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Experiment: No Comment Scores

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Re: Experiment: No Comment Scores

#221

Post by scott_s »

unalone wrote: post #195
dcurtis wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who are you? Why does it seem like you're angry all the time? I pointed out an observation. Your response used the word fuck and then called me lazy, which is extremely rude. Would you have said that to my face? This isn't personal, dude. I just get the same feeling now when scanning comments that I get when I am looking at products on Amazon and can't see the price.

I'm an art student who is very rarely angry and doesn't think swearing indicates emotion. I also believe that it's better to have to spend time thinking about what to read, how to spend your time, than it is to be offered an easy way out that risks devaluing what people are saying. (I further believe that being called lazy usually isn't an insult.) In person, I'd probably be doubly critical. Don't think of it as rude…

Most people use swearing to indicate emotion. If you go against this convention, then you will often be misunderstood.

Re: Experiment: No Comment Scores

#222

Post by NathanKP »

unalone wrote: post #209
10ren wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Look at your comment score, looks like I'm right." is an appeal to the democratic theory of truth. The use of pejorative language obscures your content. Like "fuck that". Also consider pg's comment recently about "bogus" research, and how so many people then jumped on him. Actually, someone got sued in the UK for calling research "bogus", instead of factually and objectively calling out the problem with it. It's als…

"Look at your comment score, looks like I'm right." is an appeal to the democratic theory of truth. There's no such thing as a democratic theory of truth. The truth isn't something that can be voted on. Does God exist because more people believe in Him than believe in a secular universe? The use of pejorative language obscures your content. Like "fuck that". "Fuck that" obscures nothing. It's a concise way to say wha…

So, "Fuck that" doesn't have connotations. Not in the way that "That's shit" does, or even "Fuck you".

I disagree with that. Of course I could have said "Fuck that." However, just like you probably wouldn't want me just saying "Fuck that" in response to your viewpoint other people aren't going to appreciate a comment that says "Fuck that."

I will vote down any comment such as that, and I'm sure that many other members will as well.

Re: Experiment: No Comment Scores

#223

Post by xenophanes »

I like the hidden comment scores. You can still see negative comments at a glance, and the comments are still ordered by the scores so you can read the high score comments first since they are on top.

If they are turned back on, I'd suggest making it an option, and possibly hidden by default.

Re: Experiment: No Comment Scores

#224

Post by scott_s »

unalone wrote: post #182
Herring wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the entire premise behind this site: popular items become more visible. There just isn't enough time to go through all the content; it's much easier to learn the site's bias & compensate.

There just isn't enough time to go through all the content; it's much easier to learn the site's bias & compensate. That's one man's opinion. I read all the comments on every thread here, and find that not all the high-quality comments rise to the top. It's hit-and-miss. In a way that invalidates the theory of upvote-judging, no? It's a shitty system that forces you to adapt to biases. Right now PG's experimenting wi…

Most people here don't want to or have the time to read all comments on all threads and would appreciate help in finding "good" things.

It's true that PG is experimenting with the system, but it's a value judgment to say the old way is more flawed than the new way. In other words, your last two sentences beg the question.

Re: Experiment: No Comment Scores

#225

Post by scott_s »

unalone wrote: post #198
icey wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know what kind of time you have available in an average day, but I can tell you that I don't have the time to go research what every yahoo with an opinion has. I don't mind being wrong, but if I say something, I am saying it because I think I'm right. Just because someone disagrees with me doesn't make me think I should go spend the time trying to prove their position.

You're awake for sixteen hours a day and you can't spend five minutes looking up what somebody's talking about? Research nowadays doesn't take a long time.

Five minutes multiplied by several people is a long time in a day.

You obviously participate in HN a lot. Don't fault the rest of us for only wanting to do it part time.

Re: Experiment: No Comment Scores

#226

Post by qeorge »

siong1987 wrote: post #112
ivankirigin wrote: post #45

I think you can remove the word "by"

"10 points by ivankirigin" is actually quite misleading. It looks like "ivankirign" gave the comment 10 points. We are having the same problem on how to show it correctly on GraffitiGeo. We ended up using "by ivinkirigin, points: 10", which in my opinion is still not perfect. Any idea on this?

"10 points by ivankirigin" is actually quite misleading. It looks like "ivankirign" gave the comment 10 points.

I don't believe I've seen a site where any user can give more than one vote, so I don't think this is misleading. But I've not thought about it before, and I do like "by ivinkirigin, points: 10" better.

Kudos on putting so much thought into your UI. Definitely bodes well for GraffitiGeo.

Re: Experiment: No Comment Scores

#227

Post by scott_s »

pg wrote: post #50
tc wrote: post #40

Wow, this interferes with key elements of my system for voting/commenting on HN. Here are some things that don't work now: * If a comment is sitting at 1 or 0, I'll try to avoid downvoting it unless I really think the comment subtracts value from the site. * If a child is attracting more votes than the parent, and I think this is because the child commenter didn't comprehend what the parent was saying, I vote to leve…

Voting patterns showed a lot of users voted to get a comment to what they felt was an appropriate score: they wouldn't up- or downvote something unless they felt its current score was too low or high respectively. But if comment scores aren't displayed, you won't need to anymore.

I only did that with comments that went below 1 when I felt it was valid. Is that not expected behavior? (Although one can still do this because text color indicates it's gone negative.)

Re: Experiment: No Comment Scores

#228

Post by nir »

dcurtis wrote: post #121
pg wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok, now there should be scores next to your own comments. Better?

You know how sometimes online stores won't tell you the price of something until you add it to your cart? Hacker News feels kind of like that now. Like price, comment score is the best indicator of context, class, and quality. I feel kind of lost.

>Like price, comment score is the best indicator of context, class, and quality.

You mean in the same way a book's price is an indicator of its quality? ;)

The nice thing about comments is that they are short and quick to read. Unlike books or films there's no need for reviewers or critics to help you find the better ones. Just read and decide for yourself.

Re: Experiment: No Comment Scores

#229

Post by NathanKP »

unalone wrote: post #177
NathanKP wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

somebody in the debate responded to a guy who was at -4 by saying "Look at your comment score, looks like I'm right." That's shit. That's assuming that the majority is right. If somebody gets voted down there is a pretty good chance that they were wrong, or even if they were right, they said in the wrong tone/manner.

"Pretty good chance." But here's the thing. What if they're not wrong? What if a bunch of people read the comment, didn't quite understand it, and then downvoted it because it already had downvotes? I know I act like that a lot while reading. I also see a curious downvoting pattern on those frequent incidents when somebody mass downvotes all my comments for some reason or other. I'll assume for argument that on avera…

I do agree wholeheartedly. I guess the lesson is never downvote or upvote something unless you have a solid reason for doing so.

Don't just go along with the pack.

Re: Experiment: No Comment Scores

#230

Post by apotheon »

mhb wrote: post #208
blogimus wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can still see the votes on your comments by looking at your comments history.

And that's awkward - maybe even unusable. It takes you out of the context of the discussion.

Hmm. Yeah, that could be problematic.
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