I'm seeing dots for some comments instead of the score. It looks like gray dots for comments with a high score and red dots for comments with a very high score. Doesn't this defeat the purpose of the change to some extent? Edit: Sorry, it looks like this was explained after I had loaded this page. Still, this seems like a partial reversal. Also, this story is at #16 on the front page and really should be at #1 consid…
Where was it explained? I'm still searching.....
Experiment: No Comment Scores
281–290 of 327 posts
Re: Experiment: No Comment Scores
#282[deleted]
Re: Experiment: No Comment Scores
#283I'm seeing dots for some comments instead of the score. It looks like gray dots for comments with a high score and red dots for comments with a very high score. Doesn't this defeat the purpose of the change to some extent? Edit: Sorry, it looks like this was explained after I had loaded this page. Still, this seems like a partial reversal. Also, this story is at #16 on the front page and really should be at #1 consid…
Where was it explained? I'm still searching.....
Got it...
Thanks. The comments here are getting to be so much that they are hard to follow. ;)
Re: Experiment: No Comment Scores
#284Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I also have no way of knowing when the MAJORITY of readers are disagreeing with me. Why would that matter ? The majority isn't always right. HN is not a popularity contest, but when you look at the comments that way it certainly starts to look like it. Let's see what I can say that many people will agree with so I can be voted up ? As unalone already remarked, now you have to make up your own mind about what you ar…
Ok. This is starting to congeal for me. What the old system did was to provide a numeric indicator of other readers' emotive participation in the discussion. It wasn't a popularity contest (although it could be for some) and it wasn't an agree/disagree rank (although it could be for some) These "bad" uses of the score caused the system to get out of whack as more and more people participated. The problem is, there ar…
> I, the user, have a need to skim
The sort order is what gives you exactly that, and that is still there, so the 'good' stuff is still at the top (and even better than before now with the improved sorting algorithm). It's just 'relative' now, instead of 'absolute'.
Re: Experiment: No Comment Scores
#285Earlier quoted context omitted.
I agree. I wonder if you could just have three buttons/widgets: insightful, funny, and troll. Then just click what you think of the article, and insightful articles rise to the top. Heck, you could even make it a user preference whether to sort insightful first, funny first, or troll first (why you'd want to do that I don't know, but some might) It would involve just one more graphic element than the current up/down…
or troll first (why you'd want to do that I don't know, but some might) At least on slashdot, the "troll"s are sometimes, in their own way, funnier than the "funny"s (if only because of not involving overdone /. in-jokes).
I'd go so far as to say that I'd enjoy reading jokes and one-liners the folks here have to say about the news. We've got some really smart people that read HN. I bet their jokes are hilarious.
But that's only sometimes, not all of the time. If there could be a button for turning jokes off or on (or sorting by funny) then it'd be a hoot to see the site in that asepct.,
In short, I don't think it's a human behavior problem. Computer systems should let people act like people naturally act. This is a display problem. Some folks are seeing things in spots they would not like them to be in.
Instead of viewing the site as some huge function to take limited input and provide maximum output, perhaps it's better viewed as a big bucket of various randomized data. Then the purpose of the site is to sort and organize that random data in such a way as to provide maximum utility.
Re: Experiment: No Comment Scores
#286This change might improve voting, but it decreases the value of that voting. I'll stipulate that the voting might be more "fair", if that is a goal. I'm not sure it should be. It might make the "game" of getting high karma more fair, but I'm not bothering with or bothered by that game anyway. On the other hand, I can no longer use the results of this voting to help me skim a conversation. I want to know what everyone…
Ok, comments over a threshold (currently 5) now have a red dot prepended to them. Is that better?
I really, really like the basis of this idea.
But the more I ponder what you're trying to solve, the more I think you should provide scores weighted within the discussion. Perhaps, the quintile a comment is in. Use a bar that adds segments and shifts from one non-judgmental color to another. I wouldn't bother showing anything below a threshold of ten comments on a single link.
Otherwise, your piling-on problem returns, just with a little less fidelity.
Re: Experiment: No Comment Scores
#287Earlier quoted context omitted.
Ok. This is starting to congeal for me. What the old system did was to provide a numeric indicator of other readers' emotive participation in the discussion. It wasn't a popularity contest (although it could be for some) and it wasn't an agree/disagree rank (although it could be for some) These "bad" uses of the score caused the system to get out of whack as more and more people participated. The problem is, there ar…
> I, the user, have a need to skim The sort order is what gives you exactly that, and that is still there, so the 'good' stuff is still at the top (and even better than before now with the improved sorting algorithm). It's just 'relative' now, instead of 'absolute'.
I'm trying to give it some time, jacquesm.
But right now I look at this thread and all I see is a bunch of jumbled-up comments. I don't know if the one at the top is worth-while for me to read or just matches some arcane criteria established by the programmer.
I'm forced to use "threads" to see where I've commented before and to use the new comments page to see where people are currently commenting. Any semblance of being able to apply my own sort criteria is gone.
And I think it gets to my ability to sort by my own criteria and the nested nature of the comments. Do I want to find highly-ranked comments under a lowly ranked parent? Sometimes those are the best ones.
I don't know. Let's see how it goes.
Re: Experiment: No Comment Scores
#288Earlier quoted context omitted.
Hmmm... I always considered that a feature rather than a bug. Only voting when the scores looked "wrong" was an optimization. How do I decide when to vote now? I have a feeling I'm going to settle into a pattern of voting to reorder comments and that I'm going to vote less overall.
I also considered that a feature. I have 3 choices: -1, 0 and 1, and almost always I choose 0. I do think that people make too much of karma and comments scores. But I don't understand why pg thinks this particular aspect is an improvement.
Since global karma (your collected karma over time) does not have any real function in the site as far as I can see you could lose it completely and not much of value would be lost, the way to look at it now is more 'relative', if you see a comment thread with a comment directly above the comment you're looking at that you think contributes less than the comment below it vote to lower one up.
After all, the biggest function by far of the votes is to influence the sort order, so the good stuff gets read by the people that skim. A vote is like a little bit of editorial power, you get to have a say in what goes 'above the fold'.
Re: Experiment: No Comment Scores
#289Earlier quoted context omitted.
That is a good idea. I will see if I can figure out an easy way to do that. It may be enough just to make the time decay on comment scores faster.
Update: I wrote a new function to rank comment threads, and it's being used now. Seems promising.
Back a while ago I submitted an idea, that maybe there are herd (mob) effects on comment threads happening.
This should do the trick (driving the long tail).
Re: Experiment: No Comment Scores
#290Earlier 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.
You got mad at him for making an impersonal remark, and now you say to him "Who are you? Why does it seem like you're angry all the time?" Which is an angry, personal remark. The word "fuck", not directed at anyone, is not important. Personal attacks are. If you don't like unalone's style, ignore him, don't psychologize him. Personally I appreciate the fact that he wrote substantive on-topic comments.
Sooo, when will we get pink, dancing polka dots to highlight conversations like this? :-)