Ask HN: Feature request: Simple tagging system | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Feature request: Simple tagging system

8 points_bxg12 comments

I read HN so I have an ear to the ground of the software industry. However, probably 70% of the articles lately have nothing to do with software. Probably 50% of them center around corporate power abuse, government overreach, or other dystopian topics. The constant stream of this kind of content has been a marked detriment to my mental health. I'm sure I'm not alone.

I know HN makes a point to remain minimalistic, but the only solution I can think of is a simple tagging/filtering system. HN could hard-code a handful of tags to make things simpler; "software", "science", "philosophy", "geopolitics", and "random points of interest" would probably cover everything. Require that new posts (at least those with URLs) be given exactly one of these tags, and give each of them a separate link at the top of the site, the way "ask" and "show" have their own links right now.

Some requested features on HN can be outsourced to mirror sites or native apps that do scraping, etc. But this one is unique in that it's a data issue. Articles can't be determined to fit into one of these categories without the original poster including that information. I ask you to consider what this would do for reducing the constant inflammation that happens in social media, which HN hasn't been totally immune to.

Although tags might be a good idea, separation of subjects aren’t in my opinion. I think a big part of the community and the interesting things we’re able to find here are a result of the interleaving of the subjects you mention.

I do however really get your problem and I’ve had problems with it too. However I realised after awhile that it would be undoable for me shape everything into this mould I can deal with. So I decided to change the mould itself so to speak, nowadays I for instance try to read over certain stuff and actively ignore it and I only check the news as much as is needed to stay generally informed.

I don’t think you should necessarily do the same but it might save you some time and energy. Changing myself seems easier to me than changing the world around me. Stoicism has some good pointers about this although something as broad as stoicism isn’t necessarily needed. Something simpler would probably suffice.

(Mind you that I for instance didn’t have a problem with ideas which clash with my own, even more so I more often think those are the most interesting, what I do have a problem with is the lack of nuance which seems to be so prevalent these days and the tendency of people to make a personal and passionate affair of everything.)

I don't think tags will change things, because it is the audience that has changed here. I see a lot of tech topics being buried because they are tangentially political, and in general this is no longer "hacker news", but the frontpage is more like "middle-management and marketing news with a dose of social media hysteria". I recommend browsing the "new", "ask" and "show" sections for more interesting topics and less repetitive debate.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com