
Ask HN: What do you want to be able to customize? - pg
In the future I plan to let people put code in their profiles to customize various aspects of HN for themselves.  What would you like to be able to customize?<p>(Note: This may not happen especially soon, and at first the options will be very limited.)
======
naish
I'd like to be able to flag/mark a particular post so that I can continue to
follow the comments that are being generated after it falls off of the front
page. This would also help to parse "important" posts from those that have
simply been visited. Along with this, it would be nice to be able to then
unflag/unmark the post once I've followed it long enough. The unflagging could
also be done automatically, after some period of time defined in my profile or
per post.

~~~
bprater
Yes! Yes! Yes! I would get so much more out of the site if I could revisit
some threads I'm interested in. I quickly forget when the post is no longer
highlight as unvisited.

Maybe threads can be "floated" to the top of the page until they are
"unwatched".

In fact, I'll probably forget about this thread by tomorrow -- a thread I'm
very much interested in!

~~~
tome
How about using the bookmark feature of your web browser?

~~~
greml1n
Why not just write down the url? I mean, that functionality already exists.

~~~
graywh
Why don't we just use carrier pigeons when our favorite message boards are
down, too.

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naish
Provide a notification, within the site or using the email address in my
profile, when someone has replied to one of my comments. This could be turned
on/off on a per comment basis by providing a checkbox along with the comment
form or handled globally in my profile.

~~~
steveplace
Or maybe just a little envelope icon like at reddit.

~~~
unalone
The thread system is nice to look at, but I think a place for direct replies
would be incredibly useful for prolonging conversation.

Perhaps have a view for threads that lets you see only updated threads?

------
tsally
I know what I _don't_ want to be able to customize. What I can and can't see.
Similar sites give the ability to block submissions or comments from a
particular user. I think this is a horrible idea given the special nature of
this community. The most defining aspect about Hacker News is its high
quality. Any type of ignore feature is just going to take away from that. Just
because you can't see the garbage doesn't mean it's not there. The flag
feature is already sufficient; ignore functionality would be a huge mistake.

EDIT: I just had another thought. I also believe that any type of
functionality that allows the categorization or filtering of topics would be
bad, for the reason outlined above. If there are too many high quality stories
that people need to filter or categorize them, the rate at which stories fall
off the front page should be increased. Having too many high quality stories
is a fantastic problem, but it should be solved by being more selective, not
by filtering.

~~~
sutro
Why argue against a feature that you wouldn't have to use? I would appreciate
the option to ignore certain users. In fact, you may eventually find it useful
to ignore me and my future disagreements with your future anti-optional-
feature advocacy.

~~~
daleharvey
Because it has an impact on the community as a whole, if you have the ability
to not view submissions, you dont get to downmod them if they arent "in the
spirit"

Look at loosely computer related obama articles, or techcrunch ones, they are
inevitably posted and quite a lot of people dont like to see them. Given the
ability to block them means they would receive less downvotes and make
articles that a lot of people dont want to read, more likely to go on the
frontpage. combine that with the impression of new users (who havent blocked
anything) and its a cycle.

~~~
m0nty
"Given the ability to block them means they would receive less downvotes and
make articles that a lot of people dont want to read"

Errr ... downvote comments I understand, but downvote articles? It's
unpossible! Personally, I'd like to be able to hide or filter _articles_ I'm
not interested in. User blocking, I would agree, is antisocial and not in the
spirit of things.

------
yan
I want to "follow" people. Color user names a different color of those I care
about.

Also, potentially add a bit of text next to those usernames (their
startup/locale)

~~~
unalone
It might be cool to let start-up owners attribute their company to the
comments. Maybe it's just from using Facebook a lot, but I really like seeing
where a poster comes from - if, of course, they choose to reveal that
information.

------
vaksel
ability to show comments for a specific time period(10-20-30-60 minutes).

Right now in long threads when you go there a second time you pretty much have
to read the whole thing over again. Granted you can use ctrl f and search for
minutes to find the stuff made in the last hour, but its kinda ghetto

~~~
bprater
Or maybe flag new posts since your last visit, so you can scan a thread more
quickly?

------
sqs
Ability to style the page so that it's readable on an iPhone (without zooming
and panning)

~~~
pg
Sorry I haven't done that already. I should soon though, because I'm finally
getting an iPhone.

~~~
bprater
About time!

It's actually really nice to surf on the iPhone, I hit up several sites on my
phone when I'm out of the home/office.

But Y!Hacker isn't on the list because of that issue. Not sure how you are
going to deal with it though, different style sheet for iPhone users?

