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Ask HN: How do you read and follow the discussions on big threads?

news.ycombinator.com

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Re: Ask HN: How do you read and follow the discussions on big threads?

#71

Post by defrost »

PaulHoule wrote: post #53
defrost wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With timecode metadata and heatmaps to highlight rapidfire back 'n forth and stuff? Semantic scoring to rate quip chains Vs. slower, longer considered interactions? Ways of highlighting high frequency commenters, perhaps rating frequent flyers by degree of interest in what they have to say and weighting threads by "participant rating". There are many ways to go in this space.

The best idea I have now is to scan HN and make a list of commenters who said something like “I am working on a PhD in this topic”.

If you're serious you might want to reach out and chat with https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=dang https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=jedberg for their thoughts.

There are a couple of angles, straight up representation of forum | subreddit threads after the conversation has moved on, "live" tracking comments as conversations progress, and moderation of live threads (including swatting | detecting trolls, spambots, griefers, etc) (oh, and retro sweeps looking for tail end spammers and their puppet networks eg: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40800160 (with "ShowDead" on)).

In post analysis there's the whole ball of wax around decrufting chat threads to pull the meat best served to (various) AI, either for training, company | group intelligence, etc. Oh, and fingerprinting across multiple sources looking for common {group | individual} traits

The intrinsic issue with excluding all but those with a current PhD on chat would be the tossing of, say, those with dated PhD in theoretical physics or somesuch.

@dang obviously mods here and likely has a slew of lisp-y scripts | tools for giving various views, @jedberg was about for much of the early evolution of reddit and took part in a lot of discussions about presentation and implemented a few.

There'll also be useful input from any of those who've moderated | admin various largish forums | channels, etc over the years.

Re: Ask HN: How do you read and follow the discussions on big threads?

#72

Post by Leftium »

Try viewing this thread via my HN web app: https://hw.leftium.com/#/item/40952952

It does a few things to make viewing big threads easier:

- Collapses large threads into a toggle button showing the number of replies in that thread.

- Highlights the OP

- Follow any timestamp link to "focus" on that sub-thread, like this: https://hw.leftium.com/#/item/40953431

- The author of the parent comment becomes the highlighted "OP."

I have a bookmarklet that toggles between viewing on HN and my web app.

My app was heavily modified, but original credit goes to https://hackerweb.app/. The original author had an idea to make HN threads more like Reddit threads, which he may have implemented in the mobile app rewrite:

- iOS: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/hackerweb-hacker-news-client/i...

- Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=cheeaun.hacker...

Re: Ask HN: How do you read and follow the discussions on big threads?

#73

Post by TeMPOraL »

gsich wrote: post #55
TeMPOraL wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You mean in sane; every sane discussion place looks more like subreddit (or, often enough, is a subreddit). > Trees devolve into a 1on1 discussion, also other branches can have the same discussion, leading to redundant arguments. 1 on 1 is a feature, as it's never truly 1 on 1 - anyone can jump in instead of just listening to the conversation. As for other branches having the same discussion, the solution is the oppo…

>You mean insane; every sane discussion place looks more like subreddit (or, often enough, is a subreddit). No I meant sane. Tree style is insane. You can have different topics or categories but all topics should be linear. >1 on 1 is a feature, as it's never truly 1 on 1 - anyone can jump in instead of just listening to the conversation. They could, but rareley do. On Reddit this requires clicking many links.

> They could, but rareley do. On Reddit this requires clicking many links.

It doesn't, unless you're using the new UI, at which point it's kind of your fault anyway, because Reddit is entirely unusable as a discussion place with its new UI. You have to click to load more than 3 anything, and half the time it refreshes and loses your position anyway.

Re: Ask HN: How do you read and follow the discussions on big threads?

#74

Post by TeMPOraL »

kryogen1c wrote: post #60
TeMPOraL wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if we could train DangGPT that would reliably replicate dang's curation and moderation decisions (as distinct from just talking like him).

