Hacker News Reader

Comment by abstractbill | Hacker News Reader

I think it is dangerously engaging for me, unfortunately. The danger lies in the fact that its so easy to rationalize my time here as being good (for my career, for my brain, etc).

It's an extreme idea, and I don't know of any other website that does it, but I think HN might be addictive enough that the only surefire way you could keep me off it is by actually switching it off at certain times of day!

View on HN

Well then, the solution is to make it look less like work, so your brain isn't fooled.

Get rid of the tasteful orange-and-grey colour scheme, and go for a purple-and-black design inspired by videogame forums. Set the font to Comic Sans. Add user avatars, dancing hamsters, a "funny sound effect of the day" button, and rename the site from Hacker News to "Chat About Random Crap With Strangers From The Internet".

Like graphic bitrex. I don't think I could stand it.

What is a "graphic bitrex"? The first result for "graphic bitrex" on google is this comment.

Bitrex is a bitter compound, used as (among other things) an additive to industrial alcohol to make it unappealing: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denatonium

I think user generated tags go a long way in filtering out which stories I'd like to read/explore. (I used to read Slashdot until I found HN a few weeks ago). For now I just use the number of comments as good first approximation.

I think these tags would be useful:

[programming] [startups] [drama] [meta]

It wouldn't be that hard to make an auto-tagging userscript using Delicious.

I've considered doing that. What if we just shut down HN e.g. from 11 am to 1 pm Pacific = 2 to 4 pm Eastern? This feature wouldn't be much use for people Australia, but at least it would be helpful for some users.

What about detecting IPs and switching by region?

There can be no way to get around it. I will use a proxy if I have to, helllllllp!

Seriously, this is a nice gesture, but like most other forms of social welfare, I don't think you can save people from themselves through things like this.

This would be like a drug dealer not dealing for certain part of his regularly scheduled day. I can only imagine that this would make it worse because your cutting off supply and thus increasing demand. You'll probably increase traffic :).

That's a scary thought. I think the HN community is very aware of time wasting. There appears to be a constant stream of don't-waste-time encouragement.

HN is a good personal investment if you don't take the "fake work" bait[1]. Any non-fiction book is the same - you can spend hours reading every word/sentence/paragraph/page, or scan and focus with a purpose. It's easy to fall into passivity.

[1] Perhaps there is a better system to bring "good investment posts" to the top.

I'd like a 'timeslot' feature that I could set myself eg. block my account all day except between 10pm and 11pm. This actually occurred to me previously when I activated the noprocrast feature, which was good also

This is a damn good idea, better than the existing noprocrast.

I like this idea a lot, except knowing me, I'd clear my cookies and cache and just read HN not logged in until I could login.

Maybe a way to get around this is to remove the links (not the text of the links, but the link functionality itself) unless you have an account and are logged in.

I guess in the end, if you don't have the self-control needed not to throw away your time reading about things (instead of doing things), you probably aren't going to benefit from being blocked from HN. You'll find something else equally unproductive to fill that hole.

Then you could just create a new account!

Another idea that would make this work even better might be to have any changes in your blocking settings only take effect a week after you make the changes. It's hard to have discipline about settings for right now, but it's easy to have discipline about settings next week.

I know technical solutions are fun, but why not just practicing good ol' fashion self-control?

Self-control is hard and is a limited daily resource. I'd rather spend that effort somewhere else.

Technical solutions entail fake work to avoid..fake work. Oh the irony.

Well usually good ol' fashion self-discipline comes with physical barriers between you and time-wasting opportunities. For instance going to the library every day to study - does that show self-discipline, or a chronic lack of self-control (that would allow one to study at home)? When you do your work on a computer, or worse, on the internet, infinite distractions are only a mouse-click away. Even the thought of this can be distracting.

Hmm. good idea. Maybe I'll try this.

Perhaps some tweaks could be made to encourage more valuable content on Hacker News. For example, a link to a new Ruby gem that may solve a problem I have makes me more productive. Links about Facebook, Google, Apple, TechCrunch, etc. drama is junk food.

This is basically a lite version of what Woot does right? If that's any indication it would turn your users into crazed fanatics.

The best way to get someone to continue a behavior is to give intermittent positive reinforcement.

I predict shutting down HN for a few hours a day would make us even more addicted.

I think a 4 hour window is more like it. That's a lot of work that will get done.

"... This feature wouldn't be much use for people Australia, but at least it would be helpful for some users. ..."

Might not be that bad if you work at night - Aus time.

You can cookie the user and suggest that they have been served their daily ration of HN. :)

I actually like this suggestion.

Maybe an inline comment targeted at the user - in red or otherwise highlighted - saying: "you've been reading HN for X hours today, maybe it's time to enjoy some sunlight?" or similar text :)

I think a slightly customizable version of this would be useful, though too much customization can lead to people developing instinctive defenses against the scheduled shutdown (like I sometimes do with maxvisit/minaway by opening enough tabs all at once to occupy me for the minaway duration).

If you were to shut off HN during a set time period everyday, don't do it during lunch time. Eating lunch and reading HN is something I do that is _actually_ productive, or at least more productive than eating lunch and not reading.

I completely agree. I've tried noprocrast but I it's too easy to shut off or work around. I do think that its a real addiction.

To be fair though I am a bit of a news junkie and a horrible procrastinator in general so even without HN I'm sure I'd find other ways to waste time.

news.ycombinator.com spends a lot of time in my hosts file.

Yes, mine too. And in my wireless router's blocked hosts list as well.

mine too, but then I type hackerne.ws

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