Comment by walterk | Hacker News Reader

Comment by walterk | Hacker News Reader

Over a week ago, I put in a feature request to give users a karma point daily just for visiting the New page:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=433004

Another idea is simply to display the number of new stories submitted since you last visited the New page:

  new (26) | threads | comments | leaders | jobs | submit

Edit: A third, less obtrusive option is to use an asterisk:

  new* | threads | comments | leaders | jobs | submit

Perhaps it only appears when a given number of new stories have been submitted since you last looked at the page. Like, say, 20. Possibly user-configurable.

I really like this idea to put a number next to new, making it feel like an inbox. People will end up clicking it based on their need to "empty the inbox" built up from email management.

DEAR GOD NO! Please don't do this, most of us already have enough inboxes.

The only thing I like about non-time-series sites like HN is that it just isn't in their nature to ever be something inbox-like. It's the sole saving grace of having a voting system, especially with vote-ranked threaded discussion -- it keeps it from ever being something I have to "catch up with" regularly.

An actual inbox requires many clicks to clear all unreads, assuming you actually read them. What I'm proposing clears all unreads with one click.

Alternatively, just have an asterisk to indicate that there are new submissions you haven't checked out yet:

  new* | threads | comments | leaders | jobs | submit

That's probably the most minimalist incentive you can give to increase New pageviews, and fairly easy to implement. (Edit: updated the original post with this suggestion.)

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