~~~
pg
Style sheet? What's that?

~~~
PieSquared
Stylesheets (called CSS) are the ways of changing the way HTML is presented
with a browser. The idea was that HTML would be for document mark-up, while
CSS would be for how that mark-up would be formatted (although that idea isn't
ever really followed).

You seem to have a news.css, though, so I guess you must've just missed the
terminology? That's a stylesheet.

You can just create a separate one which will be used whenever the browser is
the iPhone browser, and that would change the entire page such that it's
easily viewable and usable on an iPhone. (Change the margins, the view-port,
the font sizes, maybe colors if necessary, etc).

~~~
ars
PieSquared, pg knows what a style sheet is. He was making a joke.

~~~
josefresco
A HN classic. I hope Pie was also joking :)

~~~
PieSquared
Oops. Guess I should've made that clearer.

------
igorhvr
Specifically, I would like to be able to filter out TechCrunch, CodingHorror
and ArsTechnica articles. I never learn anything from them. (the comments, on
the other hand, are sometimes interesting - but I still would rather not have
anything from those sites appearing for me).

More generally, the ability to filter out stuff I don't want to read about
using a Regexp or a Scsh-style SRE in the Website URL would be great.

~~~
josefresco
ArsTechnica really? They are usually right on with privacy, political-tech,
RIAA and EFF related issues. TC and CodingHorror I could do without.

------
rw
* Spacing between items. Vertical screen real estate is important.

* Show up and down votes. Provides information on contentious comments.

* Ability to mix brand-new and front-page items on the same page. For better scanning of new content.

* With the ability to show up and down votes comes the ability to quantify the contentiousness of entire threads. Show us the aggregate "variability" of voting in the title of a thread.

* Get people to vote more.

* Let us develop our own ranking metrics.

* More stories per page.

~~~
tokenadult
_Show up and down votes. Provides information on contentious comments._

Agreed. And the further suggestion of showing contentiousness of entire
threads would be informative (and help participants trying to avoid
contentiousness learn how to avoid it).

~~~
icey
I wish there was a way to see WHO did the up and down voting, personally. I
bet there would be far less piling on if everyone could see.

------
nailer
A reddit-style mail notification icon in the top left when somebody has
replied to me.

Oh, and requiring hex numbers for color selection is a bit naff, but I suspect
most people know where a decent color->hex tool lives.

------
ScottWhigham
* The ability to "hide" a story so that I don't see it on my page anymore.

* The option to auto-hide stories that I've upvoted

------
larrywright
I'd like to be able to filter submissions, in particular to be able to block
specific sites. As in, no TechCrunch links (hypothetically speaking ;)).

~~~
BSeward
For what it's worth, I have a Yahoo Pipe that does this for me. The source is
easily customizeble to suit your own site-blocking needs.

<http://pipes.yahoo.com/brianseward/hackernews>

------
anuraggoel
I am probably just rephrasing your question. It looks like a lot of the
suggested customizations (except things like ranking algorithms) can be coded
on a site-wide basis and enabled/disabled on a per-user-basis by just
selecting drop-down values or entering text in a box, _without_ users putting
a single line of code in their profiles. Just like noprocrast, topcolor etc.
Additionally, a user code fragment that provides useful customization may also
be useful to others (like a greasemonkey script). So, what exactly do you see
a _code fragment_ doing that would be unique to a user?

------
jjs
It would be nice to be able to view stories submitted within a given date-
range (and possibly insert a false date into the decay algorithm), to generate
an approximation of what was on the front page _n_ days ago.

------
gleb
* user customizable keyboard shortcuts. I currently use GM script: <http://www.acunote.com/files/acunote-shortcuts.user.js> but something natively supported and configurable would be good

------
froo
I think it might be interesting to see some sort of user-voted category system
so that people who aren't interested in certain topics can filter them.

Conversely, if someone was more interested in one topic at any particular time
(eg, depending on mood) they can instantly grab all topics in that category
without having to trawl through the whole site.

