I've considered doing that. What if we just shut down HN e.g. from 11 am to 1 pm Pacific = 2 to 4 pm Eastern? This feature wouldn't be much use for people Australia, but at least it would be helpful for some users.
I'd like a 'timeslot' feature that I could set myself eg. block my account all day except between 10pm and 11pm. This actually occurred to me previously when I activated the noprocrast feature, which was good also
Another idea that would make this work even better might be to have any changes in your blocking settings only take effect a week after you make the changes. It's hard to have discipline about settings for right now, but it's easy to have discipline about settings next week.
I like this idea a lot, except knowing me, I'd clear my cookies and cache and just read HN not logged in until I could login.
Maybe a way to get around this is to remove the links (not the text of the links, but the link functionality itself) unless you have an account and are logged in.
I guess in the end, if you don't have the self-control needed not to throw away your time reading about things (instead of doing things), you probably aren't going to benefit from being blocked from HN. You'll find something else equally unproductive to fill that hole.
Well usually good ol' fashion self-discipline comes with physical barriers between you and time-wasting opportunities. For instance going to the library every day to study - does that show self-discipline, or a chronic lack of self-control (that would allow one to study at home)? When you do your work on a computer, or worse, on the internet, infinite distractions are only a mouse-click away. Even the thought of this can be distracting.
This would be like a drug dealer not dealing for certain part of his regularly scheduled day. I can only imagine that this would make it worse because your cutting off supply and thus increasing demand.
You'll probably increase traffic :).
Seriously, this is a nice gesture, but like most other forms of social welfare, I don't think you can save people from themselves through things like this.
Perhaps some tweaks could be made to encourage more valuable content on Hacker News. For example, a link to a new Ruby gem that may solve a problem I have makes me more productive. Links about Facebook, Google, Apple, TechCrunch, etc. drama is junk food.
Maybe an inline comment targeted at the user - in red or otherwise highlighted - saying: "you've been reading HN for X hours today, maybe it's time to enjoy some sunlight?" or similar text :)
That's a scary thought. I think the HN community is very aware of time wasting. There appears to be a constant stream of don't-waste-time encouragement.
HN is a good personal investment if you don't take the "fake work" bait[1]. Any non-fiction book is the same - you can spend hours reading every word/sentence/paragraph/page, or scan and focus with a purpose. It's easy to fall into passivity.
[1] Perhaps there is a better system to bring "good investment posts" to the top.
I think a slightly customizable version of this would be useful, though too much customization can lead to people developing instinctive defenses against the scheduled shutdown (like I sometimes do with maxvisit/minaway by opening enough tabs all at once to occupy me for the minaway duration).
If you were to shut off HN during a set time period everyday, don't do it during lunch time. Eating lunch and reading HN is something I do that is _actually_ productive, or at least more productive than eating lunch and not reading.
