

Better Looking Hacker News - eeirinberg

If I made a website, just like Hacker News, but looked much much better, would you convert from Hacker News? I've noticed that Hacker News is just a basic website and feel like I could do better. Don't get me wrong...I LOVE Hacker News. I just feel I could do a much better job.
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staunch
People come here for the submissions (on-topic, non-fluff, genuine upvotes)
and discussion (civil, educational, interesting). To create a superior HN you
would have to improve on those features first or it's a non-starter.

It's unlikely you could improve on those though. HN has network effects (i.e.
HN is popular because HN is popular). Unless PG drops the ball with HN, by
letting it get overrun with poor content for example, there's just not much
room for a competitor, and that doesn't seem likely.

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yurivictor
Rather than design a whole new site, just create a userscript or plugin design
overlay for Hacker News.

Example of a design overlay for Google Reader: <http://helvetireader.com/>

Example of a design plugin for Google Reader:
<http://reederforchrome.tumblr.com/>

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personlurking
Just a thought but most of what gets submitted to HN is not of interest to me
since I'm not technical so I would definitely enjoy a site like HN that had
non-technical, thought-provoking content (like the articles and comments I do
read here). Like other say, though, it's not about the design, it's about the
people and what they have to add to the mix.

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dgunn
If you made a HN that _was_ much better, everyone would probably switch.
Better design won't do that I'm afraid. I use stylebot on chrome to make it
look really nice. Lots of HN folks have made css rules for HN. Just search for
them.

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SuperChihuahua
I don't think people want a better look - just look at Reddit (2 billion views
each month), Google, Digg. People prefer it when its clean and simple.

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aymeric
You will have a hard time attracting the quality people HN has. This is the
advantage Ycombinator has over you.

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arn
Better content and conversation? Yes

Better aesthetic and worse content and conversation? No

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anon_d
_is just a basic website_

Feature, not a bug. HN looks fantastic.

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tfitzgerald
Don't ask, show.

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drdoooom
i'm sure a lot of people here can do a better job designing it. but is that
really the point?

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Mz
Not trying to be an ass, but to replicate HN you would need to be a startup
incubator using your HN style site to help you screen applicants. Otherwise,
it's just a forum. Feel free to make a prettier forum. But I doubt it will
attract the right kind of people to genuinely improve on HN.

Best of luck though.

