←back to thread

Two HN Announcements

(blog.ycombinator.com)
698 points tilt | 7 comments | 29 Sep 15 18:40 UTC | HN request time: 1.044s | source | bottom
Show context
steven2012 ◴[29 Sep 15 19:18 UTC] No.10298792[source]▶
I think more important than resurrecting posts from people who have squandered their privileges are we need to allow for better and more convenient browsing of comments, so that we can let the best ones shine.

1) native folding of comments, like reddit. I don't understand why this doesn't exist yet, and is the single more important thing to going through the comment list effectively.

2) better algos for upvoting and downvoting comments and threads entirely. This is something that reddit is absolutely great at, the top comments on reddit are generally the best or funniest, depending on the context. The top comments here are generally the first ones posted, or the ones from people already with high karma, and thus either the fast or the already-karma-advantaged get more karma.

replies(3): >>10298914 #>>10302328 #>>10308644 #
1. iak8god ◴[29 Sep 15 19:32 UTC] No.10298914[source]▶
> 1) native folding of comments

This one seems like such an obvious improvement that I've been assuming there's some really principled reason I'm not aware of for why it isn't done.

replies(1): >>10299184 #
2. nkurz ◴[29 Sep 15 20:02 UTC] No.10299184[source]▶
I doubt there is any principled reason for the lack. Rather, I think it's just that the people in a position to make the improvement don't place the importance on it that you do. Personally, it's not a feature I've ever wanted. I'm using the https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/hckr-news/mnlaodle... extension, which offers this, and never once have I intentionally folded a comment.

Accidentally, I've folded comments many times. My main improvement to the extension (if I were to write my own) would be to _remove_ the folding feature and just have new comment highlighting (which I find much more important than folding). Separately, if this is an important feature, why not use an extension that offers it? Is there a reason it needs to be built in?

replies(2): >>10299223 #>>10299636 #
3. mattmanser ◴[29 Sep 15 20:07 UTC] No.10299223[source]▶
It's useful when a parent comment spawns hundreds of replies and you're not interested in the direction the parent comment has taken the discussion, but want to discuss other parts of the article.

It doesn't happen that often, but when it does it's annoying scrolling trying to find the next top level comment.

replies(1): >>10299279 #
4. nkurz ◴[29 Sep 15 20:15 UTC] No.10299279{3}[source]▶
In theory, I wouldn't disagree. But in practice, I've been using an extension that offers this capability for years now, and have never intentionally collapsed a comment thread. The utility depends on your usage pattern, and my point was only that it's not a universal desire. This doesn't mean it shouldn't be added, but for me, it simply adds clutter to a clean interface, with small buttons that I occasionally accidentally click and unclick. Do I take it that you are using an extension that allows this, and find it useful?
replies(2): >>10300194 #>>10300317 #
5. iak8god ◴[29 Sep 15 21:06 UTC] No.10299636[source]▶
> Separately, if this is an important feature, why not use an extension that offers it? Is there a reason it needs to be built in?

Because I only think about it on average once every few days when I encounter an uninteresting large comment tree in an otherwise interesting thread, which I handle by scrolling for a few seconds.

It's very much a "nice to have" rather than a dealbreaker, but for those of us accustomed to the feature as implemented on, e.g., reddit or slashdot, it's a puzzling omission.

6. tokenizerrr ◴[29 Sep 15 22:18 UTC] No.10300194{4}[source]▶
On the other hand, I use https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/hacker-news-enhanc... and collapse comment threads daily. I find it to be very helpful to track of what I've read.
7. mattmanser ◴[29 Sep 15 22:41 UTC] No.10300317{4}[source]▶
I didn't use it much. I haven't installed it on my new machines. I miss it occasionally.

We hackers will put up with really shitty UIs though, as virtually every one of our tools attests. It's like code indentation, we've all had to search for the next root node in an editor without highlighting or collapsing.