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Hacker News Guidelines

(news.ycombinator.com)
446 points tonmoy | 2 comments | 24 Aug 23 16:25 UTC | HN request time: 2.805s | source
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0xbadcafebee ◴[24 Aug 23 18:39 UTC] No.37252888[source]▶
On submissions: if you blocked global news websites, at least a quarter of the top posts would be gone.

On comments: they could solve a shitload of the complaints about comments by just adding meta-votes, like those on Slashdot, and letting individual users define their own filters for what they do and don't want to see. Automating and letting the community manage itself would be so much more efficient and fair than relying on mods, or the extremely vague and unhelpful generic vote button.

replies(2): >>37253593 #>>37258498 #
dredmorbius ◴[25 Aug 23 05:42 UTC] No.37258498[source]▶
By my own research and classification, "general news" sites accounted for 4.1% of front-page stories on HN in 2022 (most recent complete year's data), and that percentage has fallen over the years (it was 8% in 2009), with a corresponding rise in programming-specific sites (GitHub/GitLab, and language-specific sites, e.g., "python.org" or "golang.org".)

Sites classified as "general news" (ordered by frequency in the front-page archive): nytimes.com, bbc.com, bbc.co.uk, theguardian.com, washingtonpost.com, reuters.com, npr.org, cnn.com, slate.com, vice.com, latimes.com, cnet.com, yahoo.com, sfgate.com, cbc.ca, cnbc.com, guardian.co.uk, bits.blogs.nytimes.com, vox.com, salon.com, time.com, nymag.com, telegraph.co.uk, boston.com, newsweek.com, chronicle.com, msn.com, axios.com, news.com.com, propublica.org, independent.co.uk, timesonline.co.uk, mercurynews.com, theglobeandmail.com, pbs.org, theintercept.com, usatoday.com, buzzfeednews.com, spiegel.de, rollingstone.com, thestandard.com, go.com, smh.com.au, cbsnews.com, abc.net.au, nbcnews.com, seattletimes.com, aljazeera.com, bloombergview.com, motherjones.com, firstlook.org, thehill.com, apnews.com, informationweek.com, news.com, thedailybeast.com, huffingtonpost.com, theage.com.au, csmonitor.com, nwsource.com, japantimes.co.jp, thestar.com, bostonglobe.com, dw.com, indiatimes.com, nypost.com, ap.org, chicagotribune.com, sfchronicle.com, dailymail.co.uk, news.com.au, foxnews.com, kqed.org, theatlanticwire.com, scmp.com, texasmonthly.com, wbur.org, yahoo.net, swissinfo.ch, nationalpost.com, spectator.co.uk, sfweekly.com, detroitnews.com, theweek.com, nzherald.co.nz, washingtonexaminer.com, aljazeera.net, cbslocal.com, nltimes.nl, weeklystandard.com, ctvnews.ca, miamiherald.com, nydailynews.com, thetimes.co.uk, dallasnews.com, startribune.com, bostonherald.com, euronews.com, kuow.org, themorningnews.org, upi.com, globalnews.ca, guardiannews.com, theherald.com.au, thesun.co.uk, belfasttelegraph.co.uk, houstonchronicle.com, ibtimes.co.uk, koreaherald.com, metro.co.uk, mirror.co.uk, seattleweekly.com, standard.co.uk, dailyherald.com, huffingtonpost.co.uk, huffingtonpost.com.au, huffpost.com, inquirer.com, ktvu.com, ocweekly.com, sundayherald.com, theweek.co.uk, wpri.com, wtsp.com, americanchronicle.com, annarborchronicle.com, augustachronicle.com, catholicherald.co.uk, dukechronicle.com, heraldsun.com.au, katu.com, kdvr.com, kfor.com, ktla.com, myfox8.com, myfoxdc.com, myfoxny.com, news-herald.com, news.google.ca, pressherald.com, thechronicleherald.ca, timesherald.com, wttw.com, wtvr.com, wunc.org, wvgazette.com.

