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3181 sats \ 14 replies \ @chungkingexpress 5 Jan 2023 \ on: SN new editor testing playground meta
@k00b Have people been asking for this?
If you have had a lot of comments requesting an easier to use editor fair enough, but I write on SN every day and I feel like this is just extra clunk and the current editor works flawlessly (It ain't broken).
I would advise you to please be very hesitant to make a change like this. It impacts those of us who are actually contributing to this site the most. I certainly would rather compose my posts in the current editor.
In the new one tab indentations don't even work and the icons are a bit too big and I don't see any extra functionality as you still have to paste in images from an external host etc.
If you were to tweak the current editor, I would suggest making the little markup help button on the right (M with down arrow) open a small alert box showing basic markup options like reddit instead of going to a new page.
Besides that, I feel there are other pieces of functionality that you could work on that would have higher ROI and not impact contributors, such as "recommend posts", DM functionality, etc.
I consistently notice that people really struggle adding photos to SN. Those folks have definitely been asking for a more familiar experience.
On the other hand, the topic of whether photos even belong on SN at all is one worthy of debate.
Aside from the photos, one potential benefit of a rich editor tool is that it may attract people to use SN as their blog, opening the door to more in-depth, thoughtful content.
Is there a middle ground that you think can support those who don’t want to deal with markdown and retain those who don’t want SN to turn into Reddit or Facebook?
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I'm curious for his answer.
The middle ground I've imagined is like Github's editor. The buttons insert the markdown for you.
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i never noticed the write & preview tabs on github before, is that what inspired the current SN editor?
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Might've. Most markdown editors have a preview tab.
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I have to agree with this. Eat the sunken time and move on. I told @k00b already but the last person I know that moved to WYAOANDNA or whatever ended up shutting down their startup because of it.
It already has very poor markdown support. Slack went this similar direction and I aggressively despise it.
How does this provide substantial value to users and how is this gaining more users on sn? Near biggest feature development cost, right? Will this substantially provide as much value as the other features?
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What is WYAOANDNA? Google doesn't help me.
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It is a joke I think. WYSIWYG.
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I think there can be a fallacy of change = progress. SN has landed on a goldmine in terms of easy, minimal UX that just works. I can look at it on a 24" monitor or an iPhone 7, or whatever, and it just works. It blows Bitcoin reddit out of the water. The risk of changing that is extremely high.
I reckon content discovery (recommended posts etc) and absorbing more of the millions of Bitcoin reddit users is the growth vector to explore here.
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I reckon content discovery (recommended posts etc) and absorbing more of the millions of Bitcoin reddit users is the growth vector to explore here.
How would recommended posts work?
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It's an attempt to make the core product - posting and commenting - easier to use.
Measuring a feature's absolute performance, let alone relative performance, is hard to do as you know.
I tend to believe though that making a product easier to use is exactly what moves the needle on usage (esp. when compared to tacking on features).
It needs to be both easier to use and better though. I'm not sure it's better as is right now.
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Thanks for the feedback. You make good points and I share your concerns.
There's a significant number of users that can't figure out markdown. Then there's another subset that don't even understand the point of using it over a WYSIWYG. On the other hand, literally anyone can understand a well done WYSIWYG. Do we want to keep the high contribution hurdle of learning/appreciating markdown to post here?
In the new one tab indentations don't even work and the icons are a bit too big and I don't see any extra functionality as you still have to paste in images from an external host etc.
It's explicitly a beta. I'm merely seeking feature parity at this point. Both of these would eventually be supported.
The goal is to make an editor good enough that
- it's usable to people unfamiliar with markdown
- an easier experience even for people familiar with markdown
We aren't there yet afaict but it seems worth exploring at the very least.
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(Have been sharing my thoughts on the stacker news Telegram, posting here for posterity!)
I think a deep-dive into the long-term vision is important.
Are people who are unfamiliar with markdown going to realistically contribute high-quality content and posts to a website about Bitcoin and technology? I think the vast majority of this cohort have been using Hacker News, Reddit, etc for the better part of a decade (would be a good piece of research to find out though).
I appreciate there may be a longer-term business goal to make a more general purpose website for the public that uses sats instead of upvotes. But this is a completely different design paradigm which would need to be built from the ground up. Trying to marry a specific niche forum with a broad purpose social media will just bring out the worst of both worlds I think.
Once the paradigm of WYSIWYG thinking comes in, then it is a slippery slope towards Facebookization, bringing in avatars? Then reels? This then leads to the Eternal September that has been lamented about.
I think there could be some very minor adjustments to the interface to give some better hints on markdown (Again, looking at old reddit). Simple text replies to posts are easy enough for anyone currently so there are no issues there. Nobody is being stopped from posting because of markdown.
Currently the quality of content on this site is literally a 10/10 and I am just raising the flag that any changes to core ingredients that are not fully validated and considered concerns me as it only risks making things worse!
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I hear what you say about making things overall better as a whole. Probably depends on the direction you want to take SN, which we ourselves have no grand vision insights into. If the lack of easy to use bolds and underlines turns people off, then twitter would never have taken off.
I'm arm chairing here but build something people want despite a comment box being one way or another. I'm curious where the users are in this thread that have been waiting for this. Perhaps they don't know how to comment because it's using the old editor here.
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Perhaps they don't know how to comment because it's using the old editor here.
lol ... to be fair, dissenters are usually much louder
then twitter would never have taken off
Twitter has character limits. Not exactly apples to apples.
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