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Coming Soon to Hacker News: Pending Comments

news.ycombinator.com

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Re: Coming Soon to Hacker News: Pending Comments

#421

Post by elwell »

makomk wrote: post #170
tsycho wrote: post #128

I fear this change will have some unintended consequences: 1. In a Ask/Show HN post, (which is often similar to a reddit AMA), the OP will not be able to reply to clarifications questions until their previous one is 'endorsed'. 2. Multiple ( 2a. Either moderators endorsing multiple such comments, due to race conditions and stale views during moderation, or 2b. Moderators would endorse the first (or "best") of them, a…

What's more, since people with under 1000 karma can't fully participate because unlike high-karma users they can't see if their comment duplicates someone else's and will get stuck in limbo as a result, it's going to be rather difficult for them to reach the 1000 karma threshold - certainly more difficult than it is now.

> it's going to be rather difficult for them to reach the 1000 karma threshold - certainly more difficult than it is now.

Then again, if their comment does become approved, it will be more visible than under the current system (less noise) and therefore likely to receive more upvotes. Also, their bad comments won't be punished with downvotes.

Re: Coming Soon to Hacker News: Pending Comments

#422

Post by rdl »

6thSigma wrote: post #339
rdl wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So one might endorse a substantial comment which is incorrect just so one can downvote it for being wrong.

I can't wait for the first "I endorsed this just so I can tell you how stupid you are" comment.

You can tell someone they're wrong about something without 1) thinking that person is generally stupid 2) being mean, of course.

(e.g. if someone says "I think bitcoin is the first digital currency system which has attracted VC interest", I'd love it if someone from Flooz/Beanz (late-90s), or DigiCash (1980s-1990s) or various stored value systems would comment and say "Actually, ...")

Re: Coming Soon to Hacker News: Pending Comments

#424

Post by Crito »

ihuman wrote: post #398
gruseom wrote: post #349

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Currently, the downvote button is only supposed to be used for unproductive comments - drivel, and the like. Of course, people use it to show their disagreement (even though that's not how it's meant to be used). No, that's wrong. Downvoting for disagreement is how downvoting is meant to be used, as pg has made clear on HN many times over the years. [I edited the previous sentence to make it less ambiguous.] The conf…

I'm a bit confused by the wording of your comment. Are you saying that downvoting "is only supposed to be used for unproductive comments" or to show agreement? You use "it," but I can't tell which statement you are referring to.

Here are two PG comments with slightly different takes on downvoting to signal disagreeing:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1006589#up_1006808

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=658683#up_658691

My takeaway has been that HN does not have Reddit's "don't downvote people just because you think that they are wrong" rule. Interestingly, PG's observation that people do not tend to downvote people who's comments are already gray does not seem to be true at all on reddit.

Re: Coming Soon to Hacker News: Pending Comments

#425

Post by jimzvz »

pg wrote: post #337
c23gooey wrote: post #324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Correction: it would require all users with over 1000 karma to read the comments of every post to HN. It seems like you are making the assumption that every user reads every post

If a comment isn't seen by many users with over 1000 karma then it isn't seen by many users period, and thus doesn't have much influence anyway.

Comments are often used as communication between specific users and not necessarily intended for widespread consumption.

Re: Coming Soon to Hacker News: Pending Comments

#426

Post by timmclean »

vacri wrote: post #341
chimeracoder wrote: post #224

I fear that this is going to have the effect of drowning out minority or contrary opinions, even those that are legitimate (non-trolling) and expressed in a respectful manner. Currently, the downvote button is only supposed to be used for unproductive comments - drivel, and the like. Of course, people use it to show their disagreement (even though that's not how it's meant to be used). As a result, people that post c…

Currently, the downvote button is only supposed to be used for unproductive comments pg has previously stated that it's perfectly acceptable to use the downvote button as "I disagree".

Seeing this comment downvoted is amusingly ironic (although perhaps undeserved).

Re: Coming Soon to Hacker News: Pending Comments

#428

Post by gruseom »

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…

Someone who is expressing an unpopular opinion honestly, as opposed to just baiting or venting, can take care not to be disrespectful or accidentally provocative. I don't see why such comments wouldn't get endorsed.

Re: Coming Soon to Hacker News: Pending Comments

#430

Post by krapp »

derefr wrote: post #273
chrismonsanto wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The solution to this is to allow collapsing uninteresting comment threads. I use this all the time on Reddit.

You have to read a thread enough to know you want to collapse it, which incurs exactly the same "scroll-pain" as actually scrolling. It's not a physical tax from the action required to scroll, but rather a mental stress from making a decision to skip something. Enough of that stress building up at once, and you decide that the comments page itself is probably skippable. If uninteresting comment threads could start co…

Is it really that taxing though?

The problem is, your definitions of what is uninteresting, useless and fluff are subjective, and no more relevant than anyone else's, which leads to a conflict of interests within the community about the bounds of what Hacker News content should and shouldn't be.

I think the models which would satisfy the most people are opt-in, in this case, choosing to collapse threads and ignore users rather than expecting the hivemind to do it for you.

Perhaps if users had a custom set of filters which automatically collapsed threads for them based on their own criteria, that would solve part of the problem. But I don't think it's too much to ask of people to actually take the minor effort to form an opinion on what they read, or curate their own account, if they expect content they don't like to be hidden from themselves and potentially from others.

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