Ask HN: Why do we have the "hide" button in HN Seriously, does anybody use that? I frequently misclick it on mobile when trying to open a discussion and have to through settings to unhide it. Do you have any interesting use case for it, that I'm missing? |
If there are enough requests like that, we'll make it a profile option, but I'm reluctant to add profile options because UI complexity.
It helps declutter the site.
Another thought: It would be very cool if I could auto-hide things based on where the link goes. I'll never want to click on a twitter or youtube link, for instance, and it would be convenient if I could just make them not appear.
It's a stochastic noprocrast mode, a free serendipitous productivity tool.
For this reason alone, it is useful.
You can also use it to bump stories from second page, especially if something you are not interested in is dominating the front page.
Of course, the purist solution is the one upthread - use the regular website on your phone and misclick 'hide' until there's no avoiding doing whatever chore you're avoiding after all.