Hacker News Reader

Comment by blhack | Hacker News Reader

Uhh...what? These are features that seem kindof obvious to me...I think they're awesome. In fact, this is really similar to something that I used to do on my website over a year ago (we stopped doing it because there weren't enough users to make it feasible at that time...some of the ideas still exist though).

Alexis, one of the problems with reddit, at least right now, is that there are just too many freaking people. I don't care about the majority of the users on the site. If there was a way to see reddit as it was 5 years ago when it was you and 10 other people, that would be great, and I think that is what the move digg has made here is trying to accomplish.

(Shameless plug for my site, which is embarrassing when compared to places like here, reddit, or digg, but still just as addictive to me: http://newslily.com - the part I'm talking about [show me what my friends are doing] is here: http://newslily.com/lilypad ])

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In another life, we'd have made usercreated reddits a better solution for the curse of popularity.

People weren't making "friends" on digg for much else than spreading their content, so I suspect most of the networks in place aren't adding much value to me as a reader. V4 makes the process all the more transparent - publishers plugging in RSS feeds that autodigg each post is a far cry from a reader powered frontpage. And to be fair, of those first 10 redditors you miss, over half of them were me ;)

There's still a void between random links my facebook friends like and random links tweeters (?) I follow like that solves the signal/noise problem. Someone will fill it - I'd love for it to be newslily. Just promise you'll gank from Steve's commenting system, it really is top notch (in my biased opinion).

>And to be fair, of those first 10 redditors you miss, over half of them were me ;)

Ahahahaha I laugh because I know exactly what you're talking about ;-).

Your guys' comment system really is, in my opinion, the most addictive feature on the site. Those damn orange envelopes man... :) Thanks for the kind words, really.

s/orange/orangered

Reddit comments are excellent, and I think that while having a buzzing community creates a lot more noise, there is also a lot more great content. Initiatives like $180,000 for Haiti, or the secret santa wouldn't have been the same 5 years ago.

Yes and no. I just made the mistake of looking at /r/pics, and it's a sty.

That said, there are a variety of good communities on Reddit.

I like /pics. Different strokes for different folks.

Not sure what tilts me more, reading reddit comments or reading that reddit comments are supposed to be excellent.

That place has been a sewer for years and I hate that it was ruined.

> That place has been a sewer for years and I hate that it was ruined.

That's a bit like saying Usenet is a waste of space or IRC is full of trolls. Reddit, like Usenet and IRC, is more of an enabling technology than a single community.

In each case, there are some really great communities where you can find a good signal to noise ratio. There are also some fairly pointless ones that are just rants or FUD or whatever. Fortunately, no-one makes you read every sub-reddit, any more than you are forced to read every Usenet group or follow every IRC channel. Just sign up to the ones that have discussions you find interesting and ignore the rest.

I'm guessing you weren't there the first few years.

Where? I've been on Usenet for well over a decade, and I was lurking on Reddit within months of its birth. The main reddit has always been overrun with a whole bunch of stuff of varying quality, and the best material and most interesting discussions have been in the specialist subreddits for several years.

I'll clarify a bit - yes, there is a lot of crap too, but reading the comments is just as big a deal for me as the submissions themselves.

My only issue with this is that it assumes my friends use Digg too, and they don't. Kevin speaks a little bit about "tastemakers" (how do I find them? Why do I trust them?) and "publishers" (which sounds a lot like RSS spam... right to you in Digg).

I hope there is a setting for Top News to be the default, and maybe some way of matching people who you are compatible with Digging to set them as your Tastemakers, allowing a transition away from Top News to something more personalized.

Your point about RSS spam made me realize that the new design could be interesting.

Right now, I use Google Reader to get content from feeds I personally selected. (so not RSS Spam, just publishers I selected myself) If I want to find links that are popular right now, I come on Hacker News (like I would on Digg, but I haven't checked it out in a long time), because the discovery/social aspect of Google Reader does not work for me. I also get links from friends on Facebook. Finally, on Twitter, I follow mostly what Kevin Rose calls "tastemakers" and sometimes get some links from them, amongst the general "what are you doing?" updates.

But if I just want to read some stuff, it's all separated.

Friends, tastemakers and publishers in the same interface could be a really good mix.

Basically, Digg can become the one-stop shop for links and articles: some from my friends, some from tastemakers, my RSS feeds, and I suppose also from the Digg users in general (friends or not). And I get the ability to share each of them in turn from that same interface.

Your problems with Reddit can be easily remedied by subscribing to only the sub-reddits that you care about.

Some unsolicited advice for Newslily: explain it a little better. The up/down arrows appear to be clickable, but aren't for unregistered or new users and there is no error message. New users can click on the "random" button, but it's not really clear what the randomness is. Etc.

Lower the barrier to entry a bit for new users. Not too far (that's the balance that every community must strike), but a little bit.

I agree, I think I might actually go back to digg and try this out. If they gave enough intelligent filtering options + other extremely useful features, this could even draw people away from HN theoretically.

While they're at it, screw diaspora, digg should go after facebook as well, I'd trust them more (which isn't saying much.)

The other problem with Reddit is of course that it's fairly often broken or ridiculously slow lately.

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