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Coming Soon to Hacker News: Pending Comments

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Re: Coming Soon to Hacker News: Pending Comments

#281

Post by pdonis »

There are many good suggestions in the comments here (which I've been upvoting, on the assumption that that's going to focus attention on them); but I have one that I haven't seen made yet: collect data on pending comments to see which, if any, of the potential issues being raised in this thread actually are issues. For example:

(1) Measure the distribution of comment endorsement for >1000 HN users: how many they endorse, how often they endorse, and how that varies with things like hour of the day, time logged on, etc.

(2) Measure the distribution of "time to endorse" for comments (how long it takes from posting to endorsement), and how that varies with things like hour of the day, etc.

(3) Measure how many comments get lost in limbo because they are never endorsed.

My initial sense is that this is going to significantly raise the cost of participating in HN, which will make me less likely to participate. (By "cost" I mean both the added cost of having to endorse comments, and the added cost of having to wait for my own comments to be endorsed before I can post another one.) But I may be overestimating what the effect will be.

Re: Coming Soon to Hacker News: Pending Comments

#283

Post by pdq »

Here's a simple solution to this whole moderation hammer: add a downvote for poor comments (ala Reddit). The spam and garble comments will automatically be moderated by the community as a whole.

Turning HN into Wikipedia Moderation Politics is not a smart idea.

Re: Coming Soon to Hacker News: Pending Comments

#284

Post by waterlesscloud »

tptacek wrote: post #228
waterlesscloud wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

2b is not really an issue. Endorsing only the best of similar comments is a feature. You can remove your pending comment after some time. It may also have a second order "unintended" consequence over time- People would stop posting shallowly obvious responses, due to the negative feedback of never having them endorsed.

Eh. Yes, but not at the cost of wasting good-faith efforts to contribute and making it hard for them to contribute on other threads. I'd probably endorse similar comments on a thread, even though they were redundant, for that reason.

I definitely won't, unless they're adding something unique.

Threads are cluttered enough as it is, and the idea isn't to encourage good faith efforts, but to improve comment quality.

Re: Coming Soon to Hacker News: Pending Comments

#285

Post by dinkumthinkum »

jmtame wrote: post #39
mariusz79 wrote: post #10

This is nothing but a censorship and will make HN useless.

As an early HN member who has seen comments decline since the early days, I like this change. This comment you've written falls in line as one I would not endorse. Would you say that Amazon is censoring their products because not all reviews show up on a given page? The community decides what shows up, that's not up to Amazon. Same thing going on here; the earliest and most active members are the ones who decide what…

Then you are playing the exact game the parent is worried about. It is an extremely fair point, whether you agree with it or not. It is also something arguably outside of the standard view, and will therefore be de facto censored. I don't think comparing this to product reviews on Amazon makes sense; these are two completely different things.

Re: Coming Soon to Hacker News: Pending Comments

#286

Post by [deleted] »

cperciva wrote: post #19

Someone who has a pending comment will have to wait till it goes live to post another. We're hoping that good comments will get endorsed so quickly that there won't be a noticeable delay. Is there some timeout? If not, commenting on a several-day-old thread will guarantee that you can never post another comment, since once threads drop off the front page it's not likely that many 1000+ karma users will even see those…

[deleted]

Re: Coming Soon to Hacker News: Pending Comments

#287

Post by saraid216 »

thaumaturgy wrote: post #255
babuskov wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please, please do make this. I have exchanged very useful information with other commenters on HN this way. Sometimes I ask a question in the comments, and it gets answered days later. I go through "comments" in my profile periodically to see if someone replied to those. In this process I also see if someone asked my something and reply there as well. IMHO, HN should have a "private message" feature if comments get p…

It does: put an email address in your profile. I don't entirely disagree with you guys, but I wonder why these discussions aren't being taken to email (or whatever you kids are using these days) anyhow.

Anonymity? The bar for having an engaged, non-private conversation shouldn't be creating a new email account.

Re: Coming Soon to Hacker News: Pending Comments

#288

Post by tptacek »

jsmthrowaway wrote: post #104
gruseom wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As I understand the idea, endorsing a comment doesn't mean you agree with it. It just means you think it deserves to be in the thread. That should leave room for unpopular views as long as they're respectfully expressed.

> As I understand the idea, endorsing a comment doesn't mean you agree with it. Yeah, that's exactly how it will be used. Sarcasm aside, the word "endorse" has a very specific definition which basically guarantees how this system will be used, intentions or not. I think about every single grayed-out comment I've seen, downvoted simply because it shared an opinion that made people feel uncomfortable but was nonetheles…

It will work better than you think it will. People will endorse comments they disagree with just to get the opportunity to rebut them. Users don't debate things on HN to right the wrongs of the universe; they debate because debating is (or can be, when the comments aren't horrible) gratifying.

Re: Coming Soon to Hacker News: Pending Comments

#289

Post by pg »

JeremyNT wrote: post #262
cperciva wrote: post #19

Someone who has a pending comment will have to wait till it goes live to post another. We're hoping that good comments will get endorsed so quickly that there won't be a noticeable delay. Is there some timeout? If not, commenting on a several-day-old thread will guarantee that you can never post another comment, since once threads drop off the front page it's not likely that many 1000+ karma users will even see those…

Perhaps add the ability for a poster to retract his orher pending comments? You could add a mandatory waiting period to prevent abuse.

That's what the delete link does.

Re: Coming Soon to Hacker News: Pending Comments

#290

Post by neilk »

thaumaturgy wrote: post #255
babuskov wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please, please do make this. I have exchanged very useful information with other commenters on HN this way. Sometimes I ask a question in the comments, and it gets answered days later. I go through "comments" in my profile periodically to see if someone replied to those. In this process I also see if someone asked my something and reply there as well. IMHO, HN should have a "private message" feature if comments get p…

It does: put an email address in your profile. I don't entirely disagree with you guys, but I wonder why these discussions aren't being taken to email (or whatever you kids are using these days) anyhow.

Fair point but sometimes people don't want their real identity known. Either as a matter of policy or because they are using a throwaway to discuss something sensitive.
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