Hacker News Reader

In short:

"I want something else, so everyone else should change their behaviour to give me what I want."

Yeah. Ok.

I'm not saying you don't have a point, but it's really quite poorly made.

Don't beat him, I think it's useful to reflect on HN now and then. Still, I think the system still works basically ok, and it is only an issue for all of us to make better submits.

The traffic to New page is fraction to that of the main page. I want pg to show the latest link from New at the bottom/top of main page. This will greatly aid in discovery.

True. But "Just friggin start it man" - a comment like that is borderline trolling.

Yes, very badly formulated, but I am beyond agreeing with him at this point. Back when I was known as biohacker42 I used to whine about this all the time. Now I've just given up and visit HN a lot less, it's jumped the shark.

Yeah.. seriously. If you want something else, go make it. Even post it here. As long as I'm learning something, be it web design, c, startups or anything interesting at all, the site is doing fine according to me.

Please come back and whine, when there are "lolcats" on the frontpage.

Even lolcats story can be interesting (imagine how interesting will be to predict number of votes a lolcat picture will get by analyzing the picture for determining cuteness and analyzing the caption to determine funniness)

maybe. But I was talking in context of HN. here lolcats is definitely not interesting

Ok I'll bite.

Posting under an anon account isnt doing your argument much credence.

The startup / how to posts (including web design and posts from "key" players) are the original focus of News.YC. Remember? All the points you want to see more of are, well, incidental and the kind of content that probably appears under the "other interesting stuff" category.

Also, quit friggin making blog posts somewhere and then linking to them from here. Come on people, you can't be that desperate for cash. Just make it a ycombinator post and humble yourself with that.

The site deliberately discourages you to do that. Note how the open post of a thread is in unreadable light grey. It was even explicitly mentioned not to do that too much once.

Ultimately if your not here to read "how to do a startup" material and it's related humdrum then, well, your in the wrong place I fear :)

Rather than complaining post some of the content you want to see; if it proves popular you may start a new trend! (this is the same advice you give in the "just go do it" part of your thread dont forget ;))

From the HN guidelines: »Don't abuse the text field in the submission form to add commentary to links. (...) If you're submitting a link, put it in the url field. If you want to add initial commentary on the link, write a blog post about it and submit that instead.«

http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

To the first list:

e) the bi-weekly post about how the site is going down the toilet, how it just ain't what it used to be, and how the new users just aren't gettin' the vibe, man.

To your credit, you did post some good suggestions. Most people just complain and skip that step. The good news? You can fix it. Start posting more of that kind of thing. Make a little effort to find stories you'd like to see and post them. If the site wants to be as you would like, they'll quickly rise to the top. Just care and post, you're halfway to fixing it.

Amen Brother!

The best part about a newsfeed controlled by _you_ is that _you_ can fix it by adding the content you like.

So you would like a forum that works like HN - but dedicated to something different to HN - I say go start it up!

Let us know when it is running and those with an interest are sure to come along and visit. I will certainly drop by ;).

In the mean time the HN denizens can keep up with stuff relevant to start-ups with a leavening of interesting posts "off topic" so to speak.

Brand new account complains about the direction of hacker news? Not news.

You aren't kidding about new account. His account is just six hours old.

If your account is less than a year old, please don't submit comments saying that HN is turning into Reddit. (It's a common semi-noob illusion.)

http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

He/She has probably created this account for the sole purpose of ranting anonymously. It's a somewhat common, albeit gutless, move when introducing meta discussions.

Okay, fair enough. Still I have to agree with the your comment about "gutless". In my opinion it is better to add extra credibility to your discussion than it is to try to avoid being seen as a ranter.

1. Submit new stories. Considering your account isn't more than a day old I would start here.

2. Go here: http://news.ycombinator.com/newest and upvote things you like.

3. Comment on stories you like.

Doing these three things are much more effective than meta-complaining.

"What would I like" ... "I hate reading about" ... "I friggin love awesome articles" ... "I love reading math stuff".

Seems like your post is just your personal wish-list for Hacker News. Shame the website has to take everyone else into account, really.

If anything is really that badly off-topic for this website, flag it. I've done this about 3 times in all, mainly because the content here is pretty good, mostly relevant, interesting, etc.

I kind of agree with you. Although I do like HN, I skip most of the articles. However, in doing so, I realize that I realize that HN is not entirely the right place for me. Maybe its time for you find some new forums for other topics. If you find some good ones, I'm sure that many people on HN would love to hear about it.

I actually agree with some of your points. Nearly every avc.com post finds its way up here with a total disregard for the individual quality of the postings. But the process is very democratic - with its upsides (what the masses want, the masses get), and downsides (sometimes a lack of depth in featured items; groupthink).

HN submissions can be modelled using Diffusion of Innovations theory.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diffusion_of_innovations

Innovators: Startups

Early adopters: Math/CS

Early majority: All things "hacker related"

Late majority: "Technology" Blogs

Laggards: Lolcats

I don't like long self posts as the colour/font is much harder to read than say default wordpress blog or posterous posting.

I think (d) of your first list is the reason of being for this community. Sure, it is just a matter of doing it. But so is everything. Which leads to...

Science? just do it man! read the papers or do your own research... The journals and conference proceedings are already there for your pleasure, no need to post it here on HN.

I'll just say that I read HN every day and find it VERY valuable. Even the stuff from (or responding to) Joel. I'm extremely busy, and this community filter helps me use my limited reading time much more efficiently than I'd be able to do otherwise.

The comment:

"d). How to start a startup.

Just friggin start it man. NASA was started with a lot of engineers and astronomers who had no clue how how to put anything together, but people still figured out how to do it. All you need is the determination and the rest will work itself out."

strikes me as simultaneously very ignorant and arrogant. With that attitude, he's unlikely to have tried to start anything, and unlikely to succeed if he does. Successful entrepreneurs try to actively learn how to increase their odds for success; ignoring the hard-won learnings of the entire community of entrepreneurs is merely stupid.

FTA: "...All you need is the determination and the rest will work itself out."

Hmmm...he left out the "and funding", which is often helpful in getting through the tough times.

Site is not the same as when I came here. As I always say we are getting more and more normally distributed everyday.

But Just believe in natural selection. When HN start to really suck there will be a replacement that would work for sometime.

For the moment I have just a little to complain about.

Everyone realizes he has a one day old account, right? Nothing here has changed to me over the past 18 months. Things have grown a tiny bit, but the quality is generally the same to me. It's a good thing to reflect every now and then, but it should be done by someone who has at least hung around here long enough + contributed a tiny bit.

Huh. I can't agree. Granted I'm new but what makes HN is the community.

For example, my startup is at a critical juncture right now and we posted a question here and on TheFunded. HN immediately responded with about 15-20 really helpful comments. TheFunded? I've gotten one spammy response so far.

To everyone who is complaining about the account being new... I think its pretty safe to assume that the person posting this has an older account (not sure how old...) and didn't just come to this site today and say "wow, this stuff sucks."

That being said, if you think its bad that he created a dummy account to say this... well, I tend to agree with that, and yet, I think we should just this post by its content...

I agree with most of your points... but you should have done this post with your old HN account...that would make this post more worth... Now an account with 6hrs old...Its tough to second you on this.. I would like to see your postings from your previous HN account ...

This is a community driven forum.

New account? Posting a huge list of what he wants the site to be instead of using the voting buttons to help decide? Whining? Plus, the one that really pisses me off: assuming that people who post their own blog entries are somehow polluting the site. For that he earns a very special "go jump in a lake"

I've flagged maybe a dozen articles in three years. This is one of them.

The news here ain't news