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Ask HN: What's your perfect Hacker News?

news.ycombinator.com

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Ask HN: What's your perfect Hacker News?

#1

Post by hnaf »

I am a big lover of HN since 2016. This place is great and the conversation is great (most of the time). I do have some major gripes with HN as of late and I can’t help feel like it’s transforming into a place much different. But that’s just my opinion.

But forget about my thoughts. I’m just looking for yours…

If you could change HN, which features would you love to bring in? Which features would you remove? What is your perfect HN?

I am very aware that this submission is likely to be ‘disappeared’ in minutes. This is why I feel a little scared too scared to attach my main profile with thousands of karma to this post. HN in 2024 is not the HN of 2016 in my view. Eggshells!

Re: Ask HN: What's your perfect Hacker News?

#2

Post by mtmail »

I'd appreciate a changelog page similar to https://news.ycombinator.com/security.html I'm sure the admins are improving things behind the scenes but it's mostly unnoticed and so users might think development has been stale for years. Did they upgrade servers? Fix aspect ratio on mobile?

There must be dozens (hundreds?) of developers on HN who could help implement a dark mode. On the one hand I'd be great if somebody built a prototype that can be easily copy&pasted (HN whole CSS is tiny). On the other hand YCombinator is attached to literal billion dollar company so why do work for free?

Remove: Maybe move the /jobs and even the monthly threads to a separate website. Jobs postings aren't really articles, shouldn't require upvoting/ranking or comments.

Re: Ask HN: What's your perfect Hacker News?

#4

Post by pvg »

I am very aware that this submission is likely to be ‘disappeared’ in minutes.

HN submissions are almost never 'disappeared' so that awareness is probably misplaced. The question itself, in various forms, pops up quite frequently - here's one thread from a few months ago and you can find piles more with the search interface.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38698710

Re: Ask HN: What's your perfect Hacker News?

#5

Post by chiefalchemist »

Giving a down vote costs you 2 (or more?) of your own votes.

As the very least, down votes should require a comment. Even "false", "not true" or "disagree" would help.

My sense is, there's a network of HN users who attempt to manipulate the exposure of ideas by downvoting them (to the point those comments aren't even exposed).

Don't get me wrong, there are comments that deserve DV'ing. Moi? I can't be bothered. I just scroll on. But for those who aspire to be the HN police - especially then it's at the option (not fact) level - they should have to pay for that privilege.

Re: Ask HN: What's your perfect Hacker News?

#6

Post by AnimalMuppet »

The "eggshells" comment is, I think, indicative.

HN used to be a place where you could read a post from a position that you disagreed with, and still learn something. Posts had more thought and more interesting points. Users had more tolerance for those who disagreed with them. Those who disagreed had more thoughtful reasons for why they disagreed - it wasn't just "is not".

You can't fix that by changing the code. The problem is the users have changed.

HN has more users now. First, that means that the old users are in the minority, if they stuck around. Second, it means that HN has become a more useful platform for ideological battle, and therefore that more ideological battle gets pushed here, even though it's completely against the intent of the site.

And, maybe, some of the old users have changed, too - become more sharp and less tolerant.

I don't think you can fix HN without first fixing society. I wish I had a more optimistic answer.

Re: Ask HN: What's your perfect Hacker News?

#7

Post by AnimalMuppet »

chiefalchemist wrote: post #5

Giving a down vote costs you 2 (or more?) of your own votes. As the very least, down votes should require a comment. Even "false", "not true" or "disagree" would help. My sense is, there's a network of HN users who attempt to manipulate the exposure of ideas by downvoting them (to the point those comments aren't even exposed). Don't get me wrong, there are comments that deserve DV'ing. Moi? I can't be bothered. I jus…

> As the very least, down votes should require a comment. Even "false", "not true" or "disagree" would help.

This may be a bad idea. Think about the recursive effect: Someone downvotes, and gives an explanation. Someone downvotes the downvote, and gives an explanation. That's a worse discussion, because it has no more real comments, but all these downvote comments (or worse, comment chains).

Re: Ask HN: What's your perfect Hacker News?

#8

Post by stop50 »

chiefalchemist wrote: post #5

Giving a down vote costs you 2 (or more?) of your own votes. As the very least, down votes should require a comment. Even "false", "not true" or "disagree" would help. My sense is, there's a network of HN users who attempt to manipulate the exposure of ideas by downvoting them (to the point those comments aren't even exposed). Don't get me wrong, there are comments that deserve DV'ing. Moi? I can't be bothered. I jus…

I would like this feature.

Re: Ask HN: What's your perfect Hacker News?

#9

Post by qwertybopeep »

pvg wrote: post #4

I am very aware that this submission is likely to be ‘disappeared’ in minutes. HN submissions are almost never 'disappeared' so that awareness is probably misplaced. The question itself, in various forms, pops up quite frequently - here's one thread from a few months ago and you can find piles more with the search interface. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38698710

You are wrong.
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