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Poll: Would you like tags implemented on HN

news.ycombinator.com

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Re: Poll: Would you like tags implemented on HN

#81

Post by motxilo »

gnosis wrote: post #47
statictype wrote: post #23

Might work as long as tags are not user defined. The submitting user has to select from existing tags. Keep a few to begin with. For example: startups - news about or related to startups - IOW what this site was supposed to be about initially gadgets products - new products from existing non-startups hacking - related to programming business advice other - stuff that probably needs to be flagged unless enough people…

"other - stuff that probably needs to be flagged unless enough people like the topic" Except that things in the "other" category are not off topic, and shouldn't be flagged even if only a few people upvote them. Per the guidelines, what's on topic is: "Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything t…

What about a sort of tag hierarchy in which the first level the tags would remain fixed, and in lower levels user-selected? Every post would only display the leaf tags of the branches to which it pertained, or something along that line. Well, I guess this would make search a bit harder to implement. Dunno, something that came up and I had to verbalize :)

Re: Poll: Would you like tags implemented on HN

#82

Post by kgermino »

gnosis wrote: post #13
rmc wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. One of the best things about HN IMO is the comments and the community. However some comment threads are too big. Maybe limit the maximum reply depth? (to 4 or something well low)?

The comment interface on HN is embarrassingly bad for large threads. I've been meaning to do a separate writeup about this, but the gist of it is that the epitome of a great interface for managing threaded discussions are some Usenet news readers, which have relatively advanced features like kill files, filters, sorting, collapsible threads, user-controllable thread marking through color codes and tags, actions that…

If you use Chrome there's an extension for that. I don't remember what it's called or if it works on other browsers but I'll find the name and update this when I get back to a real computer.

UPDATE: It's called HN Unread Comments and you can find it at https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/fpndmkcfggkffpablc...

I don't think it works on different browsers and it can get annoying when you use multiple machines because the read comments don't transfer, but otherwise it is a very nice tool.

Re: Poll: Would you like tags implemented on HN

#83

Post by bourdine »

tikna wrote: post #5

The whole idea of hacker news is to keep things simple. I enjoying spending time on this community. I find tags creating clutter. One person will tag "C" other "C programming" and someone else "Programming in C".

agree. tags do not work, it is an old model.

Re: Poll: Would you like tags implemented on HN

#84

Post by j2d2j2d2 »

If tags were used, they should be weighted. Not everyone will agree on what the tags should be, but the top 5 should be close.

I think last.fm has used this kind of model successfully.

Weights can combat the chaos from users entering anything, but allows for evolution.

Re: Poll: Would you like tags implemented on HN

#86

Post by bravura »

I believe tagging, like sorting, is best left to machines. I've built an auto-tagger, and I've already auto-tagged Hacker News:

http://metaoptimize.com/projects/autotag/hackernews/

For example, here is the topic "conversion":

http://metaoptimize.com/projects/autotag/hackernews/term/7c/...

You can search for tags, and on tag pages you see the most related tags and the most related articles. So you can browse, effectively.

Quality of the autotagger has improved since I ran this demo a few months ago. It's also only through articles through 2009. But it demos the tech and the concept. To what extent are people interested in seeing this updated?

Re: Poll: Would you like tags implemented on HN

#88

Post by pasbesoin »

Here's what I've "learned" with regard to tags. The UI needs to be effortless. I've encountered exactly one program that accomplished this. It was written over 10 years ago and has since been abandoned.

It automatically generated a fairly sensible set of tags from context. Then the user could adjust. They were presented as a comma-separated list -- just edit the list, free-form.

I had thousands of bookmarks, spanning many months, in the thing. And by typing a list of words/tags, I could invariably find what I was looking for in about 3 seconds. I believe it also did partial matching against all tags beginning with a search value; one didn't need to remember the exact tag to generate a match.

I still miss it.

UI's like Gmail's labels are better than a hierarchical, single-location structure. But they are still miles away from the above.

OT: I also want tagging in my file system. My understanding, purely from reading, is that BeOS was one of the few/only to really do this. Anyone have pointers to a current, maintained file system that does this?

--

EDIT: I think I mis-remembered, and that the program presented and used a whitespace separated list. Whitespace separation was, in my opinion, easier to use than e.g. comma separation.

Re: Poll: Would you like tags implemented on HN

#89

Post by mkr-hn »

nhebb wrote: post #77
mkr-hn wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The appeal to me is the thought that goes into new features, not the subjective complexity of the overall experience.

The main features that I get out of HN are that (1) I get to read the opinions of a lot of very smart people and (2) I get exposed to industry news and trends that I wouldn't from sites with far more noise. If I go to a site like http://answers.onstartups.com , I have trouble scanning the page because of all the visual elements like the tags, the background image, the blue text, the side bar advertising, and so forth…

The tags wouldn't need to be visible. Tag visibility is just a long-standing trend--they don't really need to be seen. An HN tagging system would probably only reveal itself when you wanted it, either in specific contexts or by enabling the display.

Re: Poll: Would you like tags implemented on HN

#90

Post by dave1619 »

RiderOfGiraffes wrote: post #22
twidlit wrote: post #10

Can we have a built-in search engine first?

I use http://searchyc.com/ and find it works well enough for me. Despite the lag, I can usually find things I'm looking for.

Nice, it just helped me find what I was looking for.
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