HN Explorer

YHackers: Click that "New" link

157 points by bprater ↗ HN
Lately, I've noticed that some really good submissions aren't making it to the homepage.

Help bring back great articles -- once or twice a day, hit the new link at the top and see if there is anything worth upmodding!

It'll only take a minute and can really help what makes it to the homepage!

59 comments

[ 4.6 ms ] story [ 129 ms ] thread
sidsavara
You know, I had a thought about this - why not make it an option to show me the 5 most recent new submissions on the bottom of the index page (e.g., the top 25 plus 5 latest). It's not a perfect solution, but at least I'll be aware it's there.

I understand that could lead to some nasty gaming of the system though, just the first idea I thought of.

sharkbrainguy
or a little DSL for us to specify what we wanted on our homepage.

  (def homepage (page
                  (top 10)
                  (newest 5)))
sidsavara
Now that I think about it, I am pretty sure something like this is possible with some greasemonkey/iframe magic

Still not a perfect solution as not everyone will install it - but a decent start eh?

Xichekolas
Done!

HN Toolkit: http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/25039

Install and turn on the 'Show new items at bottom of main page?' option.

Let me know if you have problems.

d0mine 

  s{
    var blacklist = GM_getValue('hndomains', '');
  }{
    var blacklist = GM_getValue('hnblacklist', '');
  }x;
Xichekolas
Yeah I changed the name of that a couple versions back. If you want your old blacklist back, you can do something like:

  GM_setValue('hndomains', GM_getValue('hndomains', '') + ' ' + GM_getValue('hnblacklist', ''))
  GM_setValue('hnblacklist', '')
And then upgrade to the new version. In the future I'll try and be more conscious of upgrades when I change something like that.
d0mine
I don't use the script. I'd just thought that 'hnblacklist' would be a better name.
sidsavara
Cool! I installed it, and selected the option - and nothing happens. I still see 30 items at the bottom

Can you tell me the exact URL that I should be seeing it at? I see toolkit. When I use that I see the search YC buttons etc, but when I select that option specifically, nothing happens.

I am assuming http://news.ycombinator.com/ is the main page you are referring to right?

Edit: SOLVED. http://news.ycombinator.com/news - now all is well! =)

Xichekolas
Doh! the /news link is what I have bookmarked, so I didn't even think about just the index. Source has been updated to fix that.

Thanks!

Xichekolas
Just an update on this... the additions I made last night broke some stuff (and I apparently didn't test it well), so please update (as of now) to get fixes.

Specifically, splitview got broken and a couple other little things were acting funny.

bprater
Hey, I kinda like that idea!
tlrobinson 

  <FRAMESET rows="66%, 34%">
      <FRAME src="http://news.ycombinator.com/">
      <FRAME src="http://news.ycombinator.com/newest">
  </FRAMESET>
No? Not quite what you were looking for?
markatson
I prefer:

<FRAMESET cols="66%, 34%">

    <FRAME src="http://news.ycombinator.com/">

    <FRAME src="http://news.ycombinator.com/newest">
</FRAMESET>

Makes it easier to read because Y content is usually skinny and most new screens are wide. :)

edit: but I'm splitting hairs...

pg
I'm planning to start letting people use code snippets to customize stuff, actually.
bprater
Awesome, this would give hackers a great way to show off their skills!
andreyf
Can we customize the ranking algorithm? Pretty please?
vaksel
I like the reddit layout for this. At the top show the latest submission, granted the reddit thing is a little bit more complicated...but for HN you can get away with just showing the latest entry since there are so few new submissions
DTrejo
I've seen that increasingly they have been streaming by
light3
How about extra karma for the people who take time to up-mod new articles that eventually 'make it'?
pedalpete
Actually, i barely use the main page, as lots of stuff on that I've likely seen before. I come in, scan the top few items on the main page, and then jump into new and go through like two or three pages (until I'm caught up).

So for my personal preference, I'd probably be interested in seeing the newest stuff, and then maybe a column for 'most popular'.

I know it's unconventional, but...

haasted
Perhaps some kind of incentive should be introduced?

One way could be to reward "early promoters", eg. give karma to the first users that up-vote a story, which later makes it to the front page or reaches a certain number of votes.

huhtenberg
Reward them with extra downvotes :)
jmah
Yeah, but then there'd need to be a karma penalty for up-voting stories that don't (or you could karma pharm by up-voting everything).
pg_
Yes, please do!
tsally
Really... what did you think you were going to accomplish by choosing that user name?
byrneseyeview
The account was registered 211 days ago. Was this the opportunity they were waiting for?
yan
Based on her profile it seems to just be her initials. Maybe she saw that pg was taken and appended an underscore?
tsally
Oh... silly me :-).
brl
Haha, so weird. First comment ever and it's in a meta-HN thread. I call shenanigans.
rochers
I don't ever promote because in the last month or so, when I am logged in to HN, each page load takes about 20-35 seconds.

