HN needs categories

If only there was a site where you could follow channels of selective information. You could call it "Read It" pronounced like red.

There's a Chrome extension that can at least filter out unwanted content - https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/rather/dkigkllnlko...

try this https://apps.xplr.com/xplr/news/?filter=dc_source_hash:41f60... This is a demo of a professional system used by several industries to sort articles across the web.

I think a tagging system would work better when an article covers more than one area (like StackExchange) e.g. New Python version released (python) Bitcoin will fail (bitcoin)(economics)(cryptocurrencies) Neat trick in Java (java) (programming) Yahoo acquires Aviate (yahoo) (android) NSA doing something (Snowden) (Google) (NSA) (Civil liberites)

you need categories.

If you've been here a while, you know this is never going to happen.

How often can you not tell the content of the article based on the title? And how often would you miss reading something interesting because it didn't fit in one of your 'buckets'.

To me, one of the great things about HN is that I get exposed to articles I wouldn't normally find. I wouldn't have learned about Dart if I only looked at articles about Rails, I wouldn't have found an article that pointed to a solution to an algorithm problem I've been struggling with, if I didn't look at [PYTHON] articles (or one article in particular).

Lots of people have been commenting regularly about the quality of HN slipping, and I don't mean to pick on you, but it starts with changing every person, just a little bit. I would have preferred you to post this as "Ask HN: Does HN needs categories", and therefore, it becomes a discussion about the merits and challenges in creating categories. You've made a blanket statement assuming something is broken and that you have the solution, but not everybody agrees that the system is broken.

You're also a new user, which is great, it's great to have new users and great to see a new user become active right away. Great to have 'beginners eyes' and get feedback on how new users feel on their first few experiences. However, it isn't great as a beginner in any field to assume you know better than those who are more familiar with the product/community/whatever.

I think if we all had a bit more humility (and that isn't just new users, but all users), HN comments (and posts sometimes) would be of greater benefit to the entire community.