Most favorited articles by the top 10k most active HN members (2020)

https://observablehq.com/@tomlarkworthy/hacker-favourites-analysis

by aragonite • 3 years ago

143 21 3 years ago

observablehq.com

aragonite• 3 years ago

Discussion at the time: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24351073

paulpauper• 3 years ago

So You Want to Learn Physics

this one is so popular, but I wonder of the millions of readers how many actually carried this out

Jagerbizzle• 3 years ago

I bookmark things like this all the time, and my bookmark list is effectively a black hole.

I managed to get through two separate “learn something about complicated topic in one weekend” this year, so I’ll call that a W.

Wolfenstein98k• 3 years ago

Similar for me. It is almost as if once I bookmark something, it disappears from the internet. I never see it again.

jpm_sd• 3 years ago

Bookmarks are a rare example of Write-Only Memory, or WOM.

bdcravens• 3 years ago

No clue if I'm typical, but I almost never use the favorites feature. I see I did twice last year, and that was ten years after I joined.

macintux• 3 years ago

I managed to hit rate limiting on the site as I tried to retrieve my full list of favorites. I appear to have ~2000 submissions favorited for "future reading".

Somehow I doubt I'll make my way through the entire list.

alberth• 3 years ago

0 favorites for me.

Been on HN 12-years.

jsolson• 3 years ago

Yeah, zero favorites, joined in Feb 2007.

RandomWorker• 3 years ago

Well this explains 90 faves putting a topic at nr 1.

echelon• 3 years ago

I typically favorite ~30 articles a week. I favorite more often than I upvote.

I currently have 5,490 [1] favorited articles.

I tell myself I'm training an interest classifier on this data...

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/favorites?id=echelon&p=183

serial_dev• 3 years ago

I use upvotes exclusively, and I assume it's the typical user behavior: Algolia HN search lists posts sorted by upvotes, and the most popular post has 6k+ upvotes, whereas the most favorites had (3 years ago) 90 faves.

https://hn.algolia.com/

Modified3019• 3 years ago

Yeah typically I just dump things in the “reading list” on phone, which I eventually exfiltrate and clear every year or so on my phone, or add it to a list via the onetab extension on desktop.

Most of this is just “emotional support bookmarks” because I’m a pathological data hoarder that apparently needs to catalog and sort the entirety of human knowledge. Saving a list of links tricks my brain into releasing this intrusive anxiety and keeps me from engaging in this odd sort of compulsion.

But out of a thousand or two links a year, there are in fact a few dozen times I reach back to reference or use something I found.

Haven’t learned physic though. So far unit conversion, geometry and algebra have been all I’ve needed in my line of work in regards to equation solving, as I did agricultural plot trials for a bit.

sireat• 3 years ago

For some 10+ years I did not use favorites (or was even aware that it existed). Delicious then pinboard seemed enough.

With pinboard often being sluggish these days, I've been using HN favorites more and more.

doe88• 3 years ago

Like star on Github I use favorite on HN as bookmarks.

maroonblazer• 3 years ago

I'm not super-familiar with observablehq.com. Is there a way for us to run this query for 2023? Or is that only possible by the author of this list?

xwowsersx• 3 years ago

Ok, that Web Design in 4 minutes post is awesome.

kqr2• 3 years ago

Somewhat ironically his https://jgthms.com/css-in-44-minutes-ebook is 404

LTL_FTC• 3 years ago

I have this thing where I favorite articles so I can read them later and never do. Tsundoku but digitally and so way easier on my back when I move.

remarkEon• 3 years ago

I do this too and maybe make it through ~70% of what I've upvoted.

rismay• 3 years ago

I didn’t even know you could favorite…

Most favorited articles by the top 10k most active HN members (2020)

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