Poll: Do you read the "new" page on HN? | Hacker News Reader

Poll: Do you read the "new" page on HN?

60 pointsjliechti159 comments

I'm curious to see what percentage of people on HN visit the new page.

"new" is such a horrible name. I used to think it mean "create a new post". Please change it to "latest". Even the actually link is called "newest". Don't ever save 3 extra characters.

And add "hottest" instead of having people to click on "Hacker News".

EDIT

More suggestions from me.

"threads" show my comments. https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=yeukhon

I never actually used this button. I always click on my profile and then find my comments and my submission.

That name is so horrible. Make it "my comments"

whereas "comments" show newcomment, not mine.

ask, jobs, submit. can we just group them differently? and create a filter somethere?

Even 1990s websites could do their nav right. (home, contact, about me, etc)

This is a genuine criticism.

I have never made this mistake - probably because I clicked through there a long time ago... Upon reading what you have said I can clearly see why someone would come to that conclusion...

Human are curious animals. But we forget things too. I have probably clicked through all the buttons. But if the name doesn't make sense to me, and I have only used it maybe once (out of boredom or random habit), I probably won't remember it. Hence I probably won't recall using that button. And when I click on my profile and see "submission,comments" I make a habit of going there to find my comments and submissions. Because that route is semantically correct. Under your profile, that got to be my stuff.

I always associated 'ask' with where you submit questions - not where you see them. [edit] perhaps 'questions' wold be more appropriate?

edit: Whilst we're at it how about some slight changes for mobile? The amount of times i accidentially tap a users name instead of a link has to be at least half the time.

oh yeah that too. +1 That name is ... ugh lol

Wow. I had no idea until now that "Threads" just showed my comments. I was doing the same as you, going to my profile and clicking from there!

Oh wow I didn't even notice Submit was up there too. Confirmed I thought new was how I'd go about making a new post

Depending on the time of day (and the degree of my idleness that day) I find that the main page sometimes gets a bit stale, in these cases I click on new.

Another reason to go to the new page would be to try to get the first commenter's advantage on a story.

To be totally honest, I only look at it when it shows up automatically after I post something new.

At that time, I tend to look at and vote up stories that seem interesting.

This is exactly what I do as well.

On Reddit, and I think on 4Chan too, they consider(ed) looking at "new" every now and then part of your duty.

The only time I remember to do it is when I or someone I know is submitting something and I want to see how it's doing on "New", but in that instance I try to look at everything else in the top 30 of "New" at least.

A cool idea could be to randomly infuse the front page with "new" links to make sure that they get read and voted on, and that everyone is curating the top links and not just readers of /newest.

The problem is then the signal-to-noise ratio decreases and therefore making the front page less attractive to new (maybe even to more experienced) users.

What about two columns? One for popular and another one that peeks the top 10 new ones and keeps updating.

I'd go with this if I had to pick one. But having it in a new page is essentially that, right?

I like the idea. But no need for AJAX -- having it statically load as part of the frontpage would be good too.

The main reason you want something like this is to keep meritorious articles from languishing without any votes.

Doesn't have to be ajax. Can be websockets

There would still be clear votes on each link - making it easier to discern what others found valuable.

Have you actually seen some of the posts in /new ? I don't think some of the links actually deserve even the accidental exposure to traffic.

Even allowing between 1, 2 and 3 new links seems like it could work. There are enough people that links would get a nice boost in being upvoted or downvoted.

Its a tradeoff, but you can decide how far along the scale to go. Maybe 1 random story isn't really going to ruin everything, and maybe the value of a good algorithm that tested new submissions this way would be worth it overall. Maybe we are letting alot of good stories slip through the cracks because new doesn't get enough visits- so you might want to add more than 1 on the front page. You can hide point counts too- why do we even need to see the number?

It would also be interesting, if this actually makes it to the front page to see the reasons why people don't go to the new page. Is it because they are only looking for the "best", or a quick flash of trends, or because they are bored and flick between hn and facebook?

EDIT: And would a better system be to interlace new posts with top posts on a single news page?

