

Ask HN: Do you ever click on the "ask" link? - ColinWright

Submissions without URLs are penalised in the rankings, so don't reach the Front Page as often, and don't stay as long even if they do.  To offset this there is the "ask" link in the header.<p>http://news.ycombinator.com/ask<p>Do you ever click on it?
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1123581321
I click on it frequently; I enjoy answering questions and seeing what regular
people outside of YC are working on.

The tab I find nearly useless is Comments as it provides no context (unlike
New where submissions do not need context.) I assume the purpose of Comments
is to give moderators a way to spot check for obvious spam and other poor
behaviors.

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bartonfink
Quite frequently - I'd say it's about 50/50 for me between general browsing
and ask-specific browsing.

~~~
jparishy
Same; when I've read whatever looked interesting on the front page, I
generally go over to see what's new in ask.

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koopajah
Same here! Read ask at least once a day! Maybe a survey would be better for
this "Ask" than everyone replying separately?

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tokenadult
Yes, I look at the ask link from time to time to see what is posted here. Just
now, I followed the ask link to see where my latest submission is. In that
submission I ask Hacker News participants what they like about the Hacker News
community. I'd be glad to hear your thoughts about that in that thread.

AFTER EDIT: I still don't understand, at all, the posting order here on the
ask page. I can see new "ask" postings on the new page that appear nowhere
here. I'm not sure what the ordering rule actually is for posts on the ask
page.

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DevAccount
I don't understand the order either.

I've resigned myself to using the search for posts with "Ask HN:" ordered by
date, not 100% I know but better than the alternative.

Clicky:
[http://www.hnsearch.com/search#request/submissions&q=Ask...](http://www.hnsearch.com/search#request/submissions&q=Ask+HN%3A&sortby=create_ts+desc)

And a Clicky for "Show HN"
[http://www.hnsearch.com/search#request/submissions&q=Sho...](http://www.hnsearch.com/search#request/submissions&q=Show+HN%3A&sortby=create_ts+desc)

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DevAccount
I just noticed the search syntax link, these are better searches:

Ask HN:
[http://www.hnsearch.com/search#request/submissions&q=tit...](http://www.hnsearch.com/search#request/submissions&q=title%3A%28%22Ask+HN%22%29&sortby=create_ts+desc)

Show HN:
[http://www.hnsearch.com/search#request/submissions&q=tit...](http://www.hnsearch.com/search#request/submissions&q=title%3A%28%22Show+HN%22%29&sortby=create_ts+desc)

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polyfractal
Funny story: For about the first two-three months of my using Hacker News, I
didn't realize the front page existed. For whatever reason I never clicked
"Hacker News" on the navbar, so I thought "New" and "Ask" were the only places
to read stories.

It was actually rather nice. Lots of fresh stories on the new page (albeit a
lot of spam too), and honest discussion on the Ask page.

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helen842000
Yes, I'm most interested in the 'ask' section as opposed to the mainstream
news articles that feature on the main page.

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gjulianm
I clicked today on it for second time, thanks to the "Why I now hate HN" post.
And I plan to click it more times.

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craze3
Maybe a couple times a month?

I don't think Ask posts should be penalized in the rankings. They contain
great information & original content, plus they hint at the overall climate of
the community.

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knes
Yes, they are probably my favorite links to clicks nowadays. It's original
content and I like to see what the community has created or what problem they
have and how the community is trying to help out.

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jamesjguthrie
I read questions in the Ask section more then I read the main news topics.

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anujkk
Always. It is the first thing I check on HN. Then I check top 2 pages, new
posts, comments, threads in the given sequence.

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debacle
Yes, every day. I often come very close to submitting an ask link, as well,
but decide not to.

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iambrakes
I did for the first time today.

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tonyarkles
I'd never noticed it before, but I'll be clicking on it now...

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stfu
My ratio is somewhat 60% front, 20% new and 20% ask.

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daimyoyo
No. I've never clicked on it, and have no plans to.

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breadbox
I'm not even sure I even realized it was there.

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think-large
I just did for the first time.

