Comment by brudgers

10 years ago

I have the feeling that creating a new domain is going to be a way of growth hacking one's story toward the HN front page. Green is a big bump in a world of greys.

5 comments

brudgers

Reply
dang  10 years ago

Fluff tends to get flagged off the front page pretty quickly, so it may not turn out to be a problem. But if that does start to happen, please let us know. We can turn it off, or maybe turn it off on the front page.

I'm surprised that the green sites turned out to be controversial because I have found them helpful as a moderator and a reader, but in retrospect I can see why a visually noticeable change would be. We're not attached to this feature.

  • brudgers  10 years ago

    This morning, I just felt that the green was striking and drew my attention to those articles. Admittedly, a lot of it could be my habits and expectations. But I know I wouldn't ordinarily have focused on them based on other factors.

    I'm not being controversial, though now that I think about it, there is a shift in the semantics of the color: it used to be reserved exclusively for people, now it is also being used for "things". That may account for some of the undercurrent for resistance to change.

    I can see why it is helpful for moderation. I guess the real question is does the green spike the level of participation in moderation activities? As a reader, it doesn't really highlight the sort of information that I make my decisions on.

    • dang  10 years ago

      We just turned it off. These were all experiments, the green sites generated more negative than positive feedback, and it's fine for an experiment to fail.

      Also, the same information is available by clicking on the domain: if you see only that story in the list, it means there has only been the one submission from that site.

      2 replies →