Surely I can't be the only one wondering why this kind of functionality isn't just built-in already (with option to enable/disable accordingly)? I mean, the site has been around for about 7 years now, and the whole 'community' aspect seems to be a big selling point, so it just seems odd...

An interesting thought. Perhaps users constantly coming back and checking their comments for replies, increases time on site, and the possibility users will interact further and view other posts.

But, the reality is probably that pg is just super busy and does not have the time and bandwidth to build features out. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. Reddit does not send notifications on comment replies either.

> But, the reality is probably that PG is just super busy and does not have the time and bandwidth to build features out.

I totally get that, it's the reason I mentioned the 7-year time window though. You'd think that something like that would've been done at some point during all that time by some interns or something by now, even if it was a super low priority. I'm guessing that "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" philosophy must just be really strong with PG in that case. Or possibly have some deeper reasoning like you mentioned.

> Reddit does not send notifications on comment replies either.

It doesn't send out notifications to your email or whatever, but it does still have a little inbox notification that lights up when you get new replies. Does something similar to that get unlocked here with enough karma? If that's the case, then I wouldn't know...

A little indicator up by your name would be a good idea, and presumably wouldn't be too difficult. Adding email into the mix would further complicate things, likely more than pg has time for (and honestly, I kind of like the simplicity of this site).

> You'd think that something like that would've been done at some point during all that time by some interns or something by now

Just in case you didn't know, the guy who helps manage the site is RTM. Yes, RTM.

There's no little indicator, however you can click the "threads" link up at the top to see all of your comments and their replies.

came here to say that

> Does something similar to that get unlocked here with enough karma?

not... yet...

YC definitely does not have interns

Ok, but I doubt PG still hand-codes every update to the site himself, and such small features don't seem like they would require a high ranking staff member to implement them either, which was kinda my point.

> Perhaps users constantly coming back and checking their comments for replies, increases time on site, and the possibility users will interact further and view other posts.

Joel Spolsky wrote a piece on Building Communities with Software back in 2003.[1] He reasons that allowing email notifications is "the best way to kill dead any young forum" and that such "checking back" as you describe helps a forum to achieve critical mass and survive.

[1]: http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/BuildingCommunitieswi...

Maybe that's the case. But as a new user, I find it very difficult to keep track of comments. Let alone any other standard social features that you expect from a community based site. Have a look at SO and see how friendly it is in comparison. HN even throttles link posts for new users; it's quite frustrating. When I post links from certain IPs (presumably because of my country), they don't get posted at all. The same links posted using a US based IP go through.

Reddit doesn't, but it does have the "orange red" envelope indicating new activity. And there is RES (browser extension) which adds notification that's visible even if the browser isn't focused. Reddit's API allows tools like Orangered (Mac status bar icon/notifier) and Alien Blue to built, as well.

I made a Mac menubar app for orangereds, using the Reddit API: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/reddit-notifier/id468366517?...

Any benefits over Orangered, which is free and open source? http://www.voidref.com/orangered/Orangered!.html

Better features in my opinion (Notification Center, modmail, modqueue, cakeday, audio alerts, etc.) but mainly the fact that Reddit Notifier has been updated in the last year!

https://github.com/voidref/orangered/commits/master

Orangered works and covers most people's requirements, so it's not like it needs to be updated. I'm sure your app is great, but I don't miss any of the stuff you mention, to be honest.

I remember at some point HN had built-in support for notifo, which was a notification startup at the time. When that went away, so did the notification feature.

The question is not only if it can be easily implemented (technically) but also whether it would have a positive impact on the quality of the comments...

(notifications = faster replies = more emtotion = less thinking = less value)

There's a huge non-sequitur there. You're assuming that people who aren't getting notified of their replies are thinking about what they're going to say on the topic. I don't think that's true. You see the reply to your comment, then you start thinking, then you reply to it. The time from seeing the comment to writing the reply doesn't change with getting notified or not.

> You're assuming that people who aren't getting notified of their replies are thinking about what they're going to say on the topic

No, i'm not assuming this.

For example one difference is that situation #1 is a surprise (you get a notification while you were in the middle of something else) and situation #2 is not (it's anticipated, you decide to check the HN website and decide to check for replies to your comments).

Situation #1 generates a startle reflex in some manner, whereas the anticipated visit #2 does not.

I think this really is the focus of it.

This is also the big reason there is an increasing delay on nested replies as you go to deeper. It forces you to calm down and think a bit more before coming back with an emotional reply instead of a thoughtful one.

Very cool! Any chance to open source it?

I've been running HN alerts via Zapier (my startup) + a webhook polling trigger with a URL like http://api.thriftdb.com/api.hnsearch.com/items/_search?&q=yo... (which is of course hnsearch.com's API). You can get them delivered via SMS/Twilio, IM/Gtalk/Jabber or plain jane email.

