31–37 of 37 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
We still have upvotes.
Yes but as a sibling comment notes they're hidden from everyone except the commenter. I can not tell if your comment is felt to be a worthy response by the HN crowd unless people note their assent or dissent in some way, "yes", "no". I've harped on at this for a while. But I really want my HN back. It takes more time and provides less utility now.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> serves absolutely no purpose, as jgrahamc points out, on a site with the possibility to either simply upvote, or comment in a more meaningful way. // He must have said this before he stripped comment scores off the site. The only current way to indicate assent to anyone other than the commenter you're agreeing with is to make a short comment. "Yes" or "this" fits, is easily parsed and easily input. Until comment sc…
Mere agreement is information, but it is not information that's important enough to merit cluttering up the discussion. If you're going to encourage that kind of logorrhea, expect a lot of comments along the lines of "I just farted" and "'Assent' is a really cool-sounding word. You ever think about it? Say it to yourself — 'assent, assent'. LOL" Some information is just not that essential.
I beg to differ. The voting is actually one of the most important pieces of information. Certainly far more important than the time the comment was made or who made it. The assent [! you're so right] of the population here means [or at least has meant] a lot; as does their dissent.
Apparently informed comments that are misguided or mistaken used to be quickly downvoted. Comments that furthered the discussion added interesting information or new angles, confirmed hypotheses and such were upvoted. One could skim a comment thread and quickly ascertain the readerships view of a topic and see which comments merited a proper reading.
Now one has to chew the chaff and spit it out rather than being able to simply feed on the grain as before.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Mere agreement is information, but it is not information that's important enough to merit cluttering up the discussion. If you're going to encourage that kind of logorrhea, expect a lot of comments along the lines of "I just farted" and "'Assent' is a really cool-sounding word. You ever think about it? Say it to yourself — 'assent, assent'. LOL" Some information is just not that essential.
> but it is not information that's important enough to merit cluttering up the discussion // I beg to differ. The voting is actually one of the most important pieces of information. Certainly far more important than the time the comment was made or who made it. The assent [! you're so right] of the population here means [or at least has meant] a lot; as does their dissent. Apparently informed comments that are misgui…
I agree that vote counts convey valuable information, but that information is not infinitely valuable, so we have to weigh the cost of conveying it. The cost of doing so through comments is way too high, so in the absence of visible counts, a comment's position on the page is the substitute we have.
Word. ;-)
Was excited to come across this thread. Would like to read more about this. Great stuff here. Must visit more often.