[Magodo]

There are no communities like this because of Eternal September like phenomena. If HN acquires a million readers tomorrow, it'll be unrecognizable very soon. Nicheness on its own creates valuable communities. Another contributing factor is the 'appalling' UI. I love it, everyone else on HN loves it but an outsider is immediately repelled

[amelius]

> Another contributing factor is the 'appalling' UI. I love it, everyone else on HN loves it but an outsider is immediately repelled

I think it's quite funny that the UI we prefer is so different from the ones we create in our daytime jobs. And it's also very different from the UIs in most "Show HN" posts.

[rakoo]

> the UI we prefer is so different from the ones we create in our daytime jobs

Probably because we are not the ones who make the requirements

> And it's also very different from the UIs in most "Show HN" posts

... or maybe we are after all

[ehnto]

I would be interested to know how many active users HN has, maybe it's because I'm in the bubble but I certainly feel like most people I meet who are "online" already know about it.

I have certainly noticed "ebbs" of an Eternal September vibe here too, but they quickly dispel and the types of comments that come from it get downvoted anyway, so it's not as noticeable.

Regardless, I am so grateful to have a place of meaningful discussion, and of so many different topics.

[amcoastal]

You are certainly in a bubble. I've never met another person who knows what HN is, and I'm a data scientist.

[dang]

Around 5M monthly users depending on how you count them.

[E-Reverance]

I think that nicheness strongly correlates with quality, but HN isn’t niche in the same way a forum on a specific topic is niche. Yet HN is still of decent quality. I guess what I’m trying to say is, why aren’t there more of these high-quality yet diverse communities.

Edit: Maybe being high quality and diverse is its niche!

[quickthrower2]

Some subreddits are good though by the way and don’t have external Septembers. Also some discords. I’m a bit afraid to say which though!

[erikbye]

Yes, there are _many_ private subreddits with high quality content.

[raverbashing]

Doesn't even need to be private, it's usually a combination of strong moderation and/or a niche topic.

(though if it's too niche it might just be not that lively)

[erikbye]

Yes, agreed. There are decent non-private ones, too.

[quickthrower2]

Oops: s/x//

[Debug_Overload]

> Another contributing factor is the 'appalling' UI

This was actually my only quibble with HN. I love the simplicity and the fact that HN doesn't suffer from the "obesity" that plagues modern websites, but I felt it could use some features.

For instance, the ability to filter it by time (it does have that filter already for days, months and so on, but not hours), or have an official app for the site could be awesome. Or a notification system. I already solved the first two of these issues by using 3rd party solutions (hckrnews.com and Materialistic) but supporting them officially would be great. I didn't find a solution for the 3rd issue, though; at least not one that I felt was useful.

But others don't feel the same way. When I googled around to see why these issues weren't addressed, the consensus seemed to be that there's no need for it for one reason or another. Oh, well. Other benefits of HN outweigh these minor issues, though. So overall, not that big of a deal for me.

[RealStickman_]

If by notifications you mean replies to your comments, you can get that as an RSS feed.

[HnRSS](https://hnrss.github.io/)

[spidersouris]

Or email: http://www.hnreplies.com/ (by Dan Grossman)

[Digit-Al]

The only feature I'd like is to be able to collapse threads. When there's lots of comments it can sometimes be almost impossible to work out what comment someone is replying to.

[krapp]

Collapsible threads have been a feature for a while now. Click the "[-]" or "[+]" beside the comment to close or open.

[Digit-Al]

Oh, how weird. I've seen that [-] for god knows how long but it never even occurred to me that it would be a collapse button. For me it's in the "wrong" place, I'm used to expand/collapse functionality being on the left of the item to be expanded/collapsed. Thanks for that.