I think its a fantastic UX decision. If you care about a discussion you're having you'll check your replies. Telling you someone replied to you encourages lazy responses.
Ask HN: Why doesn't HN alert users in some manner to new replies?
151–160 of 239 posts
Re: Ask HN: Why doesn't HN alert users in some manner to new replies?
#152If I see my karma go up, that usually tells me that someone may have replied to something I said. Otherwise, I'm glad there's no alert for new replies. Conversation should be intentional. If I'm gonna be reading what someone said in response to me, I better already have enough motivation to check back and see if someone replied. When I don't check back, it's probably because I've got something more important to focus…
I use a custom style sheet to hide my karma score (except on user profile page where I can go if I'm super curious). It's broke an unhealthy cycle I would subconsciously try to craft the perfect reply and get an addiction-inducing high from some big karma boost. Or big productivity-killing negative response.
I've had an ... interesting ... experience having made the Leaders page, and at one point suggested to dang that the feature might be removed.
I later heard from someone else who'd made the list and had somewhat similar responses to it.
HN reduces gamification in most respects, but not all, and even in the ones that remain the psychological impacts are interesting.
Yesterday's Black Bar for example. It's a subtle note, but I immediately knew what it meant (and that there would be inevitable questions about its meaning).
Re: Ask HN: Why doesn't HN alert users in some manner to new replies?
#153This has been addressed by dang before, one representative pastequote from a recent (ish) comment: Yes, I think we'll continue to avoid the notification system, not just because of flamewars but also because (relatedly) it's not so compatible with curiosity. Push notifications seem to jack up the nervous system in a way that's good for engagement but not necessarily for users—we all experience this elsewhere on the i…
Then provide a daily or weekly digest. What's the point in contributing to a black hole with no feedback?
Re: Ask HN: Why doesn't HN alert users in some manner to new replies?
#154HN barely holds together as it is. Despite the simplicity of it the site undergoes frequent outages and performance degradations. Long threads get paged in an absolutely insane way because of performance problems and a fix has been underway for several years according to the stock message dang leaves at the top of such threads.
Re: Ask HN: Why doesn't HN alert users in some manner to new replies?
#155If I see my karma go up, that usually tells me that someone may have replied to something I said. Otherwise, I'm glad there's no alert for new replies. Conversation should be intentional. If I'm gonna be reading what someone said in response to me, I better already have enough motivation to check back and see if someone replied. When I don't check back, it's probably because I've got something more important to focus…
I have thought for some time that votes should come in two flavors. X if you make a comment, X/10 if you don't. Drive-by voting is of little value, and for abusive posts that need downvoting we have flagging to accomplish quick removal. Giving more weight to people who write a reply would encourage more conversation. Of course, then there is a question of whether it would encourage more thoughtful comments or not, an…
Collaborative filtering ... has issues. Most simple or single-factor fixes don't address the larger problems.
Much of the time, it tends to amplify interesting, and diminish nonproductive contributions. Spam, trolling, clickbait, and vacuous responses seem to get quickly downvoted and flagged on HN, which is good. Comment voting has numerous other connotations, however.
- Simple and short expressions tend to be disproportionately upvoted. They're easier to assess. Sometimes they are insightful, most often, only tapping a common sentiment.
- Controversial views tend to be downvoted. Sometimes controversy is flamebait, sometimes it isn't. There's not much distinction made between the two.
- Truth isn't a popularity contest. HN often, but not always, avoids this trap. True expertise in complex topics is rare, but at times necessary. An epistemic system should reflect this to a greater extent (though also be aware of misuses of such claims of expertise or authority).
- Topics strongly shaped by remunerative interests, ideological alignments, and tribal allegiances tend to perform most poorly under popular voting systems. There is a List of Things HN Cannot Discuss, and most of these seem to fall under this umbrella. Dang has voiced frustration with this on occasion, and I've had numerous email discussions with him about this ... more in the past than recently, I think. HN is guided to an extent by its moderator team. It is not directly steered by them. And the overall philosophy is broader than critics of the principle current political tribes seem to admit.
Collaborative filtering / the wisdom of crowds was all the rage in the late 1990s / early 2000s. Whilst it has some uses, there's been an overreliance on it.
I'm not entirely sure how best to patch the system, though I have some thoughts.
- Bounding ratings to a range rather than a simple sum seems more useful.
- Weighting individual's ratings by their own assigned mean similarly. If someone always hands out 5s (on a 1--5 scale), then those are re-scaled to a median score. Rescaling ranges similarly: someone offering only 1s and 5s might see that rescaled to 2 & 4 repectively.
