Experiment: No Comment Scores • Hacker News Board

Re: Experiment: No Comment Scores

#71

Post by joez » Sat, Sep 26, 2009, 5:44 AM UTC

plinkplonk wrote: post #41

Weird suggestion: now hide the contributor too, avoiding the "vote pg up anyway"category of upvotes. Then there's just a list of comments and one can vote them up or down on the content of the comment. Ok I did say it was weird. EDIT: Some great counterpoints below. I agree with them. This is a bad idea.

People are far enough removed from each other on the internet. Knowing who posted something tells a lot. For example, I've been browsing HN about 3 months and I already know to pay extra attention to what tptacek on security. I believe people have gotten jobs from Hacker News too based on their reputation. I think HN is a great community and implementing this would just weaken it.

Re: Experiment: No Comment Scores

#72

Post by lionhearted » Sat, Sep 26, 2009, 5:45 AM UTC

In long threads I skim based on scores. I try to give low comments at the bottom a quick read to vote on them, but one thing I definitely look for are long threads like this:

+5 -3 +4 -2 +4 0

That means someone is being generally rude or uninsightful, but the replies are good, so I'll just read the replies. If there's a long thread of a bunch of 1's, then two people are talking at each other both uninsightfully. If both people are voted up a bit, that means it's a good discussion and the whole thing is worth reading.

I'll give this a good trying out before forming an opinion either way, but the loss of skim-by-score ability is slowing me down just a touch right now. It'll be interesting to see how this turns out.

Re: Experiment: No Comment Scores

#73

Post by stuntgoat » Sat, Sep 26, 2009, 5:45 AM UTC

huhtenberg wrote: post #42

Why not hide the usernames as well then and let the comments be judged purely based on their content ?

That would be a good feature to be able to turn off/on in your site preferences. I would likely leave 'view usernames for comments' off.

Good idea.

Re: Experiment: No Comment Scores

#74

Post by j_baker » Sat, Sep 26, 2009, 5:46 AM UTC

alexgartrell wrote: post #53

One PLUS of karma scores next to comments is that I know when to stop reading :) If my personal interest + the comment score < arbitrary threshold, i quit

You know, if there's one thing programmers should appreciate, it's making it easy to see which information you don't want to read.

Re: Experiment: No Comment Scores

#75

Post by plinkplonk » Sat, Sep 26, 2009, 5:46 AM UTC

cperciva wrote: post #66

plinkplonk wrote: post #41

Weird suggestion: now hide the contributor too, avoiding the "vote pg up anyway"category of upvotes. Then there's just a list of comments and one can vote them up or down on the content of the comment. Ok I did say it was weird. EDIT: Some great counterpoints below. I agree with them. This is a bad idea.

Knowing who wrote a comment often provides very useful context (especially when there is back-and-forth discussion going on).

pvg said -> "It would be a little difficult to have an exchange with someone if you can't tell who is who."

cperciva said "Knowing who wrote a comment often provides very useful context"

You are both completely right. My suggestion doesn't make sense.

It was just a "spur of the moment" suggestion to provoke thought (de Bono's PO mental operator). I dind't think it through at all.

Re: Experiment: No Comment Scores

#76

Post by plinkplonk » Sat, Sep 26, 2009, 5:49 AM UTC

joez wrote: post #71

plinkplonk wrote: post #41

Weird suggestion: now hide the contributor too, avoiding the "vote pg up anyway"category of upvotes. Then there's just a list of comments and one can vote them up or down on the content of the comment. Ok I did say it was weird. EDIT: Some great counterpoints below. I agree with them. This is a bad idea.

People are far enough removed from each other on the internet. Knowing who posted something tells a lot. For example, I've been browsing HN about 3 months and I already know to pay extra attention to what tptacek on security. I believe people have gotten jobs from Hacker News too based on their reputation. I think HN is a great community and implementing this would just weaken it.

"I believe people have gotten jobs from Hacker News too based on their reputation."

Whoa! Nice :-). Any concrete examples?

Re: Experiment: No Comment Scores

#77

Post by DanielBMarkham » Sat, Sep 26, 2009, 5:49 AM UTC

Odd sort of "improvement"

Hacker News -- now with less information?

I would imagine that the more readers become engaged with the site the more information about the site they would want to consume, no?

Re: Experiment: No Comment Scores

#78

Post by natrius » Sat, Sep 26, 2009, 5:50 AM UTC

plinkplonk wrote: post #41

Weird suggestion: now hide the contributor too, avoiding the "vote pg up anyway"category of upvotes. Then there's just a list of comments and one can vote them up or down on the content of the comment. Ok I did say it was weird. EDIT: Some great counterpoints below. I agree with them. This is a bad idea.

It's a community, not an attempt to promote "ideal" discussions. Removing names might help the latter, but it would hurt the former.

Re: Experiment: No Comment Scores

#79

Post by mynameishere » Sat, Sep 26, 2009, 5:51 AM UTC

The bandwagon effect (which is just ridiculous on reddit) occurs because top-rated comments stay at the top. Typical reddit comment at the top of a thread:

  reddit_user 622 points
 
  Glenn Beck is a wanker!  He sniffs arses!

Everyone agrees with this, needless to say, but they only upmod it because it's at the top of the pile. Otherwise, it's a worthless comment. I find the lack of mod points distracting to an unexpected degree. Bad quantification is better than no quantification...

Re: Experiment: No Comment Scores

#80

Post by conoryoung » Sat, Sep 26, 2009, 5:54 AM UTC

Interesting psychological side effect I just noticed: I wasn't previously aware of my tendency to scan a long thread for comments that stand out because of their high comment scores but I just did it when I opened this thread and felt like I didn't have my usual bearings. In one sense it levels the playing field. In another sense, though, it removes some key information that helps us to prioritize where we direct our attention.