That kind of performance keeps me logged out. Can someone shed some light on why it is so slow?

mcormier
Or you could check all the new postings with RSS.

http://news.ycombinator.com/rss

sidsavara
That shows you every article that makes the front page, it does not show you articles that people have just submitted. An RSS feed for all submissions might be nice, but refreshing the new page every 30 minutes or so is also sufficient. Since they roll down in order you don't lose your place, but the front page articles "jump" into whatever place the algorithm determines, which is why I prefer to read the front page via RSS.
Shamiq
The RSS shows every submission which gets at least one up vote. So most spam doesn't make it to the RSS, but a lot of other cruft can pass through depending on if at least one person liked it.

At least, that's how I've seen it play out.

pg
The RSS file is a snapshot of the frontpage. Sometimes 2 points is enough to get onto the frontpage, but not always.
sidsavara
I disagree here Shamiq, from my experience that's not entirely accurate. Typically 4-5 votes makes front page - though yo uare correct, often 2-3 votes is sufficient. Sometimes 2 votes will, but not always - it's more a function (I believe) of how much front page upvoting is going on at the time.
Shamiq
Thanks for the clear up.
CalmQuiet
The more I think about alternative solutions, the more the present, conservative (less vulnerable to being gamed) approach. The occasional reminder (like this one) is helpful: I know I get used to just scanning the front page. As a compromise: what about a "new" that was set apart (in color, location, etc.) a little to act as a reminder?
sounddust
I didn't even know it was there. I'll keep it in mind now. In fact, I don't understand half of the features of hn, and I've been using it for more than a month. There really should be a user guide or FAQ or something.
jncraton
Not that this site needs to be like Reddit, but it pseudo randomly shows one of the new submissions as a separate first item on the front page. Something like this might be roughly equivalent to putting the newest 5 at the bottom of the front page though given that this site has a much smaller user base.
andrewljohnson
This could be solved by using the one-box method that Reddit uses - make the top of the home page a new story without regards to popularity. I like that feature a lot.

Let's be real - people are going to do what's in their best interest - not what is good for the community. So, let's not count on people to vote and go to the New page. I think it's better to count on software engineering here, instead of social engineering.

ajiho
What about the following idea: Always take the top-story off the front page and instead only show it on the "new" page? So the front page remains very useful, but if you want to look for the very top story, you also have to take a look at the new ones. Couldn't this be an adjustment to better "pivotize" the signal/noise problem?

(Addition: It may be better to take the two (or three) most popular stories.)

jmatt
Additional rss feeds for { top newest active } may help users implement a diy solution. I think right now it's limited to just top.

Also I think the appropriate location to discuss this is http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=363

walterk
Over a week ago, I put in a feature request to give users a karma point daily just for visiting the New page:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=433004

Another idea is simply to display the number of new stories submitted since you last visited the New page:

  new (26) | threads | comments | leaders | jobs | submit
Edit: A third, less obtrusive option is to use an asterisk:

  new* | threads | comments | leaders | jobs | submit
Perhaps it only appears when a given number of new stories have been submitted since you last looked at the page. Like, say, 20. Possibly user-configurable.
delackner
I really like this idea to put a number next to new, making it feel like an inbox. People will end up clicking it based on their need to "empty the inbox" built up from email management.
blasdel
DEAR GOD NO! Please don't do this, most of us already have enough inboxes.

The only thing I like about non-time-series sites like HN is that it just isn't in their nature to ever be something inbox-like. It's the sole saving grace of having a voting system, especially with vote-ranked threaded discussion -- it keeps it from ever being something I have to "catch up with" regularly.

walterk
An actual inbox requires many clicks to clear all unreads, assuming you actually read them. What I'm proposing clears all unreads with one click.

Alternatively, just have an asterisk to indicate that there are new submissions you haven't checked out yet:

  new* | threads | comments | leaders | jobs | submit
That's probably the most minimalist incentive you can give to increase New pageviews, and fairly easy to implement. (Edit: updated the original post with this suggestion.)
iamwil
If you removed the voting links on the front pages, I think that might help solve the problem.
biohacker42
The reason for the the lack of really good stories is the recent arrival of large crowds.

And pleading with them won't help, things are just averaging out. That's the key word average.

This has happened to every single great social news site I've enjoyed.

Anyone know what the next slashdot/reddit/HN is yet?

run4yourlives
>Lately, I've noticed that some really good submissions aren't making it to the homepage

This could simply be a direct result of the change in the "new" section's S2N ratio. There's simply a lot more crap in that queue than there has been previously.

livando
I agree, it's been a bit slow lately. But, I'll be happy to see HN slow that to have it run into the ground like reddit and so forth.