# Submit Link (Similar to Reddit or Hacker News)
**URL:** https://meta.discourse.org/t/submit-link-similar-to-reddit-or-hacker-news/20382
**Category:** Feature
**Created:** [September 24, 2014, 2:34am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/submit-link-similar-to-reddit-or-hacker-news/20382 "2014-09-24T02:34:46Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@johnarce](https://meta.discourse.org/u/johnarce)
#### Post date: [September 24, 2014, 2:34am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/submit-link-similar-to-reddit-or-hacker-news/20382/1 "2014-09-24T02:34:46Z")
How about a feature to submit link similar to reddit or hacker news?
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### Author:  [@Frank](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Frank)
#### Post date: [September 24, 2014, 3:18am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/submit-link-similar-to-reddit-or-hacker-news/20382/2 "2014-09-24T03:18:02Z")
But that is not really discussing anything. Likened more to broadcasting. Which is spammy.
Its not a bad idea. There is a use for that kind of thing but it doesn’t feel like it fits well with Discourse and discussions.
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### Author:  [@lukelarris](https://meta.discourse.org/u/lukelarris)
#### Post date: [September 24, 2014, 4:19am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/submit-link-similar-to-reddit-or-hacker-news/20382/3 "2014-09-24T04:19:18Z")
This would be better as a plugin than as a core feature.
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### Author:  [@vukasin](https://meta.discourse.org/u/vukasin)
#### Post date: [February 21, 2015, 10:08am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/submit-link-similar-to-reddit-or-hacker-news/20382/4 "2015-02-21T10:08:29Z")
I suppose it could be grow into a discussion about the item linked, with the link serving as an invitation to discussi it.
Should anyone roaming here know of such a plugin that has been built in the mean time, I’d appreciate if you could point it out to me.
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### Author:  [@riking](https://meta.discourse.org/u/riking)
#### Post date: [February 21, 2015, 10:22am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/submit-link-similar-to-reddit-or-hacker-news/20382/5 "2015-02-21T10:22:29Z")
Why not just… start a topic with the link in it?
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### Author:  [@trandatnh](https://meta.discourse.org/u/trandatnh)
#### Post date: [February 21, 2015, 10:26am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/submit-link-similar-to-reddit-or-hacker-news/20382/6 "2015-02-21T10:26:08Z")
I am doing it: [hacker news - Dạy Nhau Học](http://daynhauhoc.com/c/hacker-news)
But this is a forum then people prefer to have a brief description about the link.
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### Author:  [@vukasin](https://meta.discourse.org/u/vukasin)
#### Post date: [February 21, 2015, 10:41am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/submit-link-similar-to-reddit-or-hacker-news/20382/7 "2015-02-21T10:41:57Z")
Fair question, not sure I can explain why I feel there is such a big difference between HN-like mode and what you’ve proposed.
It might boil down to additional action from the user. If she needs to click through to the discussion and then click again to the link, if this is something that is not of interest to her after all, she would need to go back to the discussion, and then go back again to the list of topics. (If I’m not missing something, Discourse newb here.)
Additionally, this could also provide information to the users regarding the type of discussion. If it’s a discussion regarding a topic expanded upon elsewhere, something I did/said/found interesting, this is, in my mind, signifies a different sort of discussion from something more open ended, a question, thought or an observation expressed by the user to the community.
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### Author:  [@codinghorror](https://meta.discourse.org/u/codinghorror)
#### Post date: [February 21, 2015, 11:03am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/submit-link-similar-to-reddit-or-hacker-news/20382/8 "2015-02-21T11:03:27Z")
One of the extensibility points in 1.2 is to make it easier to extend the share dialog to add custom share sources. So this does exist now.
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### Author:  [@trandatnh](https://meta.discourse.org/u/trandatnh)
#### Post date: [February 21, 2015, 11:55am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/submit-link-similar-to-reddit-or-hacker-news/20382/9 "2015-02-21T11:55:33Z")
> [@codinghorror](#):
>
> So this does exist now
I don’t get this @codinghorror. Could you tell more about this?
