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Comment by PeterHolzwarth | Hacker News Reader

@dang, always been curious about this: why are posts like this grey text vs dark test? It's difficult to read, being so low-contrast. I assume it's based on numbers, the poster, up/downvotes etc - but it seems a poor use of those systems given it sacrifices readability. Is it just a light mode thing? Is it just me?

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As far as I know this is a relic from the PG days. It was done to keep the focus on URL based submissions, and avoid people using the platform as a text/blogging platform (at the time, Reddit was rising, and self posts there were already very common.) URLs were dark, text was meant to support the URL and was lighter.

I think the color actually got lightened a few times.

(@dang doesn't work - but someone emailed this to hn@ycombinator.com)

It's nothing so sophisticated - I've just been reluctant to change things for a bunch of reasons, some perhaps better than others.

I still have the idea of letting users upload their own preferred CSS to make HN look how they prefer. Perhaps little projects like this will become more feasible as AI tools are flattening the development curve. Is this something people would consider helpful?

It’s funny but after I said it was way too low contrast, checking back after https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50313284 had time to marinate, I thought “oh maybe ‘fixing’ this would have unintended consequences”.

CSS upload is interesting, with benefits over userscripts. Perhaps it’d avoid feature creep compared to adding the specific option to increase text post contrast (if there are other oft-requested changes). Folks would find ways to share their CSS whether or not the settings page aided in discoverability via gallery or a search link or whatnot.

Curious if new or logged out users browsing the default site face an accessibility issue with the text contrast: that would still support making the change for all with no opt-in required. (Then your custom CSS idea could be used to get back to the legacy gray text if anyone misses it.)

Was the text light grey before you clicked the comments? Typically the link turns from almost black to light grey after you visit the site, just like a normal link will turn from blue to purple after you click the link to indicate you have visited the site. In this post for example the link goes to the 'Tell HN:' so the link goes directly to the comments. Could it be you did not pay attention until you had visited the comments once already??

It's been 22 mins since I left my comment - the original post is still light grey (that doesn't mean much, but as this post accumulates upvotes, I don't yet see any change in test color).

It’s way, way too low contrast.

Edit: “@dang” apparently doesn’t ‘work’, but emailed this to hn@ycombinator.com

I always assumed it was the down arrow affecting it, but I have always giggled at the fact that people with sharp eyes have to endure the bad posts while others do not

I think that’s true for comments but not posts.

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