But that's not really a personalised customisation thing.

Another thing might be the ability to grab someone's "about" box just by
hovering the mouse over their username (when reading the comments on an
article) - so you can get some more perspective on their point of view without
necessarily leaving the page. That would be something I'd personally like to
see.

------
imgabe
I'd like to be able to save a story without voting it up. Sometimes I just
want to read it later and I don't know if it's something I would actually vote
up.

I'd also like to be able to collapse comment threads. (i.e. hide all of a
comment's children)

------
pclark
also, maybe a "review my project" button for users over n karma? Clicking that
allows them to submit a _url_ and a description, and it gets submitted to a
page similar to the jobs page.

------
qhoxie
* Ranking algorithm

* Following users' submissions/comments

* Filtering submissions

* Ignoring users' submissions/comments

------
ars
On my threads page, I'd like it if threads with recent comments floated up.
Right now it sorts strictly by the date _I_ posted something.

------
mooism2
I don't particularly want to customise.

I would like wide comments (e.g. containing <pre> text) to _not_ force the
whole page to be that wide.

I would like to be able to hide sub-threads if I do not find them interesting.
(Whether this should be considered as voting down each individual comment I
don't know.)

Actually, I wouldn't mind being able to choose between writing comments in
markdown/textile/etc.

------
DanielBMarkham
Pick any of these you like:

1) Ordering of articles by comment activity instead of votes

2) Ordering of articles by hits on a RegEx expression (which would persist
between sessions for each user)

3) Listing of who's online now (reads/comments in the last 15 minutes or so)

4) Photos in the profiles

5) E-mail alerts when somebody responds to a comment I've made (for extra-cool
points: allow email replies to auto-post)

------
lallysingh
It'd be nice if stories we've read leave the HN front page. display: hidden's
fine, just less visual parsing.

~~~
mcxx
I want this feature too and add ability to hide stories I'm not interested in
but I've already seen on the front page.

------
thomasswift
I'd like to be able to change the gray text on the article itself as well as
the visited link color. For some reason, when trying to read it I find myself
highlighting it, to give a little contrast.

If this occurs after breaking a karmic threshold, I am sorry I did not know
about it and disregard my request.

------
ars
This isn't directly what you asked, but I'd like to be able to make a list in
a comment.

Use the existing code (blank line, indented 2 spaces) and add: 1 space with a
# does ordered list, and 1 space with a * does unordered list.

And please add white-space: pre-wrap; to the code blocks.

------
gills
Some simple tagging and a way to add links to custom views on the top bar --
so I can have a view of all the "Review my Startup" submissions and the "YC
Startup XXX launched today" submissions.

    
    
      (def customize-nav-bar
        (lambda ()
          (filtered-view 'Startups'
                         (lambda (submission)
                           (tagged-as 'startup'))
          (filtered-view 'YC Startups'
                         (lambda (submission)
                           (tagged-as 'YC startup'))
          (filtered-view 'Ask HN'
                         (lambda (submission)
                           (tagged-as 'Ask'))

------
snprbob86
Curious: Arc? Javascript? CSS?

What are the design and security implications?

Us hackers need to know these things :-)

------
pasbesoin
Have the "comments" link text color, or something else, change to show that
I've followed that "comments" link. I sometimes only look at the comments, and
would like a reminder that I've done so.

Be able to "save" an item without upvoting it. Upon occasion, I want to do the
former for personal interest but am not sure that upvoting serves the
interests of the community. On the other hand, I can see where the current
design may lessen fragmentation of interests and community focus.

------
edw519
I would like to be able to provide my customers and prospects a link to the
threads where I have made a comment about their specific problem. They could
see what I have had to say as well as the ensuing discussion of other
competent people.

This could provide incredible value for all of us.

Very little I tell them would have as much impact as our discussions of their
problems. I would love to use our "investment" here as an easy sales tool.

------
pclark
I'd quite like to be able to quote people via " > quote txt" please don't make
it a clever "quote this post" button though, as then we'll just have everyone
quoting entire posts.

flag/save a post? isn't that what bookmarks are for?

I would like to be able to hilight "friends" -- I made a greasemonkey script
that people are welcome to use if they desire - <http://is.gd/gXyh>

------
daleharvey
I would like to be able to put avatars on the comments, probably through
gravatar, which would also have the advantage of being able to recognise users
through github

I mentioned it in another comment but to be able to access a users site
without having to go through the profile would be nicer, in fact the ability
to view the whole profile without opening a new tab / following a link

------
albahk
Some sort of geography bias setting. I know a lot of people here come from
around the world, for example, I am in Hong Kong so anything remotely related
to this region or startups in China I would like it to be more prominent for
me.

This is probably only useful for posts that can be tied to a location and not
general hacking posts.

------
narag
I would like to save stories without upvoting them. It'd be even nicer to be
able to bookmark individual comments.

------
davi
I'd like the color of usernames to change depending on how many times I've
up/down voted their comments & submissions. This way people I've liked a lot
in the past will pop out at me as I scan through pages on the site.

A lot of good suggestions on this page; thanks for soliciting our input.

------
vaksel
When submitting a new story, automatically add it to the "threads" tab.

I usually just click on threads to see if there was anything new since I last
logged in, and this way everything will be in one place. Instead of having to
search for the thing in the username > submissions

------
prakash
\- the ability to ignore certain hostnames \- option to follow submissions +
comments of certain people on one page ala friendfeed \- gmail label type
customization to follow certain people

------
briancooley
Though it might be too computationally intensive, I would like to be change
the ranking algorithm by adding a factor to increase or decrease the weight of
votes from particular users.

------
makecheck
Customize the number of "reply comments" visible below each main comment. Or
maybe, a widget to show or hide a comment tree (with the option to be hidden
by default).

------
tocomment
I'd like to change the background color on the pages, maybe the text and font
too.

Maybe figure out a way to be able to comment on older articles and have them
still be seen.

------
bayareaguy
Gosh.. I know I posted a comment pertaining to this very question years
back... If only I could find it now without doing a linear search backwards.

------
sjs382
I always liked the slashdot-style friend/foe designations. Maybe automatically
weigh friend's and foe's comments and submissions?

------
brlewis
I want feeds and an API in s-expression format.

