission, minimalistic interfaces, I'm all for it. I predict the death of the submit button in the next 2 years.

>I predict the death of the submit button in the next 2 years.

I cringed.

Maybe for data that isn't high value, urgh.

Re: Tell HN: An Observation

#76

Post by metachris »

Here's an idea: Only users with a certain amount of karma can submit stories.

The first few karma points have to be gained by commenting, and then for example with every 10 karma points a user can make 1 submissions. Or have different 'levels' with certain thresholds, etc. You get the idea, and I think that could help reduce the amount and increase the quality of submissions.

Re: Tell HN: An Observation

#77

Post by todayiamme »

alnayyir wrote: post #74
jackowayed wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems like eliminating the ability for noobs with less than, say, 20 karma from submitting stories would fix this and get rid of a lot of the spam that gets posted. I know it seems unwelcoming to noobs, but we already have a tiered system where you need N karma for your votes to count, to downvote, to submit polls, etc. I didn't submit anything for months after joining, which I think is the best way to go. Through…

I honestly think this is the way to go, especially if you figure out a good damper on frivolous commentary.

There's always the stupidity corpus that mr. Graham used to talk about...

http://stupidfilter.org/wiki/index.php?n=Main.Status

Re: Tell HN: An Observation

#78

Post by J3L2404 »

fragmede wrote: post #69
todayiamme wrote: post #55

I think that the real problem in operation over here is information deluge. People aren't reading stuff on that page because it overflows on a minute by minute basis. So let's say, if I click to read a long article and I come back to upvote it. This would mean that I am putting a flag for others to read it, but in this time frame it has moved beyond the first new page. Hence, the stories that tend to get upvoted are…

I think there's another technical solution. Instead of having a link directly to the article, have the link go to the discussion page instead, but with an added header. That extra header would check for a cookie. If that cookie is set, no action. If the cookie is not set, set the cookie, then forwards the user to the actual article. Then, when you finish reading and decide it's worth an up vote, when you go 'back', y…

I must say, that's a mighty fine idea you have there. Although it may surprise some folks at first. If HN had ads it would seem to be click fraud. Might work as a bookmarklet or browser extension.

Re: Tell HN: An Observation

#79

Post by bobds »

alnayyir wrote: post #74
jackowayed wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems like eliminating the ability for noobs with less than, say, 20 karma from submitting stories would fix this and get rid of a lot of the spam that gets posted. I know it seems unwelcoming to noobs, but we already have a tiered system where you need N karma for your votes to count, to downvote, to submit polls, etc. I didn't submit anything for months after joining, which I think is the best way to go. Through…

I honestly think this is the way to go, especially if you figure out a good damper on frivolous commentary.

That would prevent people from using throwaway accounts, which a lot of people seem to do. And they are not spammers.

Re: Tell HN: An Observation

#80

Post by todayiamme »

bobds wrote: post #79
alnayyir wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I honestly think this is the way to go, especially if you figure out a good damper on frivolous commentary.

That would prevent people from using throwaway accounts, which a lot of people seem to do. And they are not spammers.

I've thought about this too and it looked like a tough problem to solve, but it isn't.

Why do people do that?

They usually do it for Ask HN posts and well you can easily discriminate for them. Further if anyone tries to spoof the system by adding a URL there then we can parse it to see if there is any text there according to the stupidity filter. So, essentially it will still work.

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