Comment by politelemon
3 years ago
Looking at the comments here, am I alone in being completely unaware of famous users here? While browsing HN I pay zero attention to the users and simply look at the content or comments.
3 years ago
Looking at the comments here, am I alone in being completely unaware of famous users here? While browsing HN I pay zero attention to the users and simply look at the content or comments.
I think I am like you. I recognize almost no one. It gives me this weird feeling that every comment comes from a unique person, and that the number of people commenting is approximately infinite. Which I understand rationally to be wrong, but still.
Concur, it feels lonely out in space. Do you think that if the username were subtly emphasized (bold, or on its own line) we would notice it more?
The value should be in the arguments and the merit of the comment itself, nothing should emphasize the user in my view. That said it’s sometimes nice to just click the name and see if there is a profile.
9 replies →
...depends on the medium?
My pc-at-home view is very different to my android 'materalistic' (app) view.
I rarely care about the username, though for the longest time i didn't spot/ think/ know about 'dang', actually being 'dan g'.
Unsure. But I don't think it matters so much actually.
If this was a problem, the solution would be to allow avatars, and give a unique one (like gravatar) to users who don't set an avatar themselves.
2 replies →
In a certain sense it is true that every comment comes from a unique person. You are not the same person you were yesterday :)
I love that HN is content-oriented. It's not the only criteria, Reddit is also content oriented, and it certainly has its flaws, but given its size and spread, I think it's still doing remarkably well.
However, people-oriented media are unbearable for me. LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook.. All are full of people who want to build a reputation, and even though everything about them are different superficially, they all feel very similar.
I agree, relatedly it's also nice to have a place where physical attractiveness doesn't get outsized attention. You'd think it'd be a commodity online at this point, but it's interesting to me it seems to never lose value.
On one extreme there's Instagram where that's the main currency, but even on Twitter (which is supposedly about what you write), where you just have the one profile photo/maybe occasional other pictures, you can see it draw disproportionate attention and skew content. Naturally Twitter then inserts these accounts that draw lots of engagement into the feeds of everyone else so they're not possible to easily avoid.
My experience with Facebook and Twitter, at least, is radically different. But then I don't follow many 'influencer' types on either.
I see the same usernames over and over and over again.
dang (obviously), WalterBright (D, C++), pc (Stripe), steveklabnik (Rust), antirez (Redis), jedberg (Reddit), gwern (gwern!), burntsushi (rg), patio11, fossuser, kube-system, api, sillysaurusx, smoldesu, dragontamer, ethbr0, and our favorite, hnthrow(away)?.*
Twelve years ago the userbase was much smaller, and a lot more people used real names either verbatim or stylized. It was much, much easier to know who people were. Now it's the same for me. Outside a handful of old timers that I recognize automatically, I don't really see usernames because the majority either start with "throwaway" or are otherwise gibberish to me. I myself abandoned my real name account 6 years ago, around the time I realized it was going to be a great risk to have ones name attached to ones thoughts permanently on the public web.
I recognize a few people if I look at usernames, but largely yeah, I mostly just read the comments. I thought that's what everyone does.
When I thought about it. I actually recognized your username from a hilarious no-bs image host post you had a few years back.
My experience is generally the same. I read for content. If I’m interested, I might click a profile link to see how long user has been on the site or if they have a personal site.
Haha, thanks, I do love IMGZ.org. It's by far the best image host I've made.
I am aware of one user, dang, and I learned he is the moderator of HN. Over time, I started to recognize his posts and to appreciate the enormous work he is doing each day.
"famous" :) . I'm on the list and wouldn't consider myself famous.
Thanks for putting this together, interesting to see the links of HNer's with a lot of karma.
Lots of other good suggestions as to what to do with this dataset, but I think it'd be fun to see a collection of the highest ranked comments by each user, perhaps with a minimum length. It'd be a way to get a collection of well thought out "essays" on different topics by use.
I've noticed that the heavily influential people are so busy with what they do that they don't pay attention to their fame. They let other people (who, to put bluntly, often aren't as clever or intelligent) praise them later, often posthumously in a best-selling biography.
We all have a scarcity of time on this planet, and I'm convinced that it's the duty of the excellent to (to quote William and Theodore from the 80s movie) "be excellent".
You're not alone. This submission showed me that I've interacted with some of the highest karma people on this site without even realizing it. I'd be lying if I said that didn't make me a little self-counscious.
Same, I couldn't tell you a single HN user if my life depended on it.
Very different to other forums I use. Fine with me.
dang.
And myself of course.
That's about all I could come up with on the spot.
yea same like Reddit. Usernames don't matter at all.