I'm always on the lookout for a new social networking news site, even though I desperately hate them so. First Slashdot, then Digg, then Reddit, then news.ycombinator, then desperate boredom. By this point I was a seasoned (some might say jaded) veteran and many other sites I didn't even bother with, closing the window in disgust after a few short seconds. It's hard to find a site that matches my interests (or, more accurately, doesn't obscure them) so I was very interested to hear about Mixx, which offers customizable pages. It's great, except that there are a few really obvious things that are missing that just end up ruining the experience.

First off, there's a lot of crap in the system. Now, this is a given with any site like this; the popular stuff rises above the bullshit (except in the case of reddit where it's the other way around). Unfortunately, there isn't a high enough worthwhile-to-bullshit ratio for Mixx, so a lot of the bullshit is being pulled up anyway. This would be fine if the bullshit was just boring, but it's spam, and you can only report one link per minute or something like that. The main problem with Mixx, however, is that once you downvote a link, it stays on the fucking page. Now, I know that some people prefer it this way, but when there are a lot of very, very, very uninteresting and lame stories that I don't want to see, including spam, you really need to give me the option to hide all that. Instead, I still get to stare at the link, only this time the downvote button next to it is checked. It's like the links are begging me to change my mind. "Maybe if he stares at it some more he'll turn around and like it!" Fuck off.

Their local section is great - no, wait. Scratch that. It's a great idea and would be great if it worked. Instead, yet again, it's full of spam and stories I don't care about - that I've already marked as not caring about!

If you're going to give me the choice to hate, at least let me see my anger have more of an effect that a number decreasing and a red box being checked. I want to see the damn thing buried and gone forever.

On the plus side, aside from that Mixx hardly sucks at all. If they give me the option to hide links I might even use it consistently.