Ask PG: Please can we have a way to merge items? | Hacker News Reader

Ask PG: Please can we have a way to merge items?

20 pointsColinWright7 comments

It doesn't happen very often, but sometimes there's a topic that gets several submissions. Today it's the trillions of frames per second camera, last week it was something else.

Please can we have a way to combine items so that the discussion doesn't get split, and so the different reports (which often have different details) get linked?

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I think that identical URL submissions don't work. However, sometimes a discussion isn't just about the topic, but the specific coverage of the topic.

I'm not sure that merging discussion based on topic would work, or how it would be decided.

Well, then you wouldn't merge those. But some clearly are dupes. You might as well say that flagging won't work, because some people write good posts.

I have to say, I absolutely agree with you and it seems to me there's but a vocal minority that keeps coming back to this same, tired issue again and again. I can say with conviction, the content I read on HN is fresh and engaging; if it weren't, I'd probably not read it. If that's the situation some people find themselves in, then for goodness's sake stop reading it! No one is holding a gun to your head, insisting you read HN. If the occasional duplicate story makes it to the front page and that's an issue for you personally, then I think it's about time to move along...

  > the content I read on HN is fresh and engaging

I find this really interesting. I stay here and read extensively because HN is without doubt still the best place I know of to find interesting content, but I'm finding it harder and harder to dig out the diamonds.

I'd be intrigued as to which submissions you characterize as being "fresh and engaging." Would you care to share them with me/us?

And I know from your other comments elsewhere that you find HN perfect as it is, but if we can't discuss how to improve a user's experience here, where would you suggest such things be discussed?

I look forward to your response, and to learning something new.

  > ... sometimes a discussion isn't just about the
  > topic, but the specific coverage of the topic.

That is exactly my point. I'd like to have a way of linking together the different discussions as related to the different ways the topic has been reported. I'd like to see the ability to create a "link node" of some description that allows the different submissions to be found from each other. Perhaps just a meta-submission that has the different submissions of the same story linked in, by hand, as children. Then we can go to the parent of a submission to find other submissions of the same story, each possibly with a different slant, each possibly with a different discussion.

Some people - llambda particularly in my experience - think that HN is fine as it is and should be left alone - nothing can improve it. My engineering and entrepreneurial instincts are, however, screaming at me that the experience can be significantly improved, and information made easier to find.

I'd've liked to have seen it tried, but it would seem that a vocal minority want HN left exactly as it is.

I see your point. I'm still not sure how it would be implemented in a way that the signal/noise was high, that the associated articles were relevant.

I run http://hubski.com that was built on top of news.arc. One of the things that I did to help tie posts together was to add tags. It's not perfect, but it does help pull up similar articles. You can follow tags too. EX: http://hubski.com/tag?id=architecture

It's a tough call. HN does work for most people, I think. The maybe the potential blowback is not be worth experimentation at this point? PG seems willing to make changes, but he's conservative about it. Maybe from lessons learned?

Here's a poll asking people about tags on HN: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2367949

To consolidate topics, I see a "Consolidation Node (CN)" being defined by anyone with enough karma. Topics can then be attached as children of that. Any submission that's a child of a CN gets a parent tag, and the CN has as its "thread" the children, sorted as the existing algorithm sorts.

When a CN gets at least (configurable) number of children, the children are removed from the listing of submissions and the CN is listed instead. Ranking algorithm to be determined, perhaps the CN inherits the highest ranking from its children.

Attaching a child to a CN can be flagged if it seems inappropriate.

Just an example re-using existing ideas. No doubt there are half a dozen reasons why it wouldn't work, but it would make more space on the front page for fresh news, and link together existing discussions and reports from different angles.

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