I don't read the "new" page or the front page since I interact with HN primarily through my RSS reader (I use NewsBlur).

(HN's RSS URL can be found at the bottom of the front page.)

Because I'm often more interested in the commentary than in the article itself.

I only occasionally read it. There's two main reasons why I don't do so more regularly:

1) There seems to be quite a lot of low-quality content (blogspam, etc.)

2) I primarily read HN for the comments, and the new page stories usually don't have any comments

I post fairly regularly, and it's become pretty clear that not enough people do. The same content will not get a single vote when posted once, then on it's second posting be on the frontpage for eighteen hours. As it stands, the best content is not winning out.

Well, I don't. I think it would be sooo much better for HN if the FP had 2 columns: 1 column for top news, 1 for 'newest'. Then everyone gets to read it (for a very short amount of time).

In rare moments of digital altruism.

I read the "new" page because that's where the some of the best stuff on the net flies under the radar.

Not everything good gets upvoted and not everything upvoted is good.

The new page is actually my primary way to read HN.

wow, how do you keep up? how do you filter the noise?

How do I keep up? How does someone who only reads the front page keep up? Think of all the stuff on new that they never even see. They're behind by definition! :)

I don't treat HN as only programming or only startups, I treat it as the most interesting and eclectic news source on earth. And I'm pretty good at ignoring whatever doesn't interest me.

During the week I read front, then the first page of new, sometimes the second, rarely past that. If I'm between tasks during the day I might check new, and if I see something on the first or second page of new I'll tab it up. I don't try to keep up, so most things probably disappear.

On a Saturday or Sunday morning it's my Sunday paper with coffee.

I actually read HN through the RSS feed, which I assume contains everything posted. The noise-to-signal ratio is high, but I've had some luck training my RSS aggregator to hide anything related to startups. After that, I actually click on maybe 1 link in 5 (very rough guess, could be fewer than that).

I assume a large percentage of "promotional" links get to the front page because friends voted for it. If they're interesting enough, they'll then get up-voted enough to stay on page for a while. I doubt there are enough people checking "new" to upvote links enough to make it.

How do top links get up-voted in the first place if not on the "new" page? So isn't the question "Who reads the 'new' page?" more relevant? (Whouldn't "Who" also refers to those who up-vote the posts that make it to the top of the list?)

Wow. I didn't know "new" was a thing--I assumed it meant "new post".

Only if I am unhappy with the frontpage and think I need to influence the article order. But I am looking quite often in the "ask" section, even so one visit a weeks is probably enough to stay updated in that section.

With your scale, I want to answer "Yes, sometimes" ... somewhere between most of the time and rarely.

If you had ranges of percentage as vote options I'd vote for the range that includes 50% of the time.

Usually when I'm procrastinating really hard, i.e. I already read everything interesting on the main page twice and still fill the need to avoid work for a bit longer.

I do. And often I find links that I wouldn't find if I expect them to appear on the homepage. Sometimes there are good things - at least for me.

the "news" page seems stale if i go there too often; there are simply too many things i have seen before.

so i pretty much always look at the "newest" page, and i might click two or three pages deep in that.

only occasionally do i click over to "news" to see if there's anything solid there i might have missed.

truly, both pages have become a bit unsatisfactory, since one changes too quickly, the other too rarely.

-bowerbird

Hmmm. Not a lot, but I would not call it rarely.

Occasionally?

Me too, smack dab between "most of the time" and "rarely". There's a hole in this poll.

I read "new" once in a while, and more than often find more interesting posts than ones on the main page.

Ha! I've been reading HN for a bit now, I just started to use the "new" page and I love it.

Only when I am really really bored and have exhausted anything I wanted to look at on the first 2-3 pages.

I never had before until now, but will start doing so more often. Noticed a bunch of interesting links.

Quite often, but much less thoroughly.

I will now that I know about it :|

I think you need a often option. I read it more than rarely and less than most of the time.

It's a shame that 'rarely' and 'no' is too high.

I saw this on the new page.

There is a lot of great stuff posted that never hits the front page.

Yes, mostly.

No.

Yes.

I do.

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