HN Follow

Consumer and social

hacker news client

SHOW HN2014

76points
51comments
#397of 2,272 in 2014
Top 18%of 2014 by points

How HN took it

MixedNo clear lean

4 positive, 6 neutral or asking, 1 mixed, 2 critical, out of 13 comments about the project. Thread score +0.14.

Privacy: 1 for, 1 againstIdea: 1 for, 0 against

The thread, comment by comment

Each row is a top-level comment and its replies, in HN's order. Select a cell to open that comment on HN.

positive neutral or mixed critical about another commenter or something else the maker

What HN said

What people liked

  • Simple to set up and pleasant to use

    From 1 comment
    • It is indeed simple to setup in a pleasant way, but there are plenty of trolls out there. Kudos nonetheless!
      KhalilK on HN
  • Feels like something HN should already have

    From 2 comments
    • I honestly don't know why this isn't already built into HN.
      porter on HN
    • I don't think it's random at all. From a would-be user's perspective it makes complete sense to me that this post took off and yours didn't get too far. I want to explain why,…
      austenallred on HN

Objections

  • Anyone can edit any profile without authentication

    From 2 comments
    • Well, all it takes is to add &edit=true to anyone's follow page...
      KhalilK on HN
    • Or just click the "Edit" button. I think it's intended (avoiding the need for some kind of auth).
      seszett on HN
  • Following users would turn HN into a popularity contest

    From 2 comments
    • Because it would undermine HN's goal that we vote for and comment on content on its own merits, not whether it was posted or commented on by someone you like. I don't think HN is…
      eevilspock on HN
    • As I was building my "follow" chrome extension... https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/hn2go/logdfcelflpgcbfebibbeajmhpofckjh (shameless plug) ... I definitely wondered…
      fivedogit on HN

Requests

  • Lock profiles so only the owner can edit them

    From 1 comment
    • Thank you! Seems like enough people have expressed concern about the ability to edit any profile. I'll add something simple to lock a profile down soon.
      film42 on HN
  • Verify users via a code placed in their HN profile

    From 3 comments
    • You should verify users by giving them a code they have to put in a comment somewhere.
      3rd3 on HN
    • Probably in their HN profile would make the most sense.
      austenallred on HN
    • That’s a much better idea. It wouldn’t even require storing credentials since the profile page can be updated pretty quickly.
      3rd3 on HN

Questions

  • Is there an open-source HN clone for a small group?

    From 1 comment
    • Is there a current open-source version of HN that one could use to create a small HN for a group of friends? How close of a clone to HN could one create using Wordpress?
      RRWagner on HN

Alternatives named

  • HNWatcher

    From 1 comment
    • I have been using HNWatcher for this - I especially appreciate the emails it sends. I'll take a look. Thanks for sharing!
      nickstinemates on HN
  • HN2Go Chrome extension

    From 1 comment
    • Same here. Finished it a couple of days ago. https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/hn2go/logdfcelflpgcbfebibbeajmhpofckjh https://github.com/fivedogit/hn2go-backend…
      fivedogit on HN
  • follow-hn Chrome extension

    From 1 comment
    • Cool! I've been working on a little Chrome extension that does something similar (and has a quite similar name ;) ): https://github.com/napoleond/follow-hn Have been meaning to…
      napoleond on HN

Category, keywords, summaries and labels on this page were made by AI (Thread Reader v2) and not checked by hand. Each point links to the comments it came from.

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