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Kind reminder: please (re)read the HN guidelines

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Re: Kind reminder: please (re)read the HN guidelines

#71

Post by InclinedPlane »

georgecmu wrote: post #51
lionhearted wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed, though the worst trend I see is emotional comments getting voted up more. Maybe I'm seeing the past more warmly than it was, but it seems like clear, logical, consistent, coherent comments got voted up and emotional based comments stayed around 1 or got voted down. It seems like a lot of emotional reactions are getting voted up even when they're not coherent, consistent, and logical - which seems a bad trend.

The worst trend I see is comments getting downvoted based on opinions expressed within, not on how poorly they are expressed. No matter how thoughtful a comment, if it goes against the groupthink, you can expect it to hurt your karma.

I try to upvote/downvote based on how well a comment adds to the discussion, rather than whether or not I agree with it. Comments I am the most likely to downvote: jokes (they'd have to be really good for me to upvote); emotional responses without a shred of factual support; insults; and comments that are overwhelmingly demonstrably false and/or contain provably bad advice.

Re: Kind reminder: please (re)read the HN guidelines

#73

Post by lingrush »

swombat wrote: post #7

Yes, yes, HN is going to the dogs, it's not as good as it used to be, it's all because of the new users, and so on and so on. It's been like that since I joined two and a half years ago.

What a coincidence, that's just like everywhere else too. It's like an eternal september or something.

Re: Kind reminder: please (re)read the HN guidelines

#74

Post by lsc »

hey, I have a question that is related to the hacker news guidelines. So, I'm considering taking my blog static. You know, it goes with the whole early 90s feel of my website. Also, I'm lazy and maintaining a good comment system is work.

So, I was thinking, I'd submit every blog post here, and basically say "go to [link to hn story] to comment" (I could also do a ssi include of the hn story comments, but I would be less in the clear from a copyright perspective there, and it'd open me to worrying about things like cross site scripting, which is one of the things I wanted to avoid by going static anyhow, and users would still need to click the link to comment.)

Anyhow, a friend of mine who isn't a hn user thought that spamming up hn with every blog post I wrote would be, well, spammish. My thought is that hn seems to be mostly okay with that sort of thing.

I'd like to get some feedback from others on this idea.

Re: Kind reminder: please (re)read the HN guidelines

#75

Post by mquander »

lsc wrote: post #74

hey, I have a question that is related to the hacker news guidelines. So, I'm considering taking my blog static. You know, it goes with the whole early 90s feel of my website. Also, I'm lazy and maintaining a good comment system is work. So, I was thinking, I'd submit every blog post here, and basically say "go to [link to hn story] to comment" (I could also do a ssi include of the hn story comments, but I would be l…

I consider it spammish too (there's my feedback.) But my observation is that there are a ton of people who link their own blog posts all the time, and if the blog posts are of an OK quality, everyone here seems to be fine with it.

Re: Kind reminder: please (re)read the HN guidelines

#77

Post by [deleted] »

edw519 wrote: post #45
swombat wrote: post #7

Yes, yes, HN is going to the dogs, it's not as good as it used to be, it's all because of the new users, and so on and so on. It's been like that since I joined two and a half years ago.

Right on, swombat. Last year, upon Iteration 27 of this same subject, I threw something like this together in jest: Quality of HN Comments Over Time | . . | . . q| . . . . u| . . . . . . a| . . . . . l| . . . . . i| . . . . . t| . . . you are here -->. . y| (that's all) |________________________________________________________ M J J A S O N D J F M A M J J A S O N D J F M A M J J A '09 '10 I must have been on to some…

[deleted]

Re: Kind reminder: please (re)read the HN guidelines

#78

Post by robfitz »

tokenadult wrote: post #61
georgecmu wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The worst trend I see is comments getting downvoted based on opinions expressed within, not on how poorly they are expressed. No matter how thoughtful a comment, if it goes against the groupthink, you can expect it to hurt your karma.

Here is an example from 925 days ago of pg saying it is okay to downvote for disagreement. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=117171 He is still thinking about tweaking the forum settings here to ensure good discussion. On my part, I'm a good bit more disappointed when a user asks a polite follow-up question (for example, "What would be a source I could check to confirm that fact?") and that kind of comment gets dow…

Because interested parties can google it and in the reasonably likely case that the question goes unanswered, it's just noise.

Re: Kind reminder: please (re)read the HN guidelines

#79

Post by jacquesm »

edw519 wrote: post #45
swombat wrote: post #7

Yes, yes, HN is going to the dogs, it's not as good as it used to be, it's all because of the new users, and so on and so on. It's been like that since I joined two and a half years ago.

Right on, swombat. Last year, upon Iteration 27 of this same subject, I threw something like this together in jest: Quality of HN Comments Over Time | . . | . . q| . . . . u| . . . . . . a| . . . . . l| . . . . . i| . . . . . t| . . . you are here -->. . y| (that's all) |________________________________________________________ M J J A S O N D J F M A M J J A S O N D J F M A M J J A '09 '10 I must have been on to some…

This is the best way to measure change on HN I think:

http://news.ycombinator.com/best

The ratio of HN vs non-HN items as observed by any individual is of course different.

Re: Kind reminder: please (re)read the HN guidelines

#80

Post by jacquesm »

robfitz wrote: post #78
tokenadult wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here is an example from 925 days ago of pg saying it is okay to downvote for disagreement. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=117171 He is still thinking about tweaking the forum settings here to ensure good discussion. On my part, I'm a good bit more disappointed when a user asks a polite follow-up question (for example, "What would be a source I could check to confirm that fact?") and that kind of comment gets dow…

Because interested parties can google it and in the reasonably likely case that the question goes unanswered, it's just noise.

Google is not always going to turn up the reference a parent post refers to though.

The 'citation needed' ones are another matter.

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