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Ask HN: Longer Discussions in HN?

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Re: Ask HN: Longer Discussions in HN?

#11

Post by qbasic_forever »

Something that seems kinda unique to this community and the moderation is allowing and encouraging things to be posted again.

A lot of projects get posted and there's a reply that mentions the 2 or 3 other times in the past it was posted, with links to the comments. I thinks that's one way to deal with longer term topics and updates--allow reposts over time and new discussion, with links to the past discussions if folks are curious to dig deeper into the history.

IMHO not much really needs to change, I think how reposts and such are handled right now is great.

Re: Ask HN: Longer Discussions in HN?

#12

Post by johnbellone »

mromanuk wrote: post #3
indigodaddy wrote: post #2

Yes, I’ve often thought about this and wished there were some way to comment or revive an older discussion (although even the ability to comment on an >30 day discussion would hold little value inside HN— so it would need to be on some other site/forum).

Once I “designed” (on paper) a site to hold the meta discussion that happens on HN (and the internet) Many times there is a post about some piece of tech that reaches the top, followed up by tools, counter-ideas and new ideas building on the OP. Would be cool to trace those arcs across time and sites. As a user you could subscribe to the topic and make your comment

Sweet idea. Would love to contribute.

Re: Ask HN: Longer Discussions in HN?

#13

Post by ufmace »

I always thought it'd be nice to have a "slow" discussion forum. Something a lot like current forums, but where it's normal to take a day or two to respond to somebody. I think I make calmer and higher-quality responses if I wait a little longer than usual, especially for topics that tend to generate a lot of heat.

Re: Ask HN: Longer Discussions in HN?

#14

Post by sdenton4 »

I alternate between hacker news and Metafilter. Metafilter often has discussions that run for a month (at which point comments close), or longer by making a series of posts to continue discussion, usually for longer events/topics like elections or the Ukraine war. It's a very different site culture, but has been my primary home on the Internet for twenty years...

Re: Ask HN: Longer Discussions in HN?

#16

Post by stevekemp »

O__________O wrote: post #6

To me, feels like more pressing issue would be to increase the ease of tagging, grouping, filtering, ranking, etc. Specifically, if you see existing coverage of a topic, it’s easy enough to revive it if you’re aware of how HN handles duplicate detection, but there’s no way to enforce users having to vote on comments with fresh eyes, hide comments that don’t have significant new sub-comments, discover significant new…

Two years ago was the last thread I remember talking about night-mode:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24472535

Re: Ask HN: Longer Discussions in HN?

#17

Post by LunarAurora »

BlueTemplar wrote: post #9
LunarAurora wrote: post #4

IMO The best way to encourage this is through better (default) notifications. Or, this solution, for a platform with (tens) of thousands of users like HN, seems to automatically bring the specter of flame war (and intrusion and what else ?) Is there a middle ground? I don't know. Edit : Daily/Weeky email (=slower) updates ? As for old threads getting bumped, I think this is here equivalent to reposting the link (or r…

More chat than forum, with the exception that the comments stay on the Web instead of being hidden in the logs. Forums and chats do have a solution to too big size : they can just split into others (or subforums) once the linear discussion becomes unmanageable.

Yeah. More chat than forum, in the sense that people rarely venture to reply on what is older than a day (apart from Ask/Show HN; both hang a little longer)

I don't get your solution. It seems to me that HN threads are already tree-like.

Re: Ask HN: Longer Discussions in HN?

#18

Post by bob1029 »

qbasic_forever wrote: post #11

Something that seems kinda unique to this community and the moderation is allowing and encouraging things to be posted again. A lot of projects get posted and there's a reply that mentions the 2 or 3 other times in the past it was posted, with links to the comments. I thinks that's one way to deal with longer term topics and updates--allow reposts over time and new discussion, with links to the past discussions if fo…

> IMHO not much really needs to change, I think how reposts and such are handled right now is great.

This is where I am at. The notion that HN posts die off relatively quickly (i.e. within ~48h) is potentially a very important part of what gives them the quality they have today.

If every post was eternal and duplicates were always closed, you'd wind up with effectively perma-stickied comments in these god threads that become the law for that topic until the end of time.

Re: Ask HN: Longer Discussions in HN?

#19

Post by cientifico »

O__________O wrote: post #6

To me, feels like more pressing issue would be to increase the ease of tagging, grouping, filtering, ranking, etc. Specifically, if you see existing coverage of a topic, it’s easy enough to revive it if you’re aware of how HN handles duplicate detection, but there’s no way to enforce users having to vote on comments with fresh eyes, hide comments that don’t have significant new sub-comments, discover significant new…

For me hn.algolia.com solved some of the needs you mention.

Re: Ask HN: Longer Discussions in HN?

#20

Post by qbasic_forever »

bob1029 wrote: post #18
qbasic_forever wrote: post #11

Something that seems kinda unique to this community and the moderation is allowing and encouraging things to be posted again. A lot of projects get posted and there's a reply that mentions the 2 or 3 other times in the past it was posted, with links to the comments. I thinks that's one way to deal with longer term topics and updates--allow reposts over time and new discussion, with links to the past discussions if fo…

> IMHO not much really needs to change, I think how reposts and such are handled right now is great. This is where I am at. The notion that HN posts die off relatively quickly (i.e. within ~48h) is potentially a very important part of what gives them the quality they have today. If every post was eternal and duplicates were always closed, you'd wind up with effectively perma-stickied comments in these god threads tha…

Exactly, it's a huge chore to keep those kind of mega threads up to date and relevant too. And you get a lot of bikeshedding on other topics with people complaing that this should be in the mega thread, etc.
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