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### Author:  [@vukasin](https://meta.discourse.org/u/vukasin)
#### Post date: [February 22, 2015, 9:01am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/submit-link-similar-to-reddit-or-hacker-news/20382/10 "2015-02-22T09:01:50Z")
+1 @codinghorror; looked at [Discourse 1.2 released](http://goo.gl/b3siUo) / [Discourse Version 1.2 - Announcements - Discourse Meta](http://goo.gl/3ft89l) couldn’t find the feature?
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### Author:  [@codinghorror](https://meta.discourse.org/u/codinghorror)
#### Post date: [February 22, 2015, 10:05am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/submit-link-similar-to-reddit-or-hacker-news/20382/11 "2015-02-22T10:05:47Z")
[https://meta.discourse.org/t/discourse-1-2-extensibility-game-plan/22714/21?u=codinghorror](https://meta.discourse.org/t/discourse-1-2-extensibility-game-plan/22714/21)
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### Author:  [@commonpawn](https://meta.discourse.org/u/commonpawn)
#### Post date: [October 29, 2015, 12:19am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/submit-link-similar-to-reddit-or-hacker-news/20382/12 "2015-10-29T00:19:35Z")
(Sorry for reviving this)
+1 this would be really useful to have as a feature.
Submitting a link, instead of creating a topic with a link in it, is useful because it saves the user a click and a trip into the thread to see the link.
Discourse is amazing and awesome for a discussion board, but for some uses it would be great to have a Links Category or something like that. External links are also discussion topics. A good example of how this is being done is [https://www.designernews.co/](https://www.designernews.co/) where they have a feed which consists of discussions and links.
Quick mockup below
If this is out of scope for Discourse, i would also be interested in getting in touch with people I could hire to build it for me.
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### Author:  [@Mittineague](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Mittineague)
#### Post date: [October 29, 2015, 4:37am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/submit-link-similar-to-reddit-or-hacker-news/20382/13 "2015-10-29T04:37:27Z")
> [@commonpawn](#):
>
> External links are also discussion topics
Hmmm. I saw no discussion at the site you linked to.
Discourse does not exactly have what I would consider to be a small code base.
(In fact, TBH, as much as I like some of the features that have been added in the year and a half that I’ve been a member here I’m hoping it doesn’t become “bloated” over time)
I imagine code could be written so that Discourse could display a page with a list of external links, but IMHO it would be over-kill for a site that is essentially nothing more than a link farm.
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### Author:  [@commonpawn](https://meta.discourse.org/u/commonpawn)
#### Post date: [October 29, 2015, 5:32am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/submit-link-similar-to-reddit-or-hacker-news/20382/14 "2015-10-29T05:32:28Z")
> [@Mittineague](#):
>
> Hmmm. I saw no discussion at the site you linked to.
You can comment each link: [https://www.designernews.co/stories/58237-rip-sunrise](https://www.designernews.co/stories/58237-rip-sunrise)
> [@Mittineague](#):
>
> I imagine code could be written so that Discourse could display a page with a list of external links, but IMHO it would be over-kill for a site that is essentially nothing more than a link farm.
Sites like Reddit, Hackernews, etc represent other kinds of forums where the discussions are centered around external links. This might not be a core feature in discourse, but could maybe be an optional feature or plug-in? I think the whole UX of Discourse would serve something like this very well.
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### Author:  [@Mittineague](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Mittineague)
#### Post date: [October 29, 2015, 5:51am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/submit-link-similar-to-reddit-or-hacker-news/20382/15 "2015-10-29T05:51:41Z")
> [@commonpawn](#):
>
> You can comment each link
Aha, thanks. I missed the “# comments” links
I’m still thinking it would be more conducive to generating discussion if the OP invested some time writing a post instead of posting a simple link.
And I know I wouldn’t want to be tasked with moderating such a site, but to each his own.
