What do you dislike about HN and how would you fix it

14 points by jeho 7 years ago | 14 comments

When people use preformatted (indented) blocks for quoting material. (It's unreadable on mobile.)

The fix? Format any paragraph which begins with a > character with left padding and a left border.

I would assume the fix is simple, but, looking now, the HTML HN generates is somewhat borked. The first paragraph of my comment is not in a <p> tag, though the remainder are, and all three paragraphs are nested within a single <span>. (A <span> should contain phrasing content, which <p> is not.) Styling paragraphs would probably necessitate fixing this first.

stevekemp 7 years ago | |

The single biggest change I'd make would be to add markdown support.

tmaly 7 years ago |

Too often I see good comments get down voted for no good reason. It would be nice to have a throttle system that limits users who persistently down vote or maybe even displays their username.

tgflynn 7 years ago |

Unexplained downvotes are antithetical to rational discourse.

Either downvotes should be abolished or they should require an explanatory comment.

incompatible 7 years ago | |

I'd like to see a list of valid reasons for downvoting, an appeal process, and removal of voting rights from those who downvote without valid reason. That's probably asking too much, though.

iamnothere 7 years ago | | |

I like this idea, although I fear that people would simply select whatever comes closest to "This comment provides inaccurate information" to express their disagreement.

People have an increasing tendency to view those with opposing moral positions as not just wrong morally, but also wrong factually, despite there being no facts involved in the discussion. (Attempts to explain the is-ought gap typically don't change minds, at least not in the short term.)

quickthrower2 7 years ago | | |

I’d say hide vote counts on submissions and comments, don’t grey out anything, and show approx karma eg under 500, 500-1k then to the nearest 1s.f.

Limit submission karma to 10 per post and 10 post karma/week and maybe only if comment to post ratios are met: why do I get 200 karma for pasting a URL and 4 karma for a good comment?

I’ve seen accounts that are clearly submitting NYT and other articles on the hour 24/7 with huge karma.

This is an issue because it means it’s easy to automate creation of 500-karma accounts and have an army of downvoters

AnimalMuppet 7 years ago | |

I have thought that. (I even thought that it was against the HN guidelines to use downvotes to express disapproval, but deng corrected me.)

But now I'm not so sure. I see people being a jerk to others more often than I want to stop and explain that you're really not supposed to be a jerk here. I see people who certainly seem to be shilling for a viewpoint more often than I want to take the time to call it out. I see bad logic (and even what sure looks like bad faith) more often than I want to take the time to correct.

Do I just let it go each time unless I'm willing to invest the time to explain? I am no longer sure that's going to improve the site. I fear it would instead lead to more bad behavior, lower quality posts, flames, and so on. I fear it could damage the site.

bjourne 7 years ago | |

I agree. One idea would be to make cost the downvoter a fraction of their own karma. Perhaps 0.1 points/vote. That's how it works on Stackoverflow and the problem isn't as prevalent there.

ChrisGranger 7 years ago |

Although it's only a minor gripe, sometimes when I see people posting links to Wikipedia articles, I wish the poster would also comment why they were posting, and add their thoughts about the article's content...

jacques_chester 7 years ago |

Middlebrow dismissals and talking down to actual experts.

But I can't fix it, as that would mean deleting my account.

dlahoda 7 years ago |

If I press 'hide' during several days to much it stops to work. I.e. hiding does not hides. Limit of hides seems to be 350 or so.

Also there are no build in filter or good oss client with filter. Filter by domain. I am tired to hide trash from vice guardian newyorker atlantic etc.

Thanks for asking. I hope somebody who has influence will read.

Or is there good client for my needs?

xrd 7 years ago |

Add something like down votes that indicates the comment is totally invalid or the missed the point. I feel like lots of people read something in haste and never even attempt to get the point of the parent comment. It's part of the guidelines, but there is nothing to encourage that behavior.

xrd 7 years ago |

If someone posts a link in a comment thread, and then that link gets posted generally to HN, the person who posted the link in the comment should get an extra point. It's only fair. :)