Hacker News Reader

Comment by Rochus | Hacker News Reader

Great. It's a good idea to have a HN-like platform with a narrower focus. Another idea would be to add focus areas to HN itself, maybe similar to subreddits. When I currently scan the "new" pages, I find less than 3% of the posts interesting.

View on HN

Personally I like the fact that some days I find very little of interest. It keeps me focused. Sometimes there can be too much content in our daily lives.

Well, then just don't look at it and focus on other things; that's what I do; but when I then come back later it's practically impossible to keep up and scan the whole stuff just to find the very few interesting posts; it would be much more efficient (with a positive effect on the ability to concentrate on the essential things) to just scan a pre-selected focus area.

I love it the way it is. If I miss out on an interesting story, so be it. But having all the other stories in between helps me looking left or right. I might not be knee deep into genomics, but that one article could just be interesting. I prefer that over tailored content. That’s what I use reddit is for.

You don't need to sub-divide areas of endeavor. You could have all research, vs all practice, and maybe a place to stuff things that will cause political engagement and heated discussion? I dunno, /. did that and the proliferation of flame-bait stories still killed the site for me.

Sometimes I want a 5 minute distraction without my FOMO (fear of missing out) kicking in on an article I might have missed.

Anyways, I’m not saying your request is unreasonable. Just offering a counter perspective.

I agree! I’ve often told my friends that the somewhat ‘boring’ nature of HackerNews is a feature, not a bug.

Honestly I think this is a feature, not a bug. I like that there's a bunch of things I don't find interesting. Sometimes I'll read stuff in not drawn to anyway, mostly just for the (typically) insightful commentary on this site. I've learned countless new things because of it, and things I didn't find immediately interesting turned into a topic of interest.

Case in point: the other day there was a posting about scanning old scrolls for text, and I found the topic dull. Reading the commentary I learn about the Ea-Nasir tabled[1] and found it both amusing and interesting. I also learned there's a whole subreddit dedicated to this topic, and reading through some of the funnies I decided to go back and read the actual article about scanning the scrolls. I then learned much more than I thought I wanted to learn about true intricate process and labor involved in doing this work, and found it quite interesting indeed.

So yeah, I'd much rather a high percentage of posts on this site continue to be about topics I have no immediate interest in, because you never know...

[1]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complaint_tablet_to_Ea-nāṣir

That's how I use the HN frontpage.

When something seems boring on HN I open it and go straight to the comments.

Also, I have this weird effect, when reading something not on HN, in the end I forget, and look for the button wondering what HN has to say about it. The disappointment each and every time..

That's a good reason I keep coming back to HN:

* Exposure to related, but outside-my-usual interests.

* Keep informed about what gets ppl in other fields exited, or where tech like AI, bio sciences, renewables etc are heading.

* "Today I Learned:"...

This is going to sound overly simplistic, but maybe don't scan "new", then? Just look at the front page, where the stuff that interests people has bubbled up. And if nothing there interests you, maybe your interests have simply diverged from what the rest of HN finds interesting. There is nothing wrong with that from either side.

You can read just the day's top posts here. I don't know how the majority of people here tolerates the default UI.

https://hckrnews.com/

"When I currently scan the "new" pages, I find less than 3% of the posts interesting."

I find general News sites unreadable. Just trash, shitloads of advertisements, they try to blur the line between news and advertisement. You can't even navigate this stuff without an adblocker.

Using an RSS reader with selected feeds, helps a lot. Especially since you will have many blogs that rarely post something and without an RSSReader you would not be able to follow them.

Obviously: https://hnrss.org/frontpage

I'm talking about this one: https://news.ycombinator.com/newest; it's just every post in chronological order. The selective RSS reader only helps if someone (or a good individualized algorithm) has done the selection.

Something like https://hnrss.org/frontpage?points=50 will ensure your RSS reader won't get cluttered. You could apply also try say https://hnrss.org/newest?points=50 play around with it a little until the outcome makes you satisfied. The syntax is available at https://hnrss.org

I like how random/catch-all it is. I don’t have to go through a million subs and just check what’s there and always find something interesting and unique. It’s why I hang in resetera.com (etc) even though I can’t stand the community.

Lately it seems there's more submissions completely unrelated to the interests of hacker news denizens.

Does it matter? If I submit a link that doesn't interest HNers, it won't be voted for or commented on and will have basically no effect on anybody here.

Only if you browse the new tab would this matter to you. I do frequently so it matters to me.

It matters to anyone who has to slog through the new submissions queue.

Just like vim motions are the best way to manipulate text. HN news format is the best way to have a news/message board.

Agree. Or allow users to create their focus areas (tabs) by automatically categorizing topics based on the content.

That's a shame you find less than 3% of it interesting.

Have you tried this website called reddit.com? It's just chock full of interesting things and rational discussions. You'll love it there.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com