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### Author:  [@codinghorror](https://meta.discourse.org/u/codinghorror)
#### Post date: [October 29, 2015, 6:32am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/submit-link-similar-to-reddit-or-hacker-news/20382/16 "2015-10-29T06:32:21Z")
I am not sure I understand this request.
What’s so hard about:
1. Select “New Topic”
2. Paste in the URL of site you want to discuss in the body
3. Add a title
4. Submit topic
5. Watch the discussion replies roll in
It just seems like we’re looking for a solution to a problem that really doesn’t exist. If people want to discuss links, it’s pretty easy – the only thing I can think of to improve it is some process that would auto-title the topic based on the `` of the article in the URL? That’s about it.
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### Author:  [@commonpawn](https://meta.discourse.org/u/commonpawn)
#### Post date: [October 29, 2015, 4:42pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/submit-link-similar-to-reddit-or-hacker-news/20382/18 "2015-10-29T16:42:48Z")
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What you describe could of course work fine, but since some discussion boards might mostly be around external links you might want to make it easier for users to get to the link and not having to click twice to get there. (Click title of thread \> click link)
I could imagine something where a user could choose a category called Links and then would only have the option to write title and post a link when creating a new topic.
When looking at the overview of topics on the front page of my discourse installation i would then be taken directly to the link by clicking the title. If i want to comment on that link i click ‘comments’
**Why would anybody want this, you might ask.**
Normal forums are great to discuss original content on the actual forum. However, there are a lot of use cases for discourse which are similar to [Reddit](https://www.reddit.com/), [Hackernews](https://news.ycombinator.com) or [Designernews](https://www.designernews.co/) - basically an easy way to post links to something externally, but have a discussion about it on the site.
This is basically the opportunity that [Telescope](http://www.telescopeapp.org/) is going for. Telescope is just not as good a platform as Discourse.
In my case i am working on something similar to Designernews, a place for people to mostly post links and discuss them but also a place to ask questions to the community - more like traditional forum threads. Since we anticipate mostly link content we want to make it super super fast to get to the actual link and not doing to much clicking into topics and out of topics, which is why we were looking for a way to put the actual link in title of the thread on the front page of the forum if the category of the content is a ‘link’
Hope it makes sense 😄
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### Author:  [@Mittineague](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Mittineague)
#### Post date: [October 29, 2015, 4:53pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/submit-link-similar-to-reddit-or-hacker-news/20382/19 "2015-10-29T16:53:27Z")
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I’m fairly sure I understand.
Rather than have the “focus” of the forum be listing discussion topics, the “focus” would be listing external links.
I say “focus” because there is some overlap,
I fear such a shift would prove too inviting to fly-by link-droppers and though the number of members would be great, the number of quality members would be not so great.
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### Author:  [@commonpawn](https://meta.discourse.org/u/commonpawn)
#### Post date: [October 29, 2015, 5:11pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/submit-link-similar-to-reddit-or-hacker-news/20382/20 "2015-10-29T17:11:57Z")
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I think it really comes down to what kind of website you’re trying to create. In our case, we’re moving from a blog format to a forum/hacker news format and we know that people on our site only is interested in posting links to what is going on in the industry and discuss it on the website. We also know that most people will not be interested in writing long forum posts. So we anticipate content like:
- 90% external links, e.g. “New Adobe illustrator out now”
- 10% questions & traditional forum posts, e.g. “How do i turn on pixel preview in adobe illustrator”
And there is currently not really any good open source software for something like this. We’ve only been able to find Telescope so far.
Btw. this is what it looks like when you’re trying to create a post on Designernews. You choose to either write something **or** post a link. (Not saying it should be the same for discourse)
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### Author:  [@kam44](https://meta.discourse.org/u/kam44)
#### Post date: [January 6, 2016, 10:08pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/submit-link-similar-to-reddit-or-hacker-news/20382/21 "2016-01-06T22:08:41Z")
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Hello @commonpawn;
Did you find a solution to modify discourse, for a designernews-like ?
[Next page](https://meta.discourse.org/t/submit-link-similar-to-reddit-or-hacker-news/20382.md?page=2)