Does anybody use the HN hide button?

I wish there was a profile setting to hide the hide button.

I never use it and on mobile hit it on accident at least once or more every few weeks. It is confusing and annoying when a story inexplicably disappears.

This discussion has been informative, I hadn't known some of the use-cases for the feature.

I regret adding it, because I don't think it pays for the complexity it adds. But I haven't had have the nerve to cut it. If people are clicking it mostly by accident, that could be the excuse I need.

Also I told pg one time that I wanted to get rid of it and he said "oh don't do that!" I think he used it exactly once.

I use it all the time. I hide stories that don't interest me, which makes it easier to scan through the list later to see what I missed.

I often see posts that I know are going to be full of comments that will just irritate me, so hiding the post is the easiest way to not accidentally wander into a sea of comments that I’d rather not see.

Yes, every now and then to hide topics that I find depressing. Usually the ones that deal with loss of habitat and other human-inflicted issues affecting animals. Or around mistreatment of children.

I use it all the time. For me, it's the only way I can signal that I don't think this post belongs on HN. For example, a submission about reintroducing bison on tallgrass prairies.

HN is what we want it to be. We all make it. Personally I want to see stories about technology, software, startups, etc.

Yes, I use it on links I’ve read, or to hide topics I’m not interested in. Makes skimming the front page faster.

Please don’t take it away dang!

Only by accident. I figure if I'm seeing a story so much that I'm sick of it, I'm using HN too much.

if you have read posts, or find they are not topical to your interest in a thread, hide them and it will help avoid confusion, or posting misfires.

it also speeds up ocular search results.

The information density is high enough with the HN design that having content I'm not interested in displaying isn't much of a burden. On a site like slashdot where each story takes up a large chunk of screen space and hangs around, a hide feature is of more value.

I use it all the time, especially in longer threads. Mostly on mobile.

Edit: confused this with thread collapsing... Never used the hide button

When you keep refreshing the home page and are sick of half the articles that you don't care about, hide it!

Yes I use it all the time ! Since the feed is not really customizable, it is my only way to hide things I don't care about. I know it is not a downvote but mentally it makes me feel better to hide all Twitter and NYT links - I hit the hide button almost instinctively now.

I use it when I find a thread in a much larger thread veers to a tangent I won’t find much signal in. I find I use it a lot more on mobile too, though it’s a hard button to hit.

I appreciate removing complexity, but it’d make using the site much more noisy for me if dang were to remove it.

I coded up a snippet to make the hide button not load a new link after one is hidden. This way I can hide everything that I don’t care and only see 2-3 threads when I come back to HN, saving me a ton of time not having to scan the whole page for new stuff.

Often! Only really for stories I'm not really interested in that seem to be sticking to the homepage for a while, but yeah I hide an article or three every week or so

I wouldn't riot or anything if it was removed, but it's a little handy sometimes

I accidentally hit hide or flag all the time on mobile. I wish there was an easy way to view all your flagged posts (just like hidden ones), because for both I invariably try to undo it so I can see the post again.

I sometimes use it to hide infuriating but hard to resist stuff like the latest "safe space" rules at $university. Not often enough, at least I usually manage to avoid commenting.

The only time I use it is by accident. I've just learned that you can un-hide a post by going to your profile and clicking on 'hidden', then selecting un-hide on the post.

Yes, recently for the crypto, SBF and Musk stories because, oh god, there are so many of them. Otherwise pretty much not.

I hide the yc jobverts

Where is that button?