

Request: Open source the Hacker News front-end code - kevinSuttle

Open sourcing the front-end code of Hacker News on GitHub would be fantastic, and an interesting experiment given the target audience.
======
smt88
(The following assumes "front-end" actually means the Arc source code that
runs the back-end. The front-end is HTML/CSS/JS and therefore already open
source.)

I'd personally rather it stay closed.

This is a mostly a simple site, except for the spam-prevention logic. Even
that logic probably wouldn't be that interesting, because it'll mostly be
against generic techniques (which are well-studied) and specific techniques
(which aren't applicable to my own projects).

If the spam-prevention code were removed before publishing, what would be left
is an incredibly simple "comment/post/list" type of site, which are just thin
interfaces between browsers and databases (or should be...)

It would be interesting to see an Arc code base, but there are similar
languages with more active communities to look at, if I want to scratch that
itch.

So the upside is pretty small for me, and the downside is that it would give
spammers a list of all the chinks in the armor. That could ruin the site.

~~~
mkeedlinger
I was gonna write a reply arguing against your comment, saying something along
the lines of "why NOT open source it?", but your last point changed my mind.

I guess no point open sourcing it, especially when there's the potential for
an adverse effect.

------
ashraful
There are older versions of the site that's open source, if I remember
correctly. The current one isn't open source to keep the rules of detecting
spam, banning users, etc. a secret.

I tried finding the link to the older codes, this is the best I could do:
[https://github.com/arclanguage/anarki](https://github.com/arclanguage/anarki)
[http://arclanguage.org/](http://arclanguage.org/)

