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Ask PG: Can we see the response to the HN changes?

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Re: Ask PG: Can we see the response to the HN changes?

#21

Post by erydo »

simonsquiff wrote: post #10

Personally I'm really missing seeing the karma on comments. Fundamentally, removing them has changed the balance of what karma is all about. Karma previously had a function for the reader. It highlighted and bubbled up the good. It showed where there were good counter points. Now...well it's just for the account owner. It feels just like it's there for your own rpg-levelling style dopamine hit. It feels pointless. I…

I've noticed that I'm actually getting more out of the hidden-karma comments because I am not able to skim as easily. I'm also not forming preconceived notions of a comment's quality before I read it, which is activating the critical-thinking bits of my brain more than usual.

Yet because the comments are still sorted somewhat intelligently, I'm not really being drowned in the cruft like one would expect.

Re: Ask PG: Can we see the response to the HN changes?

#22

Post by Terretta »

simonsquiff wrote: post #10

Personally I'm really missing seeing the karma on comments. Fundamentally, removing them has changed the balance of what karma is all about. Karma previously had a function for the reader. It highlighted and bubbled up the good. It showed where there were good counter points. Now...well it's just for the account owner. It feels just like it's there for your own rpg-levelling style dopamine hit. It feels pointless. I…

Hat tip on saying comments with karma removed are point-less. ;-)

My experience is the opposite of yours. I find karma as it has become here recently is not a reflection of good counterpoints. I feel it has become a reflection of the popular points. Well argued counter points, if unpopular, are "voted down".

Assuming the thread sorts by karma, you can still read in order, and get what you're looking for, and maybe you'll read things that are less popular, not just the majority-upvoted comments.

Another comment here talked about score, a gaming term. I don't like the term "score". Like you, I value thoughtfulness and interestingness, whichever side of a point it comes from.

In user profiles, karma can work as a gaming feedback mechanism to encourage desired behavior, while in a comment thread, it can work to surface insightful discussion and bury non-contributory content. A display of "score" isn't needed for the second mechanism, just good sorting.

However, it seems that a refinement of seeing your own 'score' on your own comments could be valuable towards the first mechanism: "How was my comment received?"

That dopamine hit is valuable to foster recurring contribution.

Re: Ask PG: Can we see the response to the HN changes?

#23

Post by taphangum »

angrycoder wrote: post #17
simonsquiff wrote: post #10

Personally I'm really missing seeing the karma on comments. Fundamentally, removing them has changed the balance of what karma is all about. Karma previously had a function for the reader. It highlighted and bubbled up the good. It showed where there were good counter points. Now...well it's just for the account owner. It feels just like it's there for your own rpg-levelling style dopamine hit. It feels pointless. I…

I don't miss the karma at all. If you don't have time to read the comments and evaluate for yourself which ones are good or bad, why are you even here?

What are you even talking about? The point of sites like HN is curation.

Re: Ask PG: Can we see the response to the HN changes?

#24

Post by mcav »

vaporstun wrote: post #19
simonsquiff wrote: post #10

Personally I'm really missing seeing the karma on comments. Fundamentally, removing them has changed the balance of what karma is all about. Karma previously had a function for the reader. It highlighted and bubbled up the good. It showed where there were good counter points. Now...well it's just for the account owner. It feels just like it's there for your own rpg-levelling style dopamine hit. It feels pointless. I…

Correct me if I am wrong, but it appears the good is still bubbling to the top, simply the metric has been removed. I find that I often instinctively head to upvote a comment that has hit its critical mass in terms of karma votes regardless of its content. I have to take a second, back off from my instinctual action, and evaluate. Often I end up upvoting it anyway upon reading it, but at least then I have taken the t…

With no indication of number of upvotes, though, there is no distinction between a 200-point comment on top versus a 2-point comment that happens to be on top. Sometimes it was easier to skip parts of a thread knowing approximately how many upvotes each post received.

Re: Ask PG: Can we see the response to the HN changes?

#25

Post by [deleted] »

taphangum wrote: post #23
angrycoder wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't miss the karma at all. If you don't have time to read the comments and evaluate for yourself which ones are good or bad, why are you even here?

What are you even talking about? The point of sites like HN is curation.

[deleted]

Re: Ask PG: Can we see the response to the HN changes?

#26

Post by nolanw »

taphangum wrote: post #23
angrycoder wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't miss the karma at all. If you don't have time to read the comments and evaluate for yourself which ones are good or bad, why are you even here?

What are you even talking about? The point of sites like HN is curation.

Do you ask museum curators what point value they assigned the paintings in their exhibits?

The curation still happens without numbers attached.

Re: Ask PG: Can we see the response to the HN changes?

#27

Post by mattmillr »

angrycoder wrote: post #17
simonsquiff wrote: post #10

Personally I'm really missing seeing the karma on comments. Fundamentally, removing them has changed the balance of what karma is all about. Karma previously had a function for the reader. It highlighted and bubbled up the good. It showed where there were good counter points. Now...well it's just for the account owner. It feels just like it's there for your own rpg-levelling style dopamine hit. It feels pointless. I…

I don't miss the karma at all. If you don't have time to read the comments and evaluate for yourself which ones are good or bad, why are you even here?

Sometimes, I do have time to read all the comments and evaluate for myself which are good and bad. That's great.

Other times, I don't have that much time and simply want to glean from the best comments on a post.

And then there are the posts in subject areas that are outside or on the edge of my expertise, where I have no business evaluating the comments. I can still benefit from reading them though, and the karma helps me give weight to the good ones and disregard the bad.

Re: Ask PG: Can we see the response to the HN changes?

#28

Post by abcd_f »

The downvoting needs one simple change. It should not drop comment's score below zero until it has been effectively voted down to -10 or thereabouts, in which case it can be safely assumed the comment is a true junk and grayed out.

I personally used to use downvoting to sink comments that are of no particular interest to me, and to promote other branches of the thread that I'd like more people to look at and comment on. So there's gotta be a mechanism that would allow for rearranging comments in a more popular order, but without punishing their authors unnecessarily.

Re: Ask PG: Can we see the response to the HN changes?

#29

Post by bane »

mcav wrote: post #24
vaporstun wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Correct me if I am wrong, but it appears the good is still bubbling to the top, simply the metric has been removed. I find that I often instinctively head to upvote a comment that has hit its critical mass in terms of karma votes regardless of its content. I have to take a second, back off from my instinctual action, and evaluate. Often I end up upvoting it anyway upon reading it, but at least then I have taken the t…

With no indication of number of upvotes, though, there is no distinction between a 200-point comment on top versus a 2-point comment that happens to be on top. Sometimes it was easier to skip parts of a thread knowing approximately how many upvotes each post received.

It should be the content of the posts that matter not the point total.

Re: Ask PG: Can we see the response to the HN changes?

#30

Post by Yzupnick »

davidw wrote: post #14

Where I could see things changing is higher highs and lower lows: previously I wouldn't downvote a well-intentioned but wrong comment below 0 or -1, but now I might because I don't know. Also, previously, I stopped voting up the first comment on an article if it already had a ton of votes, now I'm not so sure, so I might vote for it.

Why would you downvote a well-intentioned but wrong comment? If something is wrong, explain why it is wrong. Downvotes, I think, should be reserved for comments that are 1) pointless ex:"agree" or "great post" 2) mean ex: "How could you be so ignorant!" 3) Way off topic.

Everything else should get ignored or warrants further discussion. In some cases it is even important to upvote "wrong" comments.

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