It's super simple to write your own. Periodically check https://news.ycombinator.com/newcomments and when a new comment appears, get the parent's author and send a notification.

I created HNMention (http://www.hnmention.com/) a while back.

It will notify you when someone mentions you in comment like how mention works on Twitter (@username).

Previous discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3004254

Just wanted to say, thank you for this! I've been using it for a while and it's so useful :)

Thanks from me also to the author, I can't remember since when I've been using this - super useful.

Nice! What would also be cool would be the following:

-1- Being able to follow a thread you haven't commented on. -2- Being able to follow a comment that is not yours.

The reason behind number 2 is that sometimes, you see an interesting comment and you'd be interested to know what people think about it, so you'll follow it and be notified whenever people reply to it.

From the form, it seems you can "subscribe" to any HN handle, not just your own...?

I don't know if you can use the same email for different handles, but with gmail for example you can produce an infinity of different email addresses.

I tried to put my e-mail address and "bambax" as HN Username, it returned "bambax is already a registered user of HN Notify."

So you can't use it if the person you want to "follow" is already registered.

Now, I tried "pg" and it subscribed me. The result of this is that if "pg" wanted to subscribe, he wouldn't be allowed.

I tried to unsubscribe. Unsubscription is e-mail based and not handle based. i.e: You can't unsubscribe from just one user, you unsubscribe from all the users, since you're taking out the root (e-mail address).

Now I have to subscribe again to get my own replies.

PS: Been notified of your reply by HNNotify :)

Ok, so obviously it needs work! I just subscribed while making the parent comment BTW, and find the service useful.

It would make a lot of sense to allow handles to be monitored by many different people; some users are super popular and I guess many people would like to "follow" them...

This is truly super!

I did something similar for RSS feeds and twitter: http://update-me.herokuapp.com - it is an RSS reader via Twitter. It DMs you post updates to feeds you subscribe to.

Could I request access to your API? I'm thinking of adding a HN subscription feature to @updt_me, something along the following lines:

1. User sends a tweet subscribing to thread ID, e.g. @updt_me START HN 6499036

2. @updt_me pings hnnotify with a callback to setup a subscription for the thread.

3. hnnotify pings @updt_me with thread-updates via the callback. POST payload, I think?

4. @updt_me DMs update to the user's twitter inbox! YAY!

I'm sure there's a simpler process than the one I outlined above. If you have any ideas, I'll be glad to hear them! :)

Say, what's the etiquette with scraping Hacker News? I thought it was forbidden, and I've seen HN-based tools that closed down because they got blocked. But if this tool is going to crawl HN regularly, presumably they've got that figured out.

was literally just thinking about this earlier today

would be nice if there was a chrome extension that added this via reddit-like functionality instead of having to send me an email

Ahh. I had a similar desire to code something like this up, but didn't because I found there was some sort if service available on your account called notifo. Wonder what happened to it...

Gl with this service. I definitely wanted it when I've done "ask hn" type things.

How sure are you that the message will get to the notified's inbox? Email delivery is not easily done.

Notifo was around two or so years ago, and I believe it was a startup that went through ycombinator, designed to be a "central notification center". It worked quite well for the short while I was using it.

They didn't take off though, and after saying they couldn't afford to keep servers running much longer, became silent. Any decent message notification system would require integration, so there is definitely an area left open.

Well a little ddg-ing and I got my answer. Looks like notifo is no longer.

Thanks for taking the time to check up on it. Also, I love DDG, but I haven’t found an appropriate verb to describe the action yet. So far, I’ve been using ‘duckducking’.

You should make one for Stack Overflow: when you ask a SO question, you're literally stuck until someone answers it.

Do SO questions come with their own RSS feeds?

If yes, then try using http://twitter.com/updt_me to 'follow' the questions - you'll get a DM whenever there are new answers in the RSS/Atom feed! :)

It's a self-learning project I built over a weekend, so it's kinda rough around the edges, apologies in advance! Do let me know what you think.

They do! Also, it turns out you can turn on email notifications to your answers for any question at any time, but only every 3 hours, ever day, or every week. I want them the second they happen, so I'm gonna try your RSS function!

Well, to be honest with you, I poll feeds with an hourly cronjob. So you may not get the DMs the second they happen, but you'll get them within the hour for sure... :-)

Good luck and tell me what you think. Also, any feedback would be truly really appreciated.

Appreciate the feedback - I still may try it, but that's not going to cut it for me. I'd still love to see it working though, so next question I ask I'll hook it up

Nice service, well done!

Needs a verification email, though. I get people signing up my email for pissweak revenge, and I have someone who signed up to iTunes using my email addres by mistake, and Apple spam doesn't have an unsubscribe link ...

I definitely don't need more notifications! :)

I don't, but I like projects that expand the functionality of an application. For example things like https://www.hnsearch.com .

I was just thinking the other day how much I missed notifo doing this.

would be nice if it could send notifications via one of the HN iphone clients or at least text message though