Poll: Ask or Leaders in Top Bar?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1185896

by pg • 16 years ago

25 30 16 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

I stopped looking at leaders because it just seemed impossible to join them. They're too far ahead. If you do put leaders back maybe you could add some entropy to our points.

anigbrowl• 16 years ago

We're not. I mean, I guess it's hard if you're obsessed with scoring, but if you make good comments and posts you'll show up there. My sex life has drastically improved since I hit the leaderboard, possibly because I spend less time crafting HN posts.

Locke1689• 16 years ago

God I hope you're joking...

JacobAldridge• 16 years ago

I like the leaders list, but I can always go there directly (as I can with, say, Best when I've been away a few days).

I will visit the Ask page more often than Leaders, and importantly so too will other (including new) visitors. It's one of the best features of the HN community because it depends on the quality of the HN community, so anything that supports it is a great idea.

poronski3• 16 years ago

Never used "leaders", but "ask" sounds like something that I would actually click on when the front page is lacking readable content.

(edit) Oh, and while you are reading this, pg - what happened to the idea of anonymizing all posts? I visit HN fairly infrequently and the voting favouritism seems to be on a steady climb. Many comments are clearly voted up because they are written by someone and not because they are actually interesting.

pg• 16 years ago

I never seriously thought of anonymizing posts. In a lot of situations that would be like anonymizing the lines in a play. But I am considering not displaying points on posts, which would address the same problem.

poronski3• 16 years ago

> ...which would address the same problem.

I don't think it would. Points determine the rank, so people would still be inclined to upvote their favourite users' comments if they see them engaged in a debate with someone else.

Anonymizing can be implemented by simply randomizing usernames, but in a way that keeps users uniquely identified in a scope of a single discussion.

For example (a) randomly generate discussion key (b) hash(key + username) (c) use the hash to pick a word from the dictionary and (d) use this word as a username substitute. For extra fun use the list of registered HN usernames as a dictionary :)

lambdom• 16 years ago

Ask, or maybe Lists.. There are many hidden treasures on this site, and "ask" might be a small step to help us discover some of them.

snprbob862• 16 years ago

What about "lists" itself?

woodson• 16 years ago

A link to Lists is already at the bottom of the page

mixmax• 16 years ago

Nobody notices the links on the bottom of the page though. I've seen comments asking about RSS and guidelines for the site even though they're in the links at the bottom.

patio112• 16 years ago

A/B test and see which one gets clicked more.

No, really, I voted for "Ask". I think it is vastly more useful for most people (people who ask, people who answer, and people who like reading answers from smart people), and the number who strongly care about who the leaders are (which is probably a number even smaller than the number of leaders).

noodle• 16 years ago

out of curiosity, why not both?

regardless, ask is much more useful on a regular basis. my usage of leaders was almost 100% vanity.

bootload2• 16 years ago

"... why not both? ..."

Simplicity: >6 items introduces "Paradox of choice", Swartz (ted, vid, 19:40 min) ~ http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/barry_schwartz_on_the_par...

davidw• 16 years ago

I know I would get confused and give up using this site were there to be more than 6 links at the top of the page...

I don't think the leaders link is useful though, it's best to dispose of it.

aquateen• 16 years ago

If there is an "ask" section, hopefully it will cut down on the ShowHN, TellHN, etc. which have no parallel to MetaFilter and drive me crazy.

frisco• 16 years ago

Wow, well that was decisive.

bootload2• 16 years ago

"... I prefer ask in the top bar ..."

The alternative is less specific.

revorad• 16 years ago

Ask, definitely. That's where people can give back to the community. If it weren't for that ask button on top, I would have probably missed this poll.

alanthonyc• 16 years ago

I click on "Ask" all the time. I think I may have accidentally clicked on "Leaders" once or twice in the past year and a half.

Mz• 16 years ago

I think I have said this previously but, at the risk of sounding like an idiot, will repeat my anecdote:

It took me several months to figure out where "the front page" was linked in the top bar. It just somehow wasn't intuitive for me, though it seems stupidly obvious now. There were several occasions where someone would refer to "the leader board" (meaning the front page) and I would promptly click on "leaders", then go "Doh! I've already checked that a dozen other times. I know that's not what they are talking about. Where is the blankety-blank mythical leaderboard?"

I grew up in a bilingual home. Maybe some of the foreigners can relate to my "dumb" behavior. (Yes, I am one of the 233 people who upvoted "I prefer ask in the top bar".)

Poll: Ask or Leaders in Top Bar?

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