Ask HN: What has been difficult about eliminating pagination for HN?

7 points·abtinf··4 comments

HN admins have noted that they are working on improving or eliminating HN’s approach to pagination.

What challenges have you faced in making the change? Technical? Traffic volume? Design and interface?

I honestly am good with the article pagination.

The only part of the pagination that I think is a bit annoying is comment pagination, like on the monthly who's hiring. Two things about it, one it can be a pain on limited bandwidth/device loading, and two the "More" at the bottom isn't super obvious. I once had posted a job ad and couldn't find it on the page and asked admins, to which then I felt stupid when they answered. But they were super kind and just told me it had dropped to a second page and to press more to find it. I totally missed the More at the bottom prior.

So I would think solving the comment pagination would be nice for mobile loading and just making it more user friendly. But I also don't care if they never solve it, now that I know how it works it isn't a big deal.

Personally I think the pagination should stay. I waste too much time on HN already, but I generally feel like I've seen what I need to by looking at the front page and maybe the first page or two of "New". Infinite scrolling would only lead to pointlessly scrolling through older stuff without a signal that I've seen enough. That's largely the point on other social media. I hope it doesnt happen here.

They're not planning on implementing infinite scrolling, rather just having the entire thread on a single page.

I’ve thought of many solutions to solve this over the years, but I always identify major problems that make pagination seem like the best compromise.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com