I don't truly see value in someone else hand-picking a few stories and assuming those are the ones I want to read. HN has a simple, easy UI to pick a few stories to read. If there are topics I don't want to read... I just don't.
Basically, if you are trying to solve the problem of "I don't want to read news", that is a different problem than "I want a hand-picked list of stories".
One kind of collaborative filtering algorithm is "Personalized PageRank" (PPR). Like the regular PageRank you do a bunch of random walks on the graph of users and items where the upvotes are the edges of the graph. What makes it "Personalized" is that you start each walk from the user you are making recommendations for.
If you limit the walk to just 3 steps then it becomes "users who upvoted what you upvoted also upvoted this".
What I like about it is that each recommendation is supported by concrete shared liked items which makes each recommendation easily explainable to the user.
I implemented this algorithm for my project (https://linklonk.com/item/3292763817660940288) that includes RSS feeds as sources of information and it's been working well as a prioritizing RSS reader. It would be great to see this algorithm tried on a bigger website like HN where there are so many upvotes/items/users to work with.
In that case every user would be a curator of content that they have chosen to upvote. If you happen to like someone's upvotes (ie, you upvote the same content as they do) then you would see their other upvoted items ranked higher for you.
The OP is just one curator that has decided to make their liked content public, but PPR would make every user of HN a potential curator of content for you.
HN is a bit of an echo chamber at times, but I still like it. I think with collaborative filtering though HN would end up a filter bubble and the users would be worse off.
Filter can't control the source, only what to come through. "Garbage in, garbage out" is harshly true. I wish for a lot of Show HN and its traction gains.
I don’t mean to be rude but if you don’t see the value, just don’t use it? You’re perfectly fine not reading stories on HN that you don’t care about, so just add this site to that list and move on. Not everything has to solve YOUR problem.
Perhaps you don't see the value because you don't value your time in the same way that others do. Skimming through a bunch of titles I'm not interested in does have a cost. The cost is exacerbated if viewing the titles via the New view which includes lots of spam. Also every news site displays hand-picked articles so nothing new there. I've often wished HN would implement a basic story categorization feature so that users could specify their preferences which would apply a basic filter to the homepage story list. Anyway kudos to the author of this new tool!
I question anyone willing to browse New also values their time in wading through all the spam just to be one of the first commenters in hopes of getting internet points no one cares about.
To add to that, there is also a lot of clickbait that, for many people, if they see it they are going to jump in, read the discussion, and comment, even if it's not particularly healthy. "Hide" can work for this, having a way to never see it in the first place could be better, for some
Without analyzing how useful it is, I clicked in and found a few links I missed on HN before but very interested in. I'd say it's useful at lease for me today, which is a pure plus
Basically, if you are trying to solve the problem of "I don't want to read news", that is a different problem than "I want a hand-picked list of stories".