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NPR Website to Get Rid of Comments

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Re: NPR Website to Get Rid of Comments

#361

Post by derefr »

giancarlostoro wrote: post #297
eddieh wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even HN has declined, but what bothers me most is that HN has a definite range of views that are acceptable. This limits useful discourse. e.g. someone should be able to criticize Elon Musk without being downvoted to hell. While HN does stay civil, I think it is too limited in general. Don't get me wrong, the reason I use HN is because the discussion hasn't devolved into /. or reddit. However, HN would do well to enc…

> e.g. someone should be able to criticize Elon Musk without being downvoted to hell. I wish downvoting wouldn't be allowed without a "reply" to parent post, that way if I'm being downvoted nonstop I know why. Sometimes I get downvoted like crazy and have no clue as to why. Or even if I guess it doesn't add to the conversation to just shut me out because you disagree without teaching me why. I wonder how HN would be…

A hypothetical social-discussion model I've been meaning to build an MVP of:

1. there are replies and up-voting, but no down-voting;

2. you can classify a comment reply, at time of posting, as a "rebuttal";

3. up-voting a rebuttal comment will also be considered as down-voting its parent;

4. the aggregate score of a subthread is calculated as a Euclidean distance, with all the positively-scored comments as dimensions. Thus, if you've got one great comment made in response to a bad comment, the thread will stay un-collapsed; if you've got two equally-great comments, the thread will rise, etc. (Likewise, if you've got good discussion happening in response to a really bad post, the discussion's value will still propel the post to the hot page.)

Re: NPR Website to Get Rid of Comments

#362

Post by supernovae »

illumin8 wrote: post #255
jsmthrowaway wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The anti-dissent phenomenon is amplified by the greying of comments, which continues to be a bad idea all these years later. The literal message and incentive there is: leave a comment that gets upvotes or it will get progressively harder to read until nobody can actually read it. So now you have to care about what you say, because it will be completely removed from the site by natural voting if you don't toe a certa…

HN could remove this disagreement moderation bias by implementing a meta-moderation feature similar to Slashdot. Slashdot used to be a great place (like HN was a few years ago), and many of the best moderation systems originated there. Meta-moderation kept everything fair because you could moderate the moderators. The way it worked was that people with high karma would get asked at the top of their page to please tak…

Slashdot is the worst example of a fair and balanced community. The meta moderation tends to lend itself to confirmation bias.

Re: NPR Website to Get Rid of Comments

#364

Post by jamiesonbecker »

giancarlostoro wrote: post #297
eddieh wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even HN has declined, but what bothers me most is that HN has a definite range of views that are acceptable. This limits useful discourse. e.g. someone should be able to criticize Elon Musk without being downvoted to hell. While HN does stay civil, I think it is too limited in general. Don't get me wrong, the reason I use HN is because the discussion hasn't devolved into /. or reddit. However, HN would do well to enc…

> e.g. someone should be able to criticize Elon Musk without being downvoted to hell. I wish downvoting wouldn't be allowed without a "reply" to parent post, that way if I'm being downvoted nonstop I know why. Sometimes I get downvoted like crazy and have no clue as to why. Or even if I guess it doesn't add to the conversation to just shut me out because you disagree without teaching me why. I wonder how HN would be…

I agree.

It's never clear what the downvote even means.. at least with an upvote or "Like" it doesn't matter too much if you misinterpret the result, but the downvote on certain sites is too coarse-grained to be useful.

Re: NPR Website to Get Rid of Comments

#365

Post by intended »

gruyere wrote: post #244
wutbrodo wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Hacker News is about the only civil place I'm capable of contributing to a discussion to at this point. Funnily enough, right around the time I made an acct here (4+ years ago, after ~1 year of lurking), I saw an internal post by a well-known Googler talking about the recent drastic decline of HN comment quality and looking for a replacement. I still get value out of HN comments (clearly), but it's definitely chang…

You and I are around the same group, but I've long since abandoned participating in these conversations. Honestly I am in these comments because I had hoped this was the conversation being had. The HN community drove me away long ago.

Maybe for the next community you need to figure out where it is in order to be self selected for membership.

Re: NPR Website to Get Rid of Comments

#366

Post by syngrog66 »

overcast wrote: post #170

This is an interesting move, and a topic I've been discussing with friends. I've stopped using sites like Reddit, because the comment sections are just toxic. I've gone as far as installing Chrome extensions that make comment sections disappear from popular sites like YouTube. It's too easy to get drawn into the negativity, and I'm completely over it. "Social Networking" has reached it's low point as far as I'm conce…

you had me until this:

> Hacker News is about the only civil place I'm capable of contributing to a discussion to at this point.

that statement floored me

because historically, HN has been one of the most toxic comment forums I've seen. I've kept coming back despite it, not because of it. there's enough signal to justify it. but it's a kind of low-grade toxicity: a weird mix of passive aggressiveness, disagree-based-downvoting, "cite paper!"-ness, minutial edge case-oriented pedantry (that misses the forest for the trees) and neverending humblebragging.

