I guess either you're not listening, or you're simply in such
a different place that you're not in a position to understand
what I'm saying.  I really don't have a lot of time just now,
but I'll try once more. This won't be as carefully phrased as
I would otherwise aim for - apologies in advance if this is a
little blunt, aggressive, or otherwise non-constructive as it
would be if I could spend the time.  In particular, this is a
"raw brain dump," and it's not clear that I'll agree with all
of it tomorrow.  I'm not even sure I agree with all of it now.

In fact I've just skim re-read it and can confirm that (a) it
is a real rant, (b) I don't agree with all of it (although it
is close enough), and (c) it's most definitely more blunt and
aggressive than I intended.

However ...

When you produce something, you use the best practices of the
time compatible with getting something out that's useable, so
you can (a) get an audience or market, (b) get some feedback,
(c) assess whether it's of value, and (d) iterate.

When HN was first written it was produced programmatically (as
it still is), and getting the layout to work on all browsers,
on all platforms, with minimum effort and maximum result was to
use tables, spacing, *etc,* basically everything you see.

So that was done. Then effort was put into getting an audience,
generating the content, iterating on the scoring and filtering,
and generally working on creating a site that was worth reading
in the first place.  Pretty layout, "modern" facilities such as
detailed CSS and similar, and other aspect were very much not
the priority.  More, I can imagine that getting cross-browser
compatability was significantly difficult.

(This is all speculation - I wasn't there.  The site went live
about 7.5 years ago, I've only been here in one form or another
for 5.5 years.)

With time the technology has changed, but to re-create the UI
using modern techniques would (a) take time, (b) cause changes,
(c) require feedback and iterations, and (d) suck resources into
a black hole with no obvious limits to the time and effort that
would be expended.

And, to be honest, as it stands it actually works.  Yes, people
like you say "My God! My God! My eyes are bleeding!" and others
who are at the bleeding edge of UI design will scoff at using
tables for layout, images for arrows, and similar *faux pas.* 
But to be blunt, I find this sight a refreshing change from the
"gorgeous" layouts and "beautiful" design much lauded on other
sites, where I simply feel like my face is being pushed through
mush, and it's impossible to find the controls I want because
they are so delightfully and artistically blended into the muted
and artistic background.  With a small investment of time on my
part I've found that HN is crisp, clear, efficient, effective,
and gets out of the way to let me read.

In short, I feel that your point of view is limited.  All you
seem to see is that it offends your sense of modern web site
design and implementation.  There are more things to be taken
into consideration, and I invite you to (a) try to see the other
point of view, (b) offer concrete alternate implementations, and
(c) recognise that given the history of this question and the
answers previously received, *nothing will happen.*

However, if you really do want to do something, you can.  You
can produce an alternate design, scrape and unpack the data,
insert the data into your design, and offer it for comment,
criticism, feedback, and iteration.  Will you do that?  If not,
why not?  Is it because you're not sure of the benefits?  If
the benefits are as great as you claim, surely you should do
it and get the acclaim that would necessarily follow.  If you
feel, on the other hand, that the alleged benefits will *not*
be immediately obvious to everyone, then why would the current
site maintainers spend the time on it?

And so, finally, to address the specific point you just made.


reinier_s4g> I wake up every morning to HN and my eyes hurt.

me> Then write your own style sheets and GreaseMonkey script
me> (or equivalent) to fix your rendered. When you're convinced
me> that you've got it right and that it's significantly better,
me> then offer it.

reinier_s4g> Have you seen the HN HTML layout and CSS code?

me> Yes, I've written scraper code that deconstructs the existing
me> pages and inserts the data into a database. Your point?

reinier_s4g> Right, we all have done crawling and scraping,
reinier_s4g> I even have my own framework build for it, ...
reinier_s4g> but if you think that's the right way to go about
reinier_s4g> it we are just not in the same page.

That's not what I'm saying - I was answering your question. 
Yes, I have seen the HN HTML layout and CSS code.  More than
that, I understand how it's built, and have previously reversed
that construction to get the data.  So yes, I've seen the code.
No, I don't think that's the right way to "fix" the site for
everyone.  I'm at a bit of a loss as to how you could think
I was suggesting that.

What I'm saying is that you've come in with multiple criticisms,
few concrete suggestions, and no clear evidence that you've
done anything to research and understand earlier discussions on
this question. I am suggesting that instead of just complaining
about how bad it is that you should (a) try to understand the
history, (b) demonstrate your understanding, (c) do something
specific and concrete to demonstrate your "obviously better"
design.  Simply moaning about it, and saying how bad it is and
how much better your ideas are, is not going to get the results
you want.

reinier_s4g> I'm doing some research on previous posts regarding
reinier_s4g> the HN interface, but judging by some answers i'm
reinier_s4g> getting in this post i can imagine their fate, why
reinier_s4g> plainly criticize instead of brainstorming about
reinier_s4g> the proposed ideas and trying to get to a common
reinier_s4g> ground?

You're assuming that your assessment of this being a big problem
that needs to be solved, and that you're the one to help make
this all happen, is right.  I'm inviting you to consider that
that's not how it works in the real world. Consider that there
are reasons why things are the way they are, and that things
you think are obvious might actually not be the case.

reinier_s4g> ... according to you what are the aims and audience?
reinier_s4g> I think you are implying you know the aims and
reinier_s4g> audience better? can you please share? I'm part
reinier_s4g> of the audience as well...

I would hesitate to say that I know the audience at all well.
In fact, I would say that I don't know it much at all.  What
I would say is that I find the site easy to use, easy to read,
easy to navigate, and a refreshingly crisp change from the
uniform mush I find elsewhere.  I've said that before, and
the comments have received multiple up-votes, so I'm not the
only one.

To finish with, some pure idle speculation.

Consider CraigsList (which I've never visited) and eBay and
Amazon.  Designers I know claim that they are total disasters
from an aesthetic design point of view.  And yet presumably
vast amounts of money and time put into designing them have
resulted in what you see.

Maybe, just maybe, these "bad designs" aren't bad at all.