Ask HN: How do you get notified of reply comments on HN?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35833792

by redonkulus • 3 years ago

9 17 3 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

I'm not sure how others do it, but how do you know when some one replies to your comment? Do you continually refresh the "Threads" page throughout the day?

I hope not; it seems woefully inefficient. Hopefully, there is a smarter, simpler way to do this.

troydavis• 3 years ago

Point your RSS reader at https://hnrss.org/, namely https://hnrss.org/replies?id=redonkulus

redonkulus• 3 years ago

Hmm, I haven't used an RSS reader in many years. Thanks for the tip though.

mostlysimilar• 3 years ago

I just go to my profile -> comments page and take a few seconds to check my most recent comments.

I have this extension that highlights any new comments, which makes it a lot easier. https://github.com/plibither8/refined-hacker-news

capableweb• 3 years ago

I hope not; it seems woefully inefficient. Hopefully, there is a smarter, simpler way to do this.

It's inefficient on purpose, as otherwise it's easier to get into flame-wars, or something like that (paraphrased from a dang/pg comment somewhere, sometime).

Personally I just check the /threads page whenever I have time, and check for new comments. Sometimes I spot new replies to my comments because I come back to the whole comment section of a interesting submission to check in on other ongoing discussions.

mindcrime• 3 years ago

Do you continually refresh the "Threads" page throughout the day?

Yes.

I hope not; it seems woefully inefficient.

It's that way by design, as I understand it. Pg wasn't trying to create a traditional discussion forum when he built HN and from what I can recall reading/hearing, he intentionally did not implement reply notifications and suchlike.

That said, there have been various 3rd party "HN notifier" services over the years, like hnnotify.com (or something like that) and hnreply.com (or similar). Not sure if any of those are still up and running or not though.

billylo• 3 years ago

https://www.hnreplies.com/

dmbche• 3 years ago

Using an app like Hacki gives me a nicer feel to HN in some respects - it notifies you on replies.

quickthrower2• 3 years ago

For many things you can rely on others replying for you! For personal things keep a disposable email in your HN profile.

hsjqllzlfkf• 3 years ago

You can't, and it's intentional. They say getting notified of responses increases flamewars. I think it makes a lot of sense - if people can't talk to each other they can't get into flame wars. I think they should just go all the way and remove comments altogether.

hammyhavoc• 3 years ago

You absolutely can via third-party services.

n8henrie• 3 years ago

RSS (several tools available)

philonoist• 3 years ago

There is a Telegram bot that worked fine till date. I found it on HN itself.

https://t.me/hn_replies_bot

An unrelated tip, an official Gmail bot exists in Telegram for those who want to declutter ads and stuff - https://t.me/gmailbot

Unfortunately, it goes radio silent on recursively discussed replies between any other people who took heated debate under your reply.

I hope there is also a ChatGPT service which summarizes each HN comment with its own input and backing up with citation of its criticism/opinion. That makes spirit of HN eat magic mushrooms and steroids. To avoid it being an intrusive eye-sore, we should hover over a symbol at the end of each comment which pops up those paragraphs.

I can only imagine!

eimrine• 3 years ago

it seems woefully inefficient.

Why receiving some non-sensual comments in a random time of a day do you consider efficient? Don't you have a life with more important events than some random dude's comment? Every time you are receiving the beep you are inevitably losing some context, maybe even get thrown off from "a stream".

For me reading HN is OK only before and after work, not instead. Maybe I would like to read some reactions to my ancient comments and I do not know where I have aquired additional +10 karma points over the last night, but theese are so unimportant things in my life that I will not lose anything if I dot't see it eventually.

danwee• 3 years ago

I don't. Whenever I come back to HN, I may click on my username at the top right and see if my latest comments were replied. If I have the time to reply then I reply, otherwise no reply is ever attempted.

mdwalters• 3 years ago

I don't.

muzani• 3 years ago

Yeah, I do it that way. It's a feature, not a bug. I turn off push notifications on all other social media too.

desaiguddu• 3 years ago

HNnotify is a free service

Ask HN: How do you get notified of reply comments on HN?

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