Snapshots of the HN "newest" page - one per month | Hacker News Reader

Snapshots of the HN "newest" page - one per month

penzba.co.uk

This is fantastic. From my perusal, I don't think the headline selection looks that different from today. There aren't that many hard-core programming related articles in 2009 for instance. I personally feel that it is more the small neighborhood feel of the commenting that has declined than the headlines.

(Also I had to laugh at this one from Feb 2009: "Confirmed: Apple and Adobe Collaborating on iPhone Flash")

Edit: and let me restate what I said from the other thread, I think it would be an improvement to hide the total karma a user has in the system. The point is not to gain karma points but to stretch our minds and help each other. We would retain the feedback about individual comments but they would not add up to any measurable thing. It would have to be its own reward.

Well, obviously not that fantastic - it's not getting many upvotes, so will soon disappear. I find that interesting in its own right.

Maybe because you are limiting people's ability to complain. :-D

nothing but a short title and data urls!

   - No rambling explanation about how you did it
   - No infographic
   - No pontification about why it's interesting 
   - No links to your company or twitter account

thank you

Given some of the questions being asked on this thread

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2252152

... I thought I'd present for your perusal some historical snapshots of the "newest" page. These are roughly one per month starting from Feb 2009.

Enjoy!

I think that "newest" is less indicative, since anybody can submit anything, and if the community ignores it, then little "harm" is done.

It would be more interesting to me to see snapshots of the top articles, as we move through time. That would also show us what the readers were deeming relevant.

Stand by ...

OK - done: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2255435

Again, just one per month, taken on the 15th, and just one on that day, taken between 15:00 and 15:30 (except for Jan 2011 when that wasn't available)

Also of interest: Random highly-ranked hacker news threads: http://www.skrenta.com/hn/ by Rich Skrenta http://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=jsrfded

That's nice work to go back in time. If you need to go back for a more frequent interval in the "newest" page, try http://www.previouslook.com/hnews/new, that snapshots HN newest every 15 minutes.

I actually have snapshots for every 30 minutes back to Feb 2009, but I thought one per month would be enough. I'm considering summarising and cross-connecting items, but this was easy enough and gives most of the useful information. The 80/20 rule, and all that.

The links submitted are just one part of the overall quality of HN, I would even argue a small part.

What is much more valuable is the quality of discussion in the comments that is really where HN shines, or used to; however you feel.

Responding to a question in this thread, snapshots of the front page now available:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2255435

Snapshots of Front, Best and Ask going back 8 months ago (with comments) in the archive drop down box: http://hackerbra.in/ (with search)

Great, this will be a great reference to evaluate changes in the community given enough time.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com