
Show HN: Visualize your Hacker News activity - 21stio
https://showcase.metamate.io/hackernews-user-activity
======
motohagiography
Very interesting data set. Appears the average number of people who reply to
my comments is 1.03, which suggests a style of writing/thinking can contribute
consistent net-growth.

Of course I would promote that idea, but really I'd be willing to bet it looks
something like a pareto distribution, and it would be interesting to see what
puts a user on one side of that curve or the the other.

patio11's 1.39 average reply rate would be an outlier, and there are people
whose comments have the authority to simply close discussions that would need
upvote stats to distinguish them might get lost viewed in that narrow
dimension, but for all the time people spend on this site, it would be
interesting to get a sense of what that might mean.

~~~
montenegrohugo
Not sure I agree with your conclusions. A high amount of response could just
mean a controversial/inflammatory comment or a comment of inquisitive nature
that people want to respond to, instead of a high-value comment.

I apparently have an avg reply rate of 1.8 and would not say that my comments
are somehow better than patios.

~~~
motohagiography
Interesting what high-value might be though.

Popular claptrap might not be valuable. Engagement can be value, and a many-
to-many thread is typically good, except when it becomes a 1:1 drill down
match. I think a sincere controversy is exceptionally valuable because it
frames something essential about the topic, at least when it isn't just the
iteration of talking points. A bold provocation can also be useful because the
quality of the responses may reveal unexamined assumptions.

Better? Meh, but indicative of a certain quality factor, I'd say no doubt.

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jannyfer
About a year ago, I saw a Hacker News comment by someone claiming to sleep on
average 0-2 hours a day. There were 20 replies to that comment but (he) never
responded to any questions, and continued posting replies to other threads in
the coming days.

I pulled all of (his) comments and their post times via the Hacker News API
and plotted it, which revealed an interesting lack of posts from midnight-6AM
EST across ~150 comments. I'm calling BS on the 0-2 hours of sleep :)

~~~
pedalpete
I only sleep about 4 hours a night on average (though I wish I slept more),
but if you looked at my posts and comments they would fall within a 4-5 hour
window (most posts happen when I check HN between 7-9am).

~~~
jannyfer
I plotted your comments/posts by GMT hour:
[https://imgur.com/a/9CNi2Ln](https://imgur.com/a/9CNi2Ln)

~~~
pedalpete
Ah, is that over the life-time of my being on HN? I've lived in 3 different
timezones, US East, US West, East Australia, as well as spending a few months
in Europe.

So, though it looks like I'm spending time on HN all through the day, this is
not actually reflective of my behavior without taking that into consideration
:)

Hope you didn't spend too much time on that, it's cool to see. Thanks.

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huhtenberg
Get stuck after clicking on "Show". Just shows "Loading" and a spinner.

Ah, nevermind - finally failed with "Network error".

~~~
qubex
It’s falling with “Network Error” instantly for me. I’m assuming we’ve
collectively embraced it to death.

~~~
onion2k
I got that message and thought it was a summary of my posts.

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sswaner
Nice work. I tested with user pg and noticed that the Y-axis on submissions
starts at 31/12/1969 and the comments starts prior to 04/09/1982, compressing
the actual data into the right of the graph.

Second, the username on your app is case sensitive, not sure if it is on HN
(haven't tested).

Other than these, nice work.

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Wronnay
Funny website. Shows a cookie notice banner but sets no cookies (except if you
click on the cookie notice button - then they set a cookie accepted cookie)

Also: if you are located in Berlin you should create a Privacy Policy and
Imprint. That's more important than a cookie banner ...

~~~
21stio
cheers for the heads up :)

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Gatsky
Nice work.

I couldn't recognise some old comments (10 yrs ago) as my own. I don't know
what this means.

~~~
agustif
This happening to me yesterday by reading 5y old mail.

I was reading my old emails like what's this shit about, who's this? LOL

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choma
Nice! for my username it shows a single green dot in the center of the chart,
the infamous "introverted person" distribution (also known as "insecure
commenter" distribution.

EDIT: obviously, this comment broke the "curve". This distribution is known
for being unstable.

------
FillardMillmore
Initially got the Network Error but after a few tries it worked. This is
really cool - thanks for sharing!

I noticed you have an avg points indicator for submissions but not for
comments - any reason for that decision?

~~~
21stio
thanks for the kind words!

good spot, unfortunately, the points for comments aren't publically available
as well as the upvotes of a user

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jamestimmins
This looks great! Very cool to see the distribution of what does/doesn't get
comments and upvotes.

You may want to consider caching the results for the most popular accounts.
May address the network issue.

~~~
21stio
Hey James, it makes sense! Will be added to the backlog, cheers for the heads
up

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dyeje
This is fun, I'd like to see the same visualization on posts as submissions. I
think the points are more interesting than the number of replies.

~~~
21stio
Hey dyeje,

> I'd like to see the same visualization on posts and submissions

Would you like to see the same visualization for the top-stories feed? If not,
could you elaborate on your request?

~~~
dyeje
Hm not sure. Basically, I think Submissions graph is cool because the Y axis
is points and it's fun to see your most popular posts. I'd like to see that
same visualization applied to the comments graph (so replacing replies with
points as the Y axis). Sometimes you can have a really popular comment that
doesn't get many replies because people agree with it. Replies feels more like
an indicator of controversial-ness, which are posts I'm probably not going to
look as fondly back on.

~~~
yorwba
Points for comments are not public, so the only way to create that
visualization would be to scrape your own comment history.

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ohadron
That's a nice trip down memory lane. Thanks!

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kohtatsu
See also lettergram's [https://hnprofile.com/](https://hnprofile.com/)

[https://hnprofile.com/author_profiles?search=user:kohtatsu](https://hnprofile.com/author_profiles?search=user:kohtatsu)

Would be cool to see average mood per topic :)

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flixic
MetaMate, your logo looks exactly like MimbleWimble logo, just with W flipped
to become an M. Not cool.

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A4ET8a8uTh0
Network error. I will try again later once interest dies down a little.

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oefrha
Thanks for showing me how much I’ve been slacking off lately!

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jszymborski
Does anyone have a screenshot they'd be willing to share of what the results
look like in light of the fact that we've bear-hugged this site?

~~~
tedmiston
It's working again now. Running results on my username took a few minutes.

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inetknght
This looks pretty spiffy. I think it'd be really neat to look at the content
and show repeating topics / keywords.

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qubex
On a related note: I’ve always been curious on the distributions of
submissions, comments, and karma.

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mkchoi212
Getting a network error. Seems like back end can’t cope with the influx of
traffic from HN :o

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coding123
Even though this is currently being hugged to death, I will bookmark it! :)

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bigmattystyles
Cool site! Heads up, username appears to be case sensitive.

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EGreg
Says Network Error when hitting the button every time

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RickJWagner
Nice. Thanks to the author for providing this.

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sarthakjshetty
Network Error :/

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tuttobenethx
it works... 1 reply... 2 if we consider this one

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audiometry
Network Error

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tobr
Genuine question: where does this fall with regards to GDPR? If you aggregate
data about a European, don’t you technically need to ask them for permission
first?

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crimsonalucard
Got a "network error."

~~~
21stio
Hey sorry for that, you probably ran into a timeout. Please try a username
that has fewer submissions. Sorry for that

~~~
non-entity
I seem to get the same error for this account as well as one with only a
handful of posts

~~~
21stio
yeah sorry about that, there's quite some traffic right now

~~~
non-entity
No worries I ended up getting it to work for me

