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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?

#51

Post by JangoSteve »

bane wrote: post #42
mcav wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bluntly, I don't want to read every comment.

You don't have to. Highly voted comments are helpfully floated to the top of the thread or post. Just read a few at the top and you should be good to go.

Yes, but regardless of how valuable comments are in relation to each other, it is still no indication of how valuable they are independently.

For instance, the top comment at the top of the page may have 10 karma and 50 replies, while the next valuable comment has 15 karma (but was submitted 3 hours earlier), and isn't visible until halfway down the page. Without the karma displayed, it's much more difficult to skim the thread. And for all I know, the rest of the comments only have 1 point.

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

#52

Post by mixmax »

mixmax wrote: post #47
pg wrote: post #2

From a visual inspection things look the same as always.

from this users inspection things don't. - I spend substantially more time wading through comments because I can't pick out the good ones. This is particularly true of nested threads. - I often vote based on the current score. If the score is as the comment deserves (in my opinion) I leave it, otherwise I upvote. I rarely downvote. - I can't pick out whether a comment is valid (based on scores, and thus the opinion o…

This comment thread is a pretty good example of what I'm talking about: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2438577

Do people here think this is a forum for entrepreneurs? Do people think it's OK to link to the HN thread and not the post? Without the votes I simply don't know.

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

#53

Post by taphangum »

nolanw wrote: post #26
taphangum wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You don't need to. It's there, therefore it has value. Not at all like HN comments.

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

#55

Post by fluidcruft »

simonsquiff wrote: post #32
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?

It's like removing karma on articles, and saying 'if you don't have time to read the articles and evaluate for yourself which ones are good or bad why are you even here'? For me there are a number of answers to your question: - I love HN because I get to learn about lots of stuff I know very little about. For example I'm a business guy not a progammer, but I love to learn more about the non-business things. I genuine…

As a PhD and researcher that occasionally sees articles on HN in my field, I can tell you that correctness of a comment's content can be independent of comment karma. I have seen 100% correct posts downvoted to oblivion with highly rated 100% incorrect responses by users playing some sort of formal debate game nonsense. In my pre-HN-bankruptcy account, I used engage and try to correct these discussions, but really it's just not worth it and once I see it starting I just skip the thread. Since that's how it works for posts related to my field, I have to assume the same holds for others that are not my field.

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

#57

Post by dangrossman »

pg wrote: post #2

From a visual inspection things look the same as always.

I'm wasting a lot more time figuring out the comments than before. The points would guide you to the really important ones (factual corrections, context, valid rebuttals), now I have to skim everything and can't tell whether there's a consensus or not.

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

#58

Post by bmelton »

Yzupnick wrote: post #30
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.

100% agree. I think the core of our problem is that downvote is used differently everywhere else, and so people have an expectation when they come here that simply isn't true.

Naturally, the other end of that is a problem too, wherein people upvote for all the wrong reasons. I all too often see an comment that is wrong, but perhaps clever, and is upvoted highly. The most interesting aspect, I think, is that if you put a well-reasoned explanation of why the comment is wrong, you'll often see the trend reverse -- the wrong comment will start getting downvotes, and the correction will start getting upvotes. This might SEEM right, on first blush, but it also isn't.

The thing that irks me most though, is perhaps the hero-worship. I think if we were able to hide usernames until after we'd voted, then we'd almost certainly have better results. I cringe every time pg posts a one-liner that adds nothing to the conversation; Not because it isn't perfectly within his right to do so, but because I know it's going to be upvoted to the sky.

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

#59

Post by mcav »

jpenney wrote: post #43
mcav wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bluntly, I don't want to read every comment.

Not to be rude, but that may be part of the problem.

Nah. How's anyone supposed to create anything if they're busy reading HN all day? I have enough trouble as is.

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

#60

Post by Travis »

JangoSteve wrote: post #51
bane wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't have to. Highly voted comments are helpfully floated to the top of the thread or post. Just read a few at the top and you should be good to go.

Yes, but regardless of how valuable comments are in relation to each other, it is still no indication of how valuable they are independently. For instance, the top comment at the top of the page may have 10 karma and 50 replies, while the next valuable comment has 15 karma (but was submitted 3 hours earlier), and isn't visible until halfway down the page. Without the karma displayed, it's much more difficult to skim…

Interesting -- I never paid much attention to the relative weights, because I figured that the piling on effect was always taking place. So I used karma to figure out which contents to start to read, by some sort of ad hoc guess at what overall karma % a comment had in a thread.

Plus, I recall from my reddit days that the earliest comments are way more likely to receive votes. So I always ended up trying to divide the karma by the time since post, which just distracted me.

Different strokes I s'pose.

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