Would be interesting to have a new url:
https://news.ycombinator.com/endorsablecomments
and a way for 1000+ users to view comments scores as reward for good endorsements
Coming Soon to Hacker News: Pending Comments
741–750 of 854 posts
Re: Coming Soon to Hacker News: Pending Comments
#742There have been a lot of comments stating why this is a poor idea, but as someone who is sub-1000 karma, I haven't seen this reason posted yet (although I could only read the first half or so). In a typical day, I can't spend all day sitting on Hacker News refreshing threads and seeing if anyone has responded to me (or promoted my comment). But occasionally I'll read a thread, find a couple of interesting places to c…
And frankly, it would make this site much less attractive to browse as an occasional commenter. I find myself wondering whether that's part of the unstated goal of this action - getting fewer "occasional commenters". I have no clue on the reasons but clearly that will be an effect of the change. I think we can all see how rushed this rollout was so it's possible that is an unintended consequence.
Maybe they're after the comments that require several hours of research and multiple drafts. Anybody who can make a couple comments over a short period of time isn't putting in a whole lot of thought and effort into their comments. I get the feeling they're looking for comments that resemble blog posts rather than the conversational type of comments.
Re: Coming Soon to Hacker News: Pending Comments
#743An issue with this design is that it ensures that the current high-karma commentators maintain what they like on HN. If a really good idea shows up that they don't like and don't want to see, that is not going to survive.
Re: Coming Soon to Hacker News: Pending Comments
#744Can you reflect the false positive / false negative rates for mods? I'd love it in the header.
That is the second most interesting aspect of reviewing YC applications, the first being the applications themselves.
Re: Coming Soon to Hacker News: Pending Comments
#745I don't comment often. I came here following the dice purchase of slashdot, and found a quality tech oriented site without too much crap. At the rate I (slowly) accumulate the imaginary internet points here, it will be the better part of a decade before I end up with the ability to "endorse" any other comments. I don't really care about that, except you're locking out those of us that don't have a following here, or…
I share your concerns. For me it "should" be ~4+ years. But that assumes that I can post at the same rate, which I won't be able to.
I primarily follow HN for news, with the option of discussion and clarification of said news. Many (most?) of my comments are buried deep in the comment tree, as responses to specific comments, and tend to get one or two responses.
And that sort of thing - responses back and forth, clarification and additional questions - are the sort of thing that won't be able to be done. There is no sense in posting a reply to someone with less than a thousand karma if it's buried deep in the comment tree, even if it's something the parent commenter is interested in, even if it is something that other people would be likely to want to have answered. Because it is a niche conversation, and there are so few people visiting it that it is unlikely that someone with 1000 karma will visit it.
If I cannot comment, why stay? Most, if not all, of the interesting articles are crossposted elsewhere, places where I can comment.
Re: Coming Soon to Hacker News: Pending Comments
#746Three things.
First, I'm not sure this solution is actually necessary at all.
Second, endorsing sounds like a lot of tedious work.
Third, the system as described has a number of issues. I would modify it in the following ways:
1. Number of endorsements is proportional to story rank, and changes as the story rank changes. After story rank 60, no endorsement is required.
2. Number of pending comments allowed for a given user is proportional to his or her karma. Users with karma of 1 should have 1, users with karma 1000 should have more, perhaps 5-10.
3. Unendorsed comments appear visually distinct from hidden posts and down-voted posts. Perhaps a shaded background?
4. If a user has exhausted his or her unendorsed comments pool in this 24-hour period, they should be informed of this fact where the new comment text area normally is.
Re: Coming Soon to Hacker News: Pending Comments
#747Sounds good in theory, the best communities are almost always those that are strictly moderated or have their rules heavily enforced. It will probably make HN worse though. HN already suffers from being too much of a "rich, startup boys club". This will only get worse as those that have been around longer and made comments that "fit" within that viewpoint get karma and get to decide what comments are shown.
I would suggest that this is a fine time for those of us with unfinished HN clones and visions of disrupting the whatever to try and see if we can do better, although the network effect around HN would seem to suggest that most people will simply put up with it or leave for reddit or another larger site.
I'm in. An unbiased HN for scientists/engineers/old-time hackers would be just great. This site's format is perfect, but the scope is too narrow.
Re: Coming Soon to Hacker News: Pending Comments
#748Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's been a decade since I've posted there with any regularity, but this more or less lays out why I feel like I still haven't seen a more elegant solution to moderating comments than Slashdot's metamoderation system. Comments not only receive a +/- minus score, but they receive a reason for that score. Additionally, meta-moderators are selected randomly from eligible moderators who go behind and moderate whether the…
Do you feel like slashdot has high quality discussions? I don't. The problem isn't new, but it also isn't solved.
You bring up another interesting point for me. How do you even know when the problem is or isn't solved? There are two common themes I see in forums like this (and of course, many others of varying nuance). One group has been around for a long time and says it's just not like the old days, and a second group says that it is, and that the former are looking at the past through rose tinted glasses.
I can't objectively say that slashdot was better or worse here. Firstly, because I didn't go to slashdot nearly as often as I do here, and secondly, because I haven't done anything to thoroughly define and measure what I would consider a quality community.
If my problem is that the community is bad, I think I need a way to show to myself that it really is. I need a set of guidelines which I want my community to interact according to, or standards for the goodness I'm trying to push, and a way to see how much goodness there is, then a plan to drive that goodness.
And I'm not even saying that you need to be rigorous about it. Maybe that would help, but I think you can get some ideas with some general notions like tiny surveys, or something like that. I guess you could start getting more interesting and use sentiment analysis after auto-classifying posts, looking for meta content talking about the board.
As another aside, I think more specialized, smaller fragmented communities tend to be better for me, which is why I also enjoy subreddits like r/types and such, but again, I think that by no objective standard
Re: Coming Soon to Hacker News: Pending Comments
#749Hmm, aside from the distaste of a "guilty until proven innocent" formula being injected, this suffers from a critical flaw. The word "endorse" symbolizes something different than "substantial and not nasty". It symbolizes subjective support, agreement. Because of this association, the use of this system will tend to signal that groupthink is valued, and a cycle of groupthink will become entrenched.
The fix is simple: use a different symbol. Something that more precisely, objectively signifies "not simple and not nasty". This will create a more permissive gate that allows opinions of moderate substance and moderate tone through (an "err on the side of allow" policy). Inevitably the symbol must also consider the tendency of moderators, being active participants in a discussion themselves, to favor their own views.
Taken all into account, I suggest the "endorse" link be renamed "tolerable". (Rather than an action, it becomes a kind of flag.) This has the explicit connotation of erring toward permissiveness of differing views, and contrasts the two fears expressed in the post: comments that are boring or unprofessional/spiteful/mean.
(And as it stands, upvoting already signifies "endorsement".)
Re: Coming Soon to Hacker News: Pending Comments
#750Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think it's a good idea, as the quality of comments have been degrading. Perhaps after a post has reached a certain age (few hours) comments would slowly open up to users with less and less karma. Just a thought, but I agree a "show pending" toggle would be nice too.
It is important that we encourage new users to comment on HN. The reality is that early posts from new users may not make the grade set by 1000+ Karma users. Let them be visible as otherwise you may discourage such new users from re engaging/commenting further. Color coding comments to flag they as 'pending' is fine. But complete hiding them sounds too strong Its great to have the conversation on how to improve HN co…
Why is important to encourage new users to comment? That, too, seems to be solving a problem that doesn't exist.