Unknown or expired link.

12 points by djrconcepts 12 years ago | 8 comments

Why do I get 'Unknown or expired link.' message whenver I click the more button at the bottom of the hacker news feed?

mjn 12 years ago |

Here's an explanation Paul Graham posted ~6 years ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17705

The short of it is that HN uses closures stored server-side to maintain state in various places throughout the site, and purges old closures regularly. As usage has gone up, what counts as an "old" closure is now probably unreasonably short. Restarting HN also invalidates all existing closures.

Randgalt 12 years ago | |

This doesn't excuse the awful user experience. Instead of a terse message there should be a reasonable message with a link to refresh.

midnitewarrior 12 years ago | | |

Agree! HN embodies the startup culture. Unfortunately, the user experience here is of an abandoned startup web site.

There is little excuse for such a poor user experience here. At least give me a link back to the home page and don't be so cryptic with the message...

strict9 12 years ago | | |

It's inexcusable to use a technical implementation decision to justify a poor user experience. That's what the HN response is every time.

avifreedman 12 years ago |

If you wait too long (1 min < wait time < 10 mins, I think), the link will 'expire'. Some other sites like hckrnews.com (for articles that made the front page(s)) and hnflood and others perhaps (for /newest) address this if you are sick and twisted and like to go back into history into the raw submission feed.

andrewhillman 12 years ago |

The 'more' link is not what pisses me off. What really sucks is when you go to submit a thoughtful reply and you get hit with a bullshit expired event upon submission. Then you need to click 'back' open new window, and paste a fresh submission. I assume those who post long responses do so by firing up a text editor then pasting the response.

You would think this site would work flawlessly. Perhaps HN feels you shouldn't be on here unless you know the pitfalls. HN doesn't seem to respect the community. Would PG return to a site with such a shitty user experience? Absolutely not. I guess YC subscribes to "do as we say, not as we do..." when mentoring batches.

wikwocket 12 years ago | |

An alternative explanation is that perhaps HN is user-hostile because it respects the community. I sometimes get the vibe that HN is deliberately rough around the edges so that anyone who stays here and participates is doing so because they love the content and the community, not because the site is pretty or because they like gaining karma points.

Personally I'm of the opposite camp, that it's nice to make your app/site as easy on the eyes and sensibilities as possible, but then HN is not exactly trying to grow or get a million members or sell anything. It's just here to foster constructive discussion of hacker-related news.

Randgalt 12 years ago |

It's astonishing that the devs won't fix this.