As resident layman and LLM/chatgpt hater, I am offended on behalf of dang. He is not replaceable with a real person; an automated replacement is insulting to even consider.

I didn't say replace. I said replicate. Or, put another way, capture the essence of his moderation style. This could be useful for the rest of the world that's impoverished in dangs.

Re: Ask HN: How do you read and follow the discussions on big threads?

#75

Post by xigoi »

lapcat wrote: post #8

If you want to read every comment in a thread, https://hnrss.org/item?id= Otherwise, though, HN itself has a terrible format that's nearly impossible to follow.

What’s easier to follow than a tree which naturally groups comments by what they’re replying to?

Re: Ask HN: How do you read and follow the discussions on big threads?

#76

Post by xigoi »

gsich wrote: post #47
lproven wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tree structures are the only way it remains manageable at all, IMHO. No tree = no structure = no way to skip forwards.

Trees devolve into a 1on1 discussion, also other branches can have the same discussion, leading to redundant arguments. You can have a tree, but only 1 branch is allowed for efficient discussions. Like every sane forum software does, be it phpbb, vbulletin, xenforo ...

Linear threads make it pretty much impossible to discuss multiple topics in one thread.

Re: Ask HN: How do you read and follow the discussions on big threads?

#77

Post by lapcat »

xigoi wrote: post #75
lapcat wrote: post #8

If you want to read every comment in a thread, https://hnrss.org/item?id= Otherwise, though, HN itself has a terrible format that's nearly impossible to follow.

What’s easier to follow than a tree which naturally groups comments by what they’re replying to?

It's a tree with no branches, only leaves. And only a small amount of indentation distinguishes the various levels.

Just look at any submission with hundreds of comments and deeply nested replies. It's a total unreadable mess.

Re: Ask HN: How do you read and follow the discussions on big threads?

#78

Post by gsich »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #73
gsich wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>You mean insane; every sane discussion place looks more like subreddit (or, often enough, is a subreddit). No I meant sane. Tree style is insane. You can have different topics or categories but all topics should be linear. >1 on 1 is a feature, as it's never truly 1 on 1 - anyone can jump in instead of just listening to the conversation. They could, but rareley do. On Reddit this requires clicking many links.

> They could, but rareley do. On Reddit this requires clicking many links. It doesn't, unless you're using the new UI, at which point it's kind of your fault anyway, because Reddit is entirely unusable as a discussion place with its new UI. You have to click to load more than 3 anything, and half the time it refreshes and loses your position anyway.

It's also on old.reddit.

Re: Ask HN: How do you read and follow the discussions on big threads?

#79

Post by PaulHoule »

defrost wrote: post #71
PaulHoule wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The best idea I have now is to scan HN and make a list of commenters who said something like “I am working on a PhD in this topic”.

If you're serious you might want to reach out and chat with https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=dang https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=jedberg for their thoughts. There are a couple of angles, straight up representation of forum | subreddit threads after the conversation has moved on, "live" tracking comments as conversations progress, and moderation of live threads (including swatting | detecting trolls, spambot…

I'm interested in fora other than HN but HN is a great target because it is easy to get at through the API. Other fora have the problem of atrocious interfaces such as

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/07/german-navy-still-us...

or the half-baked "threaded discussions" that exist on Twitter, Mastodon and clones that people abuse in various ways. Those forums need it more.

So far as the PhD I brought that up as one specific example. (Funny I have a physics PhD from a while ago, I still remember a lot about Hamiltonian chaos and its quantum manifestations, can understand something looking at the math from string theory, etc.)

My problem is related to the moderation problem but is different because I don't need to be fair to anybody or be perceived to be fair.

In general I am talking with a friend about ways to make the commenting experience online better that include everything from tools for power users to large-scale modifications of "the system" to change the incentives to change people's behavior. I can demo the first one today, the second is a bit harder.

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