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Tell HN: New features and a moderator

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Re: Tell HN: New features and a moderator

#312
post #184
post #26

I recall vaguely that one of the reasons for not allowing collapsable comment trees in the past was related to the desire to make it difficult to continue comment trees, which was a good thing (more comments is generally bad, beyond a point, was the underlying philosophy). Does this represent a departure from that philosophy, or was this never part of consideration for the feature?

Not sure I follow; introducing collapses makes it harder to extend trees (once they're collapsed), so wouldn't that argument go the other way? In any case, we didn't think much about that concern in discussing the new features. We did (and do) worry about whether they will lessen the impact of HN's having a single communal front page and threads, now that people can hide and collapse things they don't want to see. Th…

From what I understood, once you start needing to collapse threads, you're already at the threshold of "more comments are detracting from the quality," or that was the theory, anyway. I'm almost certainly misremembering.

I feel positive about this change though, I just was curious about the decision making process is all, thanks.

Re: Tell HN: New features and a moderator

#314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just upvoted you there because I'm nice like that.

Thanks! Only three more votes before I get superpowers. :)

I upvoted you. With great power comes yadda yadda yadda.

Edited to add: PSYCH!! Now it's going to take 4 upvotes to get super powers. BWAHAHAHA!!

Edited to add #2: Just kidding! You're 2 upvotes away again!

P.S. Dear friends, I'm sorry. I won't abuse my vast and terrible ability to grant or deny imaginary Internet points ever again. -xf

Re: Tell HN: New features and a moderator

#315

I found a potential bug/oddity. If you collapse a comment in a thread it also collapses when viewing the comments page on a user's profile, and visually it is very hard to spot when collapsed on that page due to the styling. For example, open the below link[0], collapse this comment, then refresh the link. The comment becomes quite hard to spot on that page. The red/orange star or vote button is also strangely missin…

I agree this is somewhat confusing. If I collapse a comment thread on a story page, I wouldn't expect that same comment to appear collapsed in every other context. The only other ones that come to mind right now are: on a user's comments page or the new user's favorites page.

Re: Tell HN: New features and a moderator

#316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You need a certain amount of karma to downvote. I think it's 500, but I'm not sure because I don't have that much yet. :) Edit: it's confirmed at 501: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12074198

I just upvoted you there because I'm nice like that.

Just upvoted you twice and it seems you're now past the 501 mark! Welcome to voting land :P

Re: Tell HN: New features and a moderator

#319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was always under the impression that the reason you couldn't undo was purely to encourage putting thought into your votes, instead of clicking after the first sentence, getting through the rest of the post, and looking to take your upvote back. Guess I was wrong. I'd say 30 seconds should be enough, with this thought in mind =]

The main use case for the unvote button is for mobile, and on a spotty mobile connection it might take a lot longer than 30 seconds until the action registered.

Sometimes I'll vote on a comment, and then as I'm reading the replies and clarifications, or other comments elsewhere in the discussion, I'll realize I misunderstood something and will want to go back and change my vote.
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