To give just one example I can't think of any place I've seen more humble-bragging and stealth-but-blatant self-promotion as on HN. Whereas on Reddit I know I can always read discussions where the participants are friendly, funny, insightful, mature, organic, etc. Not always, not everywhere, but I don't have to wade through a shit salad like I've had to do here on HN for years.

I do think it's gotten better in the last year, maybe due to the work of dang and some of the other UI improvements.

I do agree that on sites like CNN, YouTube, the comment threads tend to be overrun with the LCD behavior. Lots of noise there.

Re: NPR Website to Get Rid of Comments

#367

Post by nikdaheratik »

gr3yh47 wrote: post #176
overcast wrote: post #170

This is an interesting move, and a topic I've been discussing with friends. I've stopped using sites like Reddit, because the comment sections are just toxic. I've gone as far as installing Chrome extensions that make comment sections disappear from popular sites like YouTube. It's too easy to get drawn into the negativity, and I'm completely over it. "Social Networking" has reached it's low point as far as I'm conce…

>Hacker News is about the only civil place I'm capable of contributing to a discussion to at this point. the interesting thing about this is that HN comment system seems to discourage dialogue - i.e. you are not notified when someone replies to your comment. It seems to be more geared towards comment-it-and-forget-it.

In my opinion, that's a feature not a bug. While it probably reduces some of the sense of community, it also makes it much more difficult to keep flaming on until the thread becomes a dumpster fire. A user has to actively seek to pick a fight and keep up with it which most normal people don't have time for.

Re: NPR Website to Get Rid of Comments

#368

Post by nikdaheratik »

syngrog66 wrote: post #366
overcast wrote: post #170

This is an interesting move, and a topic I've been discussing with friends. I've stopped using sites like Reddit, because the comment sections are just toxic. I've gone as far as installing Chrome extensions that make comment sections disappear from popular sites like YouTube. It's too easy to get drawn into the negativity, and I'm completely over it. "Social Networking" has reached it's low point as far as I'm conce…

you had me until this: > Hacker News is about the only civil place I'm capable of contributing to a discussion to at this point. that statement floored me because historically, HN has been one of the most toxic comment forums I've seen. I've kept coming back despite it, not because of it. there's enough signal to justify it. but it's a kind of low-grade toxicity: a weird mix of passive aggressiveness, disagree-based-…

If this is one of the most toxic forums you've come across, you must be very fortunate almost to the point of being sheltered. Not saying this is the best ever, but it's nowhere near the worst. The worst traits on HN seem to be an abundance of nitpicking with some disagreements on a few pet topics. Many other sites have active anti-social posters that abuse users for fun, start flamewars for the "lulz" and will argue any side of any issue that causes grief to someone. Not even close to seeing that sort of nonsense here.

Re: NPR Website to Get Rid of Comments

#369

Post by ec109685 »

makecheck wrote: post #320
giancarlostoro wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> e.g. someone should be able to criticize Elon Musk without being downvoted to hell. I wish downvoting wouldn't be allowed without a "reply" to parent post, that way if I'm being downvoted nonstop I know why. Sometimes I get downvoted like crazy and have no clue as to why. Or even if I guess it doesn't add to the conversation to just shut me out because you disagree without teaching me why. I wonder how HN would be…

Also, I think that replies accompanying down-votes should be displayed directly next to the comment as a sort of tag (i.e. you can’t click a down-arrow alone, you have to type out something like “not accurate” or “flame” or “I don’t like his hair” or whatever the reason is) and then the comment appears as: foobar_user 1 hour ago | -1:“not accurate” -1:“flame” -1:“I don’t like his hair”.

It's like slack reactions.

Re: NPR Website to Get Rid of Comments

#370

Post by james-watson »

mintplant wrote: post #330
hsod wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is pretty true for economic issues, but not for diversity/identity politics/social justice. On those issues, the HN-hivemind is pretty solidly leftist (though not to the extremes of some corners of the web).

Wait, what? Really? I would point to the comments on just about any "women in tech" story as a counterexample.

I have had previous accounts banned for stating the following:

"Homo sapiens are a sexually dimorphic species of primates, in which the Y chromosome results in differential physiological development between males and females."

So yes, HN is quite a hivemind when it comes to gender/identity politics. In fact, I have a feeling I'll get banned for this comment.

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