| "Well, I didn't make it. :-)" I know, I wasn't complaining about anything you've done. I just think the lack of information on its availability is lame-brained, and the fact that no information is available on this site which explains how to use it is short-sighted ... and the actual steps required before you can enable it are also overly demanding and unnecessary. But that's just my opinion ... :) "pg -- in my anecdotal observation -- tends to like to use YC companies' technology where he can." Makes sense "IF" the feature is documented in an obvious place here on the HN site so we will AT LEAST know that it exists. In this case not only is the feature undocumented but it is also far more time-consuming to implement than it should be. What's more troublesome for me is the fact that it apparently offers no option to "unsubscribe" from threads after you're no longer interested in them -- which means you'll continue receiving emails on threads you're done with. Either that, or you only receive emails when someone replies to your specific posts, and maybe you won't get any email notices when people reply to other posts in the thread you want to monitor. All in all the notifo service is still unclear to me, but from what I read so far I have a feeling that it is too limited to do what I actually want, which is to get notices on any THREAD I want to monitor -- not just get notices when someone replies to specific posts of mine. " At the time Notifo was added, there were a bunch of threads. I think that, since that time, there's a bit of "you should be able to figure this out" involved. " If this is the case then in my opinion it is not only an ignorant but also an arrogant attitude. Why should I be expected to think that such a feature exists when nowhere is it explained properly? " What I provided was essentially a pointer to relevant search terms. " I know, but at least you got me started. HN didn't even to that much -- but they certainly could have -- simply by adding a sentence to the profile page stating that push notices are available on a limited basis at notifo.com. " I agree, it's not the clearest thing in the world. " I know it's not your idea of a good software implementation, but for the life of me I cannot understand why a company/service like HN -- which anyone might expect to provide clear and concise information on important features -- has not posted a simple explanation that (1) notification is available, and (2) here's how to get it. |
In that sense, pg has been quite -- perhaps incredibly -- accommodating. The world came and "spammed" his cool, informative, high signal/noise site.
He's tweaked and beaten back the worst of the, erm, "side effects" of this. I don't know him, but in my therefore somewhat uninformed impression, this is work he is willing to do, perhaps because it preserves the value he and parties he's concerned about find in the site.
But... He's not trying to sell you anything -- well, not anything about HN, per se. So, if a bunch of UI and instructions don't drive his own needs and goals, you can forget about them.
If people don't track and respond to comments, well, that also means a lot of... "defensive" comments that don't get made and therefore don't have to be policed. (I'm just... not even speculating, I'm making up one hypothetical result.)
I'm not writing this to defend the decisions, overly. Rather, to explain a bit of my own perspective on HN and perhaps how it might help a reader of this comment better relate to the site.
Sometimes, too, I find myself more in favor of such apparent decisions after I've observed for a while. When HN is not too accommodating, it may discourage some of those participants who make other sites increasingly into crapfests.