Has_not_been_viewed_much

Original Article ↗ Hacker News Discussion ↗

An experimental webpage taps the Art Institute of Chicago’s API to surface artworks flagged as “has_not_been_viewed_much,” letting visitors browse pieces that have attracted fewer than 200 views since 2010. Commenters explore how this kind of tool both celebrates overlooked art and inevitably changes the very metrics it relies on, drawing parallels to forgotten library books, obscure Spotify tracks, and low-view YouTube videos. Technical details such as Cloudflare access issues, how view counts might be computed, and even the ergonomics of the boolean field’s name round out a broader reflection on discoverability, curation, and the long tail of cultural artifacts.

Scope of the “has_not_been_viewed_much” flag

  • API query shows ~113k artworks labeled as rarely viewed; the count visibly drops as people use the site.
  • The flag appears to mean “fewer than ~200 views since 2010,” but implementation details are unclear.
  • Unclear whether views via third-party sites count, and whether bots/crawlers are excluded.

Impact of the site on the metric

  • Some worry the site “ruins” the metric by pushing low-view works over the threshold, eventually emptying the pool.
  • Others argue that real human views are not “inflation” and that drawing attention is the point.
  • Concern that if the cutoff date and threshold are hard-coded, the list may eventually return nothing.

Technical and UX issues

  • Users report “failed to load” images while API calls succeed, likely due to Cloudflare anti-bot/Turnstile behavior, especially with VPNs.
  • Complaints about not being able to expand images to full size and about losing the currently shown work when navigating away and back.
  • Curiosity about backend design: cron job vs triggers vs heavy joins used to derive the flag.
  • Discussion about how views are tracked (client-side vs server-side, app vs web) and why aggressive crawlers haven’t pushed counts higher.

Boolean naming and API design

  • Debate over naming: some prefer a positive flag like has_been_viewed_much; others like the explicit negative as the “interesting” property.
  • Alternatives like rarely_viewed and the idea of exposing a numeric view count with range filters are suggested.
  • General warning that negative boolean names tend to cause confusing double negations in code.

Cultural responses and analogies

  • Many find the site addictive, like a slot machine of obscure art, and share favorite discoveries.
  • Strong appreciation for sketches, studies, and underloved works; comparison to least-viewed Wikipedia articles and zero-play songs/videos (Spotify, YouTube).
  • Parallel drawn to libraries deciding which “unloved” books to cull: tension between efficient curation and rescuing forgotten works.
  • Some skepticism about whether the world needs more attention on long-tail content, versus the romantic appeal of resurrecting it.