[asaph]

I for one would like to see some improvements. Here is my wishlist:

1. Markdown support

2. More profile capabilities. e.g. avatars, vanity URLs, link to your GitHub, Twitter, Stack Overflow, blog, etc.

3. Automatically create cache link for articles in case their hosts go down after being linked from HN.

4. Revision history for comments.

[ihuman]

> 2. More profile capabilities... link to your GitHub, Twitter, Stack Overflow, blog, etc.

All they really need to do for that is make URLs into links in the "about" section. They already do this for comments; I'm not sure why they don't do that for profiles.

[sbinthree]

I would dislike all of this except markdown support.

[Insanity]

cache links sounds like an okay idea.

OTOH, the avatars sounds like a horrible idea to me.

I'm neutral on the markdown one, it wouldn't be too bad but it might end up making comments look like mini-articles rather than just comments.

[Bartweiss]

I'm opposed to markdown for that reason. It's a bit of a shame that the existing formatting isn't aligned to markdown syntax, and I think lots of people don't know the

  code trick.

But otherwise, I'm grateful to not have posts using headers, multipart essays with horizontal rules, or that "every word a hyperlink" style that people use when they want to intensify a statement by implying it's densely sourced or describing a common issue. The informal standards HN has worked out seem sufficient for the conversations I value most here:

- this is sufficient for bullets

- since people don't bullet whole paragraphs

1. this works for numbers

2. for the same reason

> And this is just fine for pseudo-blockquotes, which can be much longer.

And the lack of embedded links encourages human-readable URLs that are either sources[1], or inline links to a page people might want to visit after reading the comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/formatdoc

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Markdown

It's a bit arbitrary what's supported, but HN has always felt to me like a display of how working within constraints can improve quality.

[usrusr]

> but HN has always felt to me like a display of how working within constraints can improve quality.

Definitely in the same boat. When I started reading through this rare opportunity for legitimate meta discussion I was about to advertise the missing vote direction indication on the unvote button. Because it's so easy to hit the wrong direction on mobile and that would be an elegant way to fix it.

But now I think that even this might be more feature than bug: knowing that there is a chance that it might have been just clumsy upvoters makes it easier to do the right thing when getting downvoted.

[lilactown]

I think that just having a proper code block, that worked on mobile, would help a lot.

[Bartweiss]

Bringing over the markup for monospacing would actually be really nice, yeah. It is irritating that code can't be inlined and requires an unusual input like leading spaces to mark out.

[rand_r]

Even cache links? Why?

[AckSyn]

I dislike them all, except for someone else's comment above about comment reply notifications - which doesn't even have to be active, just a number next to your username at the top when reloading a page.

[swaggyBoatswain]

If they would add some hackernews enhancement suite extensions natively, that would be nice

I prefer userflairs over avatars. Ability to tag certain users would be convenient as well, incase I want to follow certain opinions.

I feel mixed about inbox system in hackernews. I prefer not having it actually. Because I don't feel like I have to read anything replied back to me, I do it of my own volition

I actually like hackernews as is, less features is better.

[cabalamat]

Markdown support would certainly be useful for longer comments.

[Cthulhu_]

It's my top feature request, I mean you have to be able to post inline links, bullet points, code segments, etc on a site like this. IMO.

[wild_preference]

You can already do all of your examples. URLs are autolinked, bullet points just require \n\n, and there's a 4-space prefix for preformatted text.

I think extraneous formatting would just create more incentives to write long, pretentious, streams of consciousness comments where someone just screams from their soap box instead of actually engaging anyone.

[sebazzz]

That is:

https://example.com

- Bullet list - Item 2

    And preformatting which you DON'T want for quotes because they are very annoying to read on mobile

[baddox]

You forgot to hit Enter twice between each list item.

[Ajedi32]

5. Comment reply notifications

6. Responsive design so the site doesn't suck on mobile

What else?

Honestly there's probably a _ton_ of stuff that could be improved, but given how change-averse the typical HN user seems to be perhaps just leaving it as it is _is_ the best idea.

[erikpukinskis]

http://hn.premii.com is a nice way to read HN responsively on mobile web.

You have to pop out to comment though.

[Max_Mustermann]

> 6. Responsive design so the site doesn't suck on mobile

It's responsive on my end, I think they changed it this year.

[personlurking]

5. And tagging.

I'd like to remove technical posts from my front page, since I'm not technical. Either I'd like to follow certain tags and only see content related to them, or at least be able to mark tags I don't want to see.

[l1n]

>3. Automatically create cache link

I just implemented this, drinking the hnrss post firehose and archiving each link at archive.is. Great idea!

[0xcoffee]

And an easier way to collapse comments on mobile

[joshcanhelp]

This, please. I switched to Firefox mobile and now can't even click the link without zooming in.

[sonar_un]

I just want comment collapsing on mobile, or a way to quickly scroll to the next branch of comments.

[nothrabannosir]

Easier than the [-] next to each comment? If you have javascript enabled, they should show up.

Not sure how it could be improved?

[whostolemyhat]

It's tiny and right next to a couple of other links, so very difficult to press on mobile.

[combatentropy]

That's a miniature game embedded in the mobile version of the site.

[java-man]

Avatars.

The main purpose of avatars is to track you. Please, HN, do not add avatars.

[ceejayoz]

Huh? How is an avatar different from a username in that regard?

Maybe you're referring to Gravatars?

[java-man]

depends on who is hosting the images. you are right, i mostly meant gravatars.

[jacquesm]

Here is mine:

- cap karma at 1000 points

- get rid of the leaderboard

Other than that I wouldn't change a thing.

[asaph]

> cap karma at 1000 points

Why?

> get rid of the leaderboard

Why?

[kamaal]

People want to see the podium only when they win. In other words, if you aren't leading the leaderboard, you don't want it.

[sixothree]

I would like root level comments collapsed by default.

[anjc]

Avatars! Just use Reddit..?

[leemailll]

I never get the idea for avatars. And in fact I more than often use Adblock to block any of those on the websites I visit frequently. Can any one shed the light on why they like it?

[woofcat]

The only real selling point is it allows you to distinguish users apart from one another really quickly in a threaded conversation.

Sometimes someone other than the original commentator replies and unless you're paying attention to the user names you may make a presumption based on assuming they're the same person.

[kaitai]

I kind of like that on HN I read through without necessarily paying attention to who is who. I focus on the comment or discussion rather than the personalities, and if I want to argue with a person rather than a point I have to go back & look at which comments are theirs.

[hiccuphippo]

It could be simpler to use a different color for their name, like with new users having a green color: When a user comments more than once in the same subtree, change the username color in all their comments. Leave single commenters as grey.

This should be pretty easy to do with a greasemonkey script.

[SmellyGeekBoy]

The unofficial HN mobile app "Materialistic" does something similar to this.

[asaph]

It's a way to personalize your account and a way for people to easily recognize an online identity across comments, articles and communities. It helps you discover that @asaph on HN is the same person as @asaph on GitHub, Twitter, Stack Overflow, etc.

[thrower123]

One of the features of HN is that identity is downplayed. Personally, I think that this encourages engaging with the arguments that someone makes, rather than who they are.

It's also a throwback to the old internet where pseudonymity was normal. It's refreshing to see usernames like AdmiralAsshat and TooMuchToDo.

[huntie]

Why does it matter if they're the same? Identity is vastly overrated in my opinion.

[java-man]

it's a way to track you.