- Factoring in expertise, or rescaling based on other factors such as truth, tone, conciseness, accuracy, references, etc., might help. Goodhart's law applies. But sometimes, what you want isn't the average opinion of the passengers, but a competent pilot.
Another point is that HN doesn't aim simply to be a place where truth is sought, but a conversational platform. Excessive strictness would probably diminish this.
Re: Ask HN: Why doesn't HN alert users in some manner to new replies?
#156This has been addressed by dang before, one representative pastequote from a recent (ish) comment: Yes, I think we'll continue to avoid the notification system, not just because of flamewars but also because (relatedly) it's not so compatible with curiosity. Push notifications seem to jack up the nervous system in a way that's good for engagement but not necessarily for users—we all experience this elsewhere on the i…
It's a beautifully quiet design. If I want to check if someone came back I can, and sometimes I don't have the energy to look. The quality is the effect of all these little things, and not something one could affect top down in another design.
I suspect there is a ton of sophisticated stuff going on behind the scenes, but even if there were, the effect is still too good to complain about.
Re: Ask HN: Why doesn't HN alert users in some manner to new replies?
#157This has been addressed by dang before, one representative pastequote from a recent (ish) comment: Yes, I think we'll continue to avoid the notification system, not just because of flamewars but also because (relatedly) it's not so compatible with curiosity. Push notifications seem to jack up the nervous system in a way that's good for engagement but not necessarily for users—we all experience this elsewhere on the i…
Yeah as a reddit troll myself I enjoy the freedom of never caring and pursuing flaming here... people like me get addicted to the reaction and start writing only to trigger reactions. Here at least I post constructively sometimes.
Re: Ask HN: Why doesn't HN alert users in some manner to new replies?
#158Earlier quoted context omitted.
I really like the lack of push notifications. Sometimes I'll make a reply during my morning coffee, do some work, then check back in the afternoon to find hundreds of replies and deep threaded discussion. The sense of pride I get from being able to start a healthy thread without more participation is opposed to the jacking of the nervous system dang is reflecting on. In some way, it builds my confidence in this commu…
I agree too. I am able to comment and add to a thread without feeling like I have to then defend my opinion or go back and answer replies. There's no responsibility, in a way, with commenting. I can add an anecdote, or ask a rhetorical question, or even crack a joke, and then move on with my curiosity. It's a good system, and makes it feel very calm here.
What makes a forum interesting IMO is the back and forth discussion that sometimes happens, as long as it's respectful and productive. If you don't occasionally check and answer replies, you'd miss out on the chance of having your opinion challenged and having to defend or amend it, which is a good opportunity for growth. Otherwise it's akin to throwing your thoughts into the well and walking away. You might as well do that on Twitter and turn off notifications.
I do think HN should have a simple notification system, with a configurable period of up to, say, a week after posting, and having the ability to mute threads. Just so that you don't miss any initial discussion on new posts, but without feeling overwhelmed or distracted by posts that are no longer news.
Re: Ask HN: Why doesn't HN alert users in some manner to new replies?
#159This has been addressed by dang before, one representative pastequote from a recent (ish) comment: Yes, I think we'll continue to avoid the notification system, not just because of flamewars but also because (relatedly) it's not so compatible with curiosity. Push notifications seem to jack up the nervous system in a way that's good for engagement but not necessarily for users—we all experience this elsewhere on the i…
I agree. My preference is not to have any reply notifications. Most of the time the comments or article have aged out of view within a day or two, and no new comments are being posted there anyways.
If it is something important and could be positive, you could always try contacting the poster directly if they have an email on their profile.
Re: Ask HN: Why doesn't HN alert users in some manner to new replies?
#160Earlier quoted context omitted.
I agree too. I am able to comment and add to a thread without feeling like I have to then defend my opinion or go back and answer replies. There's no responsibility, in a way, with commenting. I can add an anecdote, or ask a rhetorical question, or even crack a joke, and then move on with my curiosity. It's a good system, and makes it feel very calm here.
What makes a forum interesting IMO is the back and forth discussion that sometimes happens, as long as it's respectful and productive. If you don't occasionally check and answer replies, you'd miss out on the chance of having your opinion challenged and having to defend or amend it, which is a good opportunity for growth. Otherwise it's akin to throwing your thoughts into the well and walking away. You might as well…
You also "miss the opportunity" to engage in an endless, repetitive non-constructive back-and-forth which is much more common than a back-and-forth-of-personal-intellectual-growth. It's hard to believe notifications (rather than, say, deliberate personal interest and effort) would help drive the latter while we know for a fact they help generate a lot of the former.