
Ask HN: Why no tags on HN? Is there a 3rd party HN index with subject tags? - qwerty456127
I often find myself willing to look at a list of everything that was posted on HN on a particular subject. E.g.  machine learning, neuroscience, privacy, education, Android or whatever... Is there such a list somewhere?
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screye
This may sound snobbish, but I love the barebones design of HN.

Makes it very inaccessible, and the only ones who stay are those that really
want the content.

Acts like an artificial barrier that keeps the more trigger happy out.

~~~
arthurcolle
Excuse my simple mind, but how would that possibly sound snobbish?

~~~
screye
Because the UI is innately designed to be exclusive and not inclusive, and I
would like for it to stay that way.

The implication here is there are certain well intentioned people who the
community would rather not have on HN.

Clearly only tech-savvy people and those with a knack for sticking with things
with a learning curve would stay on HN.

This makes the nature on discussion here wired towards people of that kind.
These people (for better or for worse) on an average tend to take questions at
face value and answer them than assume an ulterior motive behind an
opinionated comment.

I like that about HN, and would not want it to become like other internet
comment threads.

~~~
krapp
There's nothing particularly "exclusive and not inclusive" about Hacker News'
UI, it's just a basic forum. If it only offered an API and required users to
write their own clients, you might have a point about it filtering out
nontechnical users who are willing to deal with a learning curve, but
literally anyone who uses the web knows what they need to to use this site -
type into a textbox, push a button.

4chan has an equally simplistic layout with arguably more of a learning curve
than here, yet its culture doesn't have the qualities you describe.

The inverse correlation you're trying to draw between the simplicity of a
site's layout and the intelligence of its userbase appears to be contradicted
by lobste.rs, a more deeply technically oriented forum than Hacker News, which
uses tags. Also by simply _reading_ most threads here, you'll find little more
depth or intellectual insight to them than a similar thread on Reddit might
provide.

~~~
beatgammit
lobster.rs requires an invite, no? I know it's not hard to get one, but that's
an actual step you have to take in order to engage, which keeps the lazy out.

The same thing goes for HN. Why would you go through the effort to make an
account for an ugly site when there are better looking options available
(Reddit, Facebook, etc)?

Yes, it doesn't have much to do with intelligence, but it certainly drives
away many of the people who would otherwise make low-effort submissions. In
fact, I wish it were even _more_ barebones (e.g. remove the user points in the
corner).

I used to think HN should have more features, but then I used Reddit and came
back wanting fewer features. I like how it's simultaneously inclusive (anyone
can create an account) and exclusive (somewhat ugly, no memes).

~~~
krapp
>Why would you go through the effort to make an account for an ugly site when
there are better looking options available (Reddit, Facebook, etc)?

The effort is minimal, and I don't think most people choose whether or not to
join a site based on how pretty it is. Just look at Craigslist for instance.

>but it certainly drives away many of the people who would otherwise make low-
effort submissions.

I don't think there are actually a lot of people being turned away from Hacker
News because of the layout who otherwise might join if it had more features.
Remember that the entire pool of potential users for Hacker News includes
anyone who even knows that it exists -- this is not a mainstream site and it
doesn't have a lot of exposure outside of technical circles. No one browsing
the main subreddits or Twitter or Facebook is likely to ever see it even
mentioned.

That an "ugly" layout keeps low-effort users away seems to be a common belief
and I think it's one espoused by pg, but the claim seems a bit like that made
of a tiger repelling rock ... the only "evidence" that it works being the
absence of any tigers.

Although... Hacker News has plenty of low-effort submissions, and people who
complain about it "turning into Reddit," which was once cited as a "common
semi-noob delusion" in the site guidelines, it's such a common occurrence.

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capocannoniere
Tagger News might be what you're looking for:
[https://www.taggernews.com/](https://www.taggernews.com/)

It was a TC Disrupt hackathon project that generates tags using AI, and seems
to still be functional.

~~~
qwerty456127
Thanks. Looks exactly what I'm looking. Just sad the set of tags is so humble.

~~~
PurpleRamen
Humble is bit of an understatement. Enough of them are just assigned wrong.

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iamben
I'm glad there's no obvious tagging on the front / new pages. I open way more
links because something sounds interesting in the title. I'm sure if there was
tags it'd bias my clicking...

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otras
While it's not broken down into such specific categories, Hacker Newsletter
[0] is a great way to get a weekly summary of posts separated into topics. For
instance, here's [1] their most recent one, where you can see posts broken
down into sections like code, data, design, learn, etc.

[0]: [https://www.hackernewsletter.com/](https://www.hackernewsletter.com/)
[1]:
[https://mailchi.mp/hackernewsletter/424](https://mailchi.mp/hackernewsletter/424)

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Flenser
[https://hn.algolia.com/?query=machine%20learning%20points%3E...](https://hn.algolia.com/?query=machine%20learning%20points%3E10&sort=byDate&prefix=false&page=0&dateRange=all&type=story)

[https://hn.algolia.com/?query=neuroscience%20points%3E10&sor...](https://hn.algolia.com/?query=neuroscience%20points%3E10&sort=byDate&prefix=false&page=0&dateRange=all&type=story)

[https://hn.algolia.com/?query=privacy%20points%3E10&sort=byD...](https://hn.algolia.com/?query=privacy%20points%3E10&sort=byDate&prefix=false&page=0&dateRange=all&type=story)

[https://hn.algolia.com/?query=education%20points%3E10&sort=b...](https://hn.algolia.com/?query=education%20points%3E10&sort=byDate&prefix=false&page=0&dateRange=all&type=story)

[https://hn.algolia.com/?query=Android%20points%3E10&sort=byD...](https://hn.algolia.com/?query=Android%20points%3E10&sort=byDate&prefix=false&page=0&dateRange=all&type=story)

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frading
That's one of the reasons I created MediaTag [0], to be able to save pages and
see associated tags next to the links. Here is how my HN favorites look like:
[https://mediatag.io/gui/items/f117244b-mediatag-
hn](https://mediatag.io/gui/items/f117244b-mediatag-hn)

[0] [https://mediatag.io](https://mediatag.io)

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DoreenMichele
There's a search box at the bottom of the page. Have you tried that?

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cmroanirgo
For what it's worth, I prefer it without such lists. Although HN has
guidelines on what are acceptable posts, I like the fact that quirky,
interesting and completely irrelevant posts occasionally make it through.

If HN had sub-lists, I'd feel compelled to use them, and I'd miss out on a
whole bunch of things.

I also agree that keeping a simple UI is what helps keep, in part, HN exactly
what it is.

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amelius
Funny that you say "machine learning", because that's exactly what you can use
to replace tags with.

~~~
qwerty456127
I know but I find it rational to check if there actually isn't a sufficiently
good implementation of your idea already before you start "inventing a
bicycle".

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piocho
I prefer to not have tags on HM. -> Keep It Simple

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dguo
For what it's worth (I know you specifically mentioned HN), Lobsters has tags.

[https://lobste.rs/](https://lobste.rs/)

~~~
qwerty456127
Looks very curious. Thanks.

