I quite like reddit's meta threads. A threads like "Apple September event" that stays in top position and is created before the event. But reddit is better with long comment threads (500+ comments) and sorting by time, not votes. I'm sure it would be a major project and lead to more moderation work.
Users can hide submissions. Sometimes I wish I could hide users or domains, too.
Upvotes? Silly concept, too much effort placed on an emotional dichotomy. I used to do couples coaching and this would be first on my discussion list for relating to each other--we have got to move beyond the dichotomies, relating to things is richer than this. You'll get better results with less hot/cold style interaction. Tell your boss that tomorrow.
Downvotes? More unnecessary pain for everybody. You want to subscribe to a ratings system? Pick your favorite. Pick your favorite anything.
Don't like tags? Easily find others' tags which indicate & link to a high-quality subjective structure zone where tags are irrelevant because concrete hierarchical structure is found here. Enjoy letting others do your organizing for you.
Overall: Intentionally subsetting current HN to a part of HN-world, in favor of a speculative variety of HNs, allowing new experience discovery & new modes of participation. Skate to where the f*** it's going to be, I think Steve Jobs said.
Power to the people Marty, btw I wish the same for Youtube, Facebook, etc. etc. which IMO in the future will be seen as little more than unexciting instruments of unnecessary psychological exposure/damage insofar as their user-facing participation interfaces are concerned.
There are often little gems that slip through because they don't get enough votes. Or, some threads can get excessively heated.
The basic idea is to give more weight to the new-ness of a thread, and allow the homepage to be more dynamic across users (a specific logged-in user should get its homepage that doesn't change quite as often to give them time to navigate it).
I was surprised to discover a (popular) social platform that is very good at providing a home page full of interesting threads without being too influenced by the very popular ones. So, I know that it is possible (although, it might be technically harder to implement).
2. Harder idea:
I've noticed that HN users (and social platforms in general) have a tendency to be influenced by the company/product/service/brand being discussed.
As a basic example, a news like "Company X did this good/bad thing" will be commented on differently depending on whether they like/dislike Company X.
So, a feature that would be really cool is the ability to hide that name, and let people discuss purely based on the "facts". Then, after posting, the user can see what that name is... (Of course, there will be more details to iron out)
- Double the number of entries on HN pages.
If a downvote hurts your feelings, you shouldn't be posting here.
If everybody has the ability to downvote, then a big chunk of interesting comments never see the light of day, and a lot of interesting users leave, deciding they're not wanted.
I've disengaged from lots of subreddits because any comment that doesn't vociferously echo one of a half-dozen talking points immediately gets downvoted by teenagers who joined yesterday. It's a discouraging way to build an active/friendly community.
- merging of posts. - longer titles (the limit is infuriating sometimes). - maybe a default font-size that's slightly larger than it is now?
If you think a post is a just right-wing gambit, then let those with some karma vote to make the post display in a red font…maybe light red leading to bright red if percentages increase.
If the post is just a left-wing gambit, then you can vote for a blue font, light to dark as opinions are tabulated.
Not as strong as a downvote (which should be reserved for abusive, manipulative, poorly reasoned, MLM, etc. posts, not just matters of personal taste or opinion IMHO), but lets the poster and community know that a lot of folks think this veers into political drivel of the red or blue variety. While still keeping the content up to be read. Allowing a very mild form of venting which should increase user engagement. Perhaps some might even find it an easy way to read things that only reinforce their worldview.
Nice way for dang to take the pulse of the community and their take on the editorial vector of HN.
Might add a green font for unbalanced views of long-term climate forecasting, nuclear energy and the other usual suspects. A lot of times, it isn’t worth arguing when the post doesn’t reflect a nuanced view of what is truly known and what isn’t, relative risks, etc…effectively (or ineffectively) an advocacy piece. Sometimes it is worth a short comment that takes 5 minutes, but sometimes it’s not worth the energy to correct, but isn’t worthy of a downvote either. A green font means the content is viewing things through “green-tinted” glasses. A balanced view doesn’t get a green font.