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Poll: The new HN comment system – agree, disagree, or wait and see?

news.ycombinator.com

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Re: Poll: The new HN comment system – agree, disagree, or wait and see?

#31

Post by deletes »

ilaksh wrote: post #23
pg wrote: post #2

I suggest another option: wait to see what it's like.

Sir, I certainly hope this will not be taken as being overly critical. However the change as I understand it will mean that if a new user writes a single comment that is unpopular or simply gets missed, he will forever be banned from commenting again. This is unworkable because it will mean many people will be banned just by virtue of their comment being missed, or by making a mistake and saying something that isn't…

Your information is incorrect. The pending comments will be removed after a certain time and the user will be able to comment again.

You can also delete the comment in a certain time period.

There were also some suggestions about restrictions of the single comment.

Re: Poll: The new HN comment system – agree, disagree, or wait and see?

#32

Post by rkuykendall-com »

sillysaurus3 wrote: post #16

It's worth comparing this poll to the one about whether HN should display comment scores: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2595605 Only 38.5% of users were in favor of comment scores being hidden, but it was decidedly a positive change for the site.

A few notes:

1) That poll was conducted well after the change. That makes it a very different type of poll.

2) This change has half as much support, if you ignore the wait-and-sees.

Re: Poll: The new HN comment system – agree, disagree, or wait and see?

#34

Post by jasonlotito »

ilaksh wrote: post #23
pg wrote: post #2

I suggest another option: wait to see what it's like.

Sir, I certainly hope this will not be taken as being overly critical. However the change as I understand it will mean that if a new user writes a single comment that is unpopular or simply gets missed, he will forever be banned from commenting again. This is unworkable because it will mean many people will be banned just by virtue of their comment being missed, or by making a mistake and saying something that isn't…

While I don't speak for others who will moderate, there is a difference between being unpopular and being a poor comment. I have no issue encouraging good content that I disagree with. However, all too often people confuse having an unpopular opinion and being rude. They'll get down voted because they are not being civil, and they also happen to have an unpopular opinion. They will then point to that comment and claim they are being silenced by the majority (they will do this in another comment, which will also get down voted for good reason).

Re: Poll: The new HN comment system – agree, disagree, or wait and see?

#37

Post by derefr »

rkuykendall-com wrote: post #22
chrismonsanto wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is my favorite option. That being said, I think people are especially worried that if it's a bad change, it won't be reverted or tinkered with in a timely manner. HN has a (deserved, I think...) reputation for being unresponsive to user feedback.

Some people might be worried that, if it's a bad change, it won't be reverted because nobody will be able to read their complaints. This is one of the few cases where the worse a change is, the less of a voice you will have after it happens. I'm not saying it will be bad, but you can see why that would be frightening.

The "karma elite" will be able to read their complaints. Usefully, the people with the ability to revert the change are a strict subset of the karma elite.

Re: Poll: The new HN comment system – agree, disagree, or wait and see?

#38

Post by dsrguru »

ilaksh wrote: post #23
pg wrote: post #2

I suggest another option: wait to see what it's like.

Sir, I certainly hope this will not be taken as being overly critical. However the change as I understand it will mean that if a new user writes a single comment that is unpopular or simply gets missed, he will forever be banned from commenting again. This is unworkable because it will mean many people will be banned just by virtue of their comment being missed, or by making a mistake and saying something that isn't…

No, it just means if you comment low down on a page, you'll probably have to delete that comment before participating in a second discussion.

Re: Poll: The new HN comment system – agree, disagree, or wait and see?

#39

Post by lbotos »

sillysaurus3 wrote: post #16

It's worth comparing this poll to the one about whether HN should display comment scores: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2595605 Only 38.5% of users were in favor of comment scores being hidden, but it was decidedly a positive change for the site.

As a fun aside, the other day a coworker and I noticed that HNsearch actually shows comment scores when you view per author: https://hn.algolia.com/?q=sillysaurus3#!/comment/forever/pre...

(I'm not sure if this is intentional or not, but interesting none the less.)

Re: Poll: The new HN comment system – agree, disagree, or wait and see?

#40

Post by dperfect »

pg wrote: post #10
ryannevius wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

...is YC open to reverting to the current system if/when it doesn't work out?

Of course. We'd be pretty stupid not to revert something that wasn't working. Plus in any case if you tweak parameters like the number of endorsements a comment needs and how much karma you need to endorse, you can approach current HN as closely as you want.

I'd venture to guess that the difference between a requirement of just 1 endorsement from users with karma >= 1 and the current HN is fairly significant (a downvote differs conceptually from a nonexistent endorsement), so you may not be able to approach it too closely. I suppose only time will tell though.
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