HN Explorer

Ask HN: Does anyone else miss "Ask HN?"

43 points by Magneus ↗ HN
Hey gang,

It seems that fewer and fewer discussion threads are prefaced with "Ask HN." I'm not sure if it was ever a formal rule, but I find it much easier to parse through the headlines when "Ask HN" clearly marks all discussion-only items, while its absence indicates a news item.

Are other people feeling the same way?

If so, how do we encourage this practice to continue?

17 comments

[ 2.5 ms ] story [ 50.6 ms ] thread
someperson
pg recently created this page: http://news.ycombinator.com/ask
Magneus
Given, and it surely promotes their visibility when you're looking for discussion threads explicitly.

However, I find that when discussion/ask threads are mixed in with the aggregate, it's easier on the brain when they're clearly labeled as such.

Maybe I need a cognitive tune-up, but I find that I often will scan through the headlines, notice an ambiguously-titled thread, and have to do a quick judgment call: "Hm, is this a poorly-titled discussion thread or a rhetorically-titled headline?"

My argument is simply to remove those minor hiccups to improve the experience of digging through the firehose of content that comes through HN.

_delirium
One possibility would be for the HN code to somehow visually distinguish them, with a slightly different shade or other indicator.
Magneus
Excellent idea.

This would be a good solution if pg has the time to hack it together.

kgermino
They are already visually distinguished. You have to look but every story post shows the domain after the title while ask (URL-less) posts do not. Between this and the ask page I never have problems finding question posts. Changing the color or doing something else to try and distinguish the ask posts would probably only detract from the simply look of HN.
profquail
I think the poster's point was that "Ask HN" posts are becoming less common (either posted less frequently, or just aren't voted up to the front page as often as they used to be).

I'll admit that I miss this a lot too, to the point where I often just go through and upvote all except the most trival "Ask HN" posts. The ability to ask for good advice from a very smart group of people was once one of the best features of this site.

samwillis
I had a look through /newest and there seems to be roughly one new Ask HN post an hour although with the quantity of new submissions that HN get every hour they quickly move off the first page.

I suspect that the posts don't stay visible on /newest long enough for a discussion to start and for the normal voter to find it worth voting for. I submitted an Ask HN post yesterday and it was off the bottom of /newest in little over an hour and a half, that is not long enough for a discussion to have become interesting.

I don't know if there is something that could or should be changed to improve this, maybe an /ask/newest?

njl
I had a couple of submissions that I thought were pretty reasonable, but disappeared without a trace. I now make it a habit to go through /newest when I visit HN. I view it as a little work to curate a community that I get a lot of value from.
axod
I think the recent problem has been an overwhelming amount of iPad/iPhone/Apple news,opinion,opinion on opinion etc which has pushed everything else out.

Hopefully it'll settle down soon. It's great there is now the 'ask' page though which means at least that we can see such posts.

imp
I've found myself going through the HN archives when I'm looking for advice. Part of the issue with fewer ask HN questions may be that a lot of common questions have now been answered. I do think those posts are more fun to read and comment on though.
nekopa
Agreed. I have wanted to ask quite a few questions here, but a lot of times a look on searchyc has found the answers. I found it especially useful for finding books about certain subjects.
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jacquesm
All the ask hn's are now grouped together and linked from the top of every page. It's actually much easier to find them now because they effectively have a longer life than they ever did before.