

Ask PG: Why not to introduce #hashtags on HN? - dgudkov


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citricsquid
shouldn't the question be _why_ , not _why not_?

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dgudkov
I believe those who actively use hashtags on Twitter know what they are for --
it's amazingly useful feature that helps find exactly what you're interested
in in seconds. Not only because of search itself, but because of collectively
produced and commonly agreed hashtag names. As HN becomes more and more
populated and signal/noise ratio goes down, hashtags would help HN readers not
to lose important posts and replies. Exactly the same way as it works with
Twitter now.

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benologist
You can just search ... no # in front of Google still leaves you with
"Google".

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dgudkov
Search itself isn't the magic of hashtags. The magic is that a hashtag name is
actually commonly agreed unique string ID of a theme or trend. How many
unrelated results would you get if you search just for Google?

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benologist
There's no consensus amongst hashtags... not even to actually use them or not!

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zbanks
There's no active consensus, but a defacto standard emerges.

If I want to talk about Google+, I'm more likely to use a hashtag, such as
#googleplus, I've seen before. I could be a rebel and use #gplus, but it makes
more sense to use already-established tags.

If we just experimented with hashtags on HN for a day or two, I'm sure they'd
be hard to drop. (Although currently, I believe # is not allowed in titles)

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shib71
For what purpose?

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pbreit
#ideasthatneedmorethought

