

A Theory on Hacker News - screeley
http://blog.cubbyscott.com/a-theory-on-hacker-news

======
chaosmachine
_"It's pretty easy to follow user behavior on Hacker News, they click the
first link, read the content go back to Hacker News comment if they found the
link interesting"_

I think you're wrong here. I'd wager most people check the comments before
reading the link (if there are comments).

~~~
jgrahamc
I started out by reading the sites directly, but the comments here are so good
that I frequently go to the comments first and read them. I also tend to not
read stories that have been upvoted but received no comments.

~~~
alex_c
Those are often the most though-provoking ones.

~~~
skolor
I disagree. Frequently the articles which don't have any comments are the ones
that either only apply to a niche field or that don't have any particular
stance. The only example currently on the front page is something about
pubsubhubbub (something I've never heard of, and thus less likely to click on
and read), and going to the article it seems to be rather short and a gripe
about it not working.

That is not what I would call "thought-provoking" its a post of limited scope
which, while it may be interesting to someone who knows about the topic, does
not leave much to be discussed.

It is the discussions that bring me to HN and keep me coming back. I
frequently don't even read the articles, because I find the commenters here
are of a much closer mind-set to myself, and often know as much or more about
the subject than the blogger making the post. A heavily commented article is
one I am most likely to read, because it means there is likely something I can
add to the conversation.

------
mey
I tend to visit the comments on HN before clicking through to the link.
Especially from link bait sounding titles. Depending on the comments reaction,
actual discussion vs bashing the article, I'll click through the link.

------
ianbishop
I think seeing the top comment, rather than the first x characters of an
article, would be far more descriptive of an article.

* Bias articles

* Link bait

* Blog spam

* Click-able links

etc.

------
wmeredith
The implementation here is nice and I like the GUI, but you might piss off
content creators. Scraping the content and displaying it on your own site is
worse than the DiggBar.

~~~
jrockway
Yeah, instead of the content rendering in the user's browser, it will render
in the user's browser.

Wait, what?

------
rit
Don't get me wrong - this is really cool, and looks great. But...

The problem I think is that this stagnates Hacker News in many ways. I don't
see an easy way from that page to upvote something.

One thing I note is the lack of a downvote makes me actually think about
giving a bump to something. But if I am required to click through something 3
or 4 times I'm not going to bother doing so.

Without a clear way for people to upvote articles, but with a simpler
interface to see articles, you're going to change the dynamics of articles
moving up and down on the actual feed. Which is probably not what you're
aiming for...

------
jurjenhaitsma
At times I feel my "behaviour" is limited by the interface - I'd like to read
both comments and the article side by side so I can reference comments to
particular sections in the article / site.

At other times I wished a side-by-side option was available on the front page
- think of the front page as a table-of-contents, then have a frame on the
right where the article (or comments) can be displayed - would save a lot of
reloads, as I tend to do a session of (look at items -> look at article 1 ->
back to items -> article 4 etc etc)

------
joseakle
When i click a link I would love to see a digg style frame or bar on top (for
voting) and another one at the bottom with the comments (for reading and
commenting). And the website in the middle. This way you can prevent going
back and forth or trying to vote on a story and seeing the noprocrast page
because you left the tab open for too long.

Maybe i should just do a gresemonkey script or something that behaves this way
...

------
jpwagner
sWeet, it's like HN without the pesky users...

sorry, it's not a terrible idea in another context, but HN is its users.

decent plug for cubbyscott though.

------
chaosprophet
A better way to implement this would be to append the comments page of HN to
the linked article. Should take very little JS Kung Fu.

------
jv2222
What I like about Hacker News is that its 100% abstracted from the actual
websites - and also that it's verrrry minimalist.

Can't quite put my finger on it, but for some reason it just doesn't feel
right to couple the content with the feed (IMHO)

Also, I like HN just the way it is!

