HN Explorer

Ask HN: How do regulars interact on / with HN?

4 points by kite_and_code ↗ HN
I am fairly new to HN and I love the responses that I receive. However, the UI seems a little bit weird to me and I am wondering how others use the forum and UI.

E.g. I have observed that often people answer once but then do not follow up if there is a counter-question.

I prefer mutual conversations that clarify points and go deeper instead of one-shot answers. But. When I was trying to reply on posts, I had a hard time in order to find new answers to my posts. I solved it via skimming the whole conversation tree. That felt tedious.

Do I miss some UI features here? e.g. how to get notified or at least easily get transparency about answers to my comments? How to move things that I already read out of sight?

Maybe I am also using the wrong UI and the regulars use another one? e.g. algolia seems to provide a search interface which then links back to HN. Also, I have seen other apps create custom UIs. Maybe the regulars don't even use the web interface but something else?

5 comments

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_Microft
Hi, welcome here! The top bar contains a link labelled "threads" which contains a list of your comments with replies to them.
DerekBickerton
> how to get notified or at least easily get transparency about answers to my comments

Many have requested a notifications feature on HN, but I've taken to simply refreshing the page and looking for a reply. This is a 'pull' mechanism rather than a 'push' mechanism which I actually prefer, since I only get to see replies, upvotes etc when I want to see them.

version_five
I think one of the great things about HN is that it discourages back-and-forth arguments and usually favors people making some point and then letting others chime in with more. I think this is intentional, and it really provides a better alternative to the "debate" style you often see on forums. Granted as you say that sometimes it does this at the expense of legitimate clarification or going deeper, but imo that's worth it.

I anecdotally see a lot of replies that look like they are asking a question to explicitly try and draw someone into a debate, and this gets cut off much more easily here than e.g. reddit.

To some extent, I also think people that are familiar with the nature of the conversations make points that can stand, regardless of what's posted in reply. They are not trying to start a conversation but to add a point to the discussion.

All that to say, don't necessarily try and focus on starting back and forth discussions, focus on making good points that spur further posts