~~~
pg
Feeds of what?

~~~
wheels
An API would be great for HN since it would allow the community to do all of
the sorts of things that it's interested in around rather than on HN. It'd be
the ultimate meta-customization. :-)

Here's how I would break it down:

    
    
      - List of [top / newest] topics
        - Number of points
        - Time submitted
        - Sumitter
        - Upvote / downvote calls
        - List of comments
          - Submitter
          - Text
          - Points
          - Upvote / downvote calls
      - User
        - Description
        - Comments
        - Points
    

And then let the mashups flourish. It would seem fitting for HN. I'd be
interested enough that I'd do a patch for such if there were a reasonable
chance of it being integrated. I personally would really dig being able to see
who upvoted what since that would let me do the magic that's my specialty and
be able to organize top stories personally based on my a users upvoting
patterns, but I suspect that might be undesirable for reason of keeping things
anonymous.

------
fiaz
Each domain name next to each article headline should be a link that allows
you to view all of the articles from that domain.

------
markessien
How about allowing arbitrary javascript on the users profile page, such that
each profile can be made as geeky as possible?

------
sfk
I would like an option to hide the scores of comments, since I find them
distracting.

------
robg
Data portability of my submissions and saved for easier slicing and dicing
off-line.

------
tocomment
The ability to put in your own ranking algorithm would be really neat.

------
gommm
I'd love to have a page only listing the Ask HN submissions...

------
rms
Custom shortcuts on the top new/threads/comments/etc navbar

------
wenbert
I want the option to choose between Serif and Sans-serif

------
biohacker42
Only see submissions from selected HN users.

------
utx00
my own bookmarking/tagging/searching facility.

------
pwim
Nothing

------
sachinag
Automatically downmod people who don't have websites and e-mail addresses in
their profiles. I subscribe to the greater internet fuckwad theory.

~~~
daleharvey
heh could have been worded in a nicer way, but I do agree

not automatic downmodding, but it would be nice to be able to have an
indicator if a person has a website, and a way to go to it without going
though the profile.

~~~
icey
Some of us prefer to separate the things we say in our leisure time from the
things we do at work.

It's trivial to find out who I am, but I know there are more than a few people
here who prefer to have a separate "news.yc identity".