This is based on downloading all archived HN front pages from 2007-02-20 through 2023-06-21 and analysing stories by title, site, votes, comments, and submitter.

replies(1): >>37258700 #
myroon5 ◴[25 Aug 23 06:22 UTC] No.37258700[source]▶
Curious how financial-focused news that was excluded (economist, wsj, ft, bloomberg, etc) has fared. Wouldn't be surprised if that's a substantial portion
replies(1): >>37258956 #
1. dredmorbius ◴[25 Aug 23 07:08 UTC] No.37258956[source]▶
I classify those as "business news", which were 1.5% of 2022 front-page stories, as compared to 3.7% in 2009.

(I generally use 2009 as a representative "early year" as HN was sorting things out and evolving rapidly in 2007 & 2008.)

By year:

  2007   418
  2008   438
  2009   407
  2010   290
  2011   271
  2012   222
  2013   224
  2014   259
  2015   329
  2016   442
  2017   426
  2018   476
  2019   418
  2020   251
  2021   194
  2022   167
  2023    95
This is the first I've looked at these numbers specifically. I'm noting the substantial fall-off in 2020, which I suspect is paywall-related. Note that data for 2023 are partial.

Sites: bloomberg.com, wsj.com, economist.com, venturebeat.com, businessweek.com, businessinsider.com, fastcompany.com, inc.com, hbr.org, ft.com, alleyinsider.com, forbes.com, fortune.com, nikkei.com, marketwatch.com, xconomy.com, entrepreneur.com, portfolio.com, business2.com, cio.com, bizjournals.com, bloombergquint.com, insidefacebook.com, nasdaq.com, fool.com, financialpost.com, prnewswire.com, adweek.com, morningstar.com, americanbanker.com, businessinsider.com.au, industryweek.com, bankertimes.com, businessinsider.co.za, businessinsider.de, businessinsider.fr, forbesindia.com

As above, these are ordered by overall frequency within the FP archive.

replies(1): >>37264441 #
2. dredmorbius ◴[25 Aug 23 17:22 UTC] No.37264441[source]▶
And for the curious, there's a third general category, "general interest", which I've applied to what are usually magazines, not specifically news/business or science-related. These are roughly 2% of front-page stories.

Site list: theatlantic.com, newyorker.com, archive.org, smithsonianmag.com, qz.com, nationalgeographic.com, aeon.co, openculture.com, theconversation.com, might.net, theparisreview.org, vanityfair.com, ted.com, popularmechanics.com, laphamsquarterly.org, buzzfeed.com, fivethirtyeight.com, outsideonline.com, thehustle.co, newrepublic.com, foreignpolicy.com, harpers.org, esquire.com, longreads.com, newstatesman.com, lettersofnote.com, gq.com, thewalrus.ca, cjr.org, strongtowns.org, historytoday.com, variety.com, hyperallergic.com, 1843magazine.com, collectorsweekly.com, theamericanscholar.org, nplusonemag.com, bigthink.com, brainpickings.org, thenation.com, theoutline.com, theinformation.com, washingtonmonthly.com, macleans.ca, redherring.com, thenewatlantis.com, prospectmagazine.co.uk, quoteinvestigator.com, theawl.com, airspacemag.com, calvertjournal.com, canada.com, mensjournal.com, torontolife.com, thecorrespondent.com, thecritic.co.uk, britishmuseum.org, nationalgeographic.co.uk, publishersweekly.com, autoweek.com, folksonomy.org, laweekly.com, menshealth.com, rijksmuseum.nl, metmuseum.org, prospect-magazine.co.uk, wunderground.com, agweek.com, banksy.co.uk, banksyfilm.com, minnesotamonthly.com, openlettersmonthly.com

(Again, by order of frequency in front-page stories.)

This and other precentages are based on 35% of stories being unclassified, that is, coming from sites I've not explicitly tagged. Based on some random sampling of that pool, those are most often blogs or corporate sites. My classification for news, science/academic, and programming sites is generally more comprehensive as I'm able to leverage regex matches: "edu" and "ac" for academic, GitHub and GitLab domains for programming, for example, also station call-letter patterns such as [KW][A-Z][A-Z][A-Z]for the US for many general news sites.