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Re:Ask HN: Why HN is so ugly? by ColinWright on Saturday April 19, 2014 @03:06PM (#7614356)
Yes, I've written scraper code that deconstructs the existing pages and inserts the data into a database. Your point?

I've also seen this question many, many time, looked at the proposed "improvements," and read the many discussions about the whole issue. Broadly speaking, lots of people have preferred the existing version to those proposed, often by a substantial margin. Regularly people say that it looks horrible, never have a seen something I prefer.

Feel free to try. Good luck.

Re:Ask HN: Why HN is so ugly? by reinier_s4g on Saturday April 19, 2014 @06:24PM (#7614941)
Right, we all have done crawling and scraping, I even have my own framework build for it, man do I love that stuff... but if you think that's the right way to go about it we are just not in the same page.

I understand you like HN as it is, and i guess an idea would be to have optional themes, that will be more democratic.

Re:Ask HN: Why HN is so ugly? by ColinWright on Sunday April 20, 2014 @11:25AM (#7617061)

    I have made this letter longer than usual,
        because I lack the time to make it short.

        -- Blaise Pascal
           Lettres Provinciales (1656-1657), no. 16.
           (According to WikiPedia[1])
I've replied at considerable length - despite its blunt tone and clear disagreement I hope you accept it in the constructive spirit in which I intend it. It's too long to include here, so I've posted it elsewhere[0].

[0] http://www.solipsys.co.uk/Writings/HN_7617061.txt

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Too_long;_didn%27t_re...

Re:Ask HN: Why HN is so ugly? by krapp on Saturday April 19, 2014 @06:40PM (#7615010)
The weird thing is, at a certain karma level, you can change the top bar color.

And that's it, as far as I know. You can't even change the top bar text color as well. It's like the one user-editable part of this site is also the least useful feature imaginable.