HN comments are underrated • Hacker News Board

Re: HN comments are underrated

#11

Post by anton_tarasenko » Sun, Oct 23, 2016, 11:53 AM UTC

When I worked with the HN post data, I noticed that some years ago HN users had correctly predicted the "Show HN" projects that later got funding. Those projects had more upvotes.

The more recent data has no such connection. It seems that the influx of users reduced the quality of judgement.

So one way to improve HN submissions and comments is to weight points by the user's tenure on HN.

I also suspect that early comments dominate late comments by the time factor alone. The sorting algo gives a brief advantage to new comments, but old comments are more visible. A post on the front page gets 30+ comments in the first hour, and latecomers can only post into the void. To address that, long branches could be collapsed by default, leaving only 2-4 visible messages per branch.

Re: HN comments are underrated

#12

Post by sidcool » Sun, Oct 23, 2016, 11:54 AM UTC

return0 wrote: post #8

HN comments need a vertical bar on the left side to indicate indent level. i find it hard to skim conversations in narrow screens.

Agree. But I am just happy that they added collapsible comments.

Re: HN comments are underrated

#13

Post by qwertyuiop924 » Sun, Oct 23, 2016, 11:54 AM UTC

anexprogrammer wrote: post #3

HN comments are full of naive political opinion, groupthink, and a tendency to blind optimism on all things technology or new. Often older ways have merit too. It's also probably the only place left on the net where, from comments, I'll find out rapidly, and bluntly with citations, when I'm wrong (and, yes I'm often wrong on the Internet!), usually learn something new on the topic, and sometimes talk with the guy who…

>It's also probably the only place left on the net where, from comments, I'll find out rapidly, and bluntly with citations, when I'm wrong (and, yes I'm often wrong on the Internet!), usually learn something new on the topic, and sometimes talk with the guy who invented it. My ADHD brain loves the depth that side topics can get explored and being surrounded by people far cleverer than me

This is pretty much why I use HN at all: it doesn't make me feel smart, but I learn new, exciting things constantly.

Re: HN comments are underrated

#14

Post by jessaustin » Sun, Oct 23, 2016, 11:55 AM UTC

k__ wrote: post #7

I follow many people on twitter who dislike HN. Reason for this is opinions here are alsmost entirely from white males with money.

If this were true, it would merit study. How can a forum that is open to all and used in mostly anonymous fashion, so effectively police the race of users? And how could other less open less anonymous activities hope to succeed in diversity?

Re: HN comments are underrated

#15

Post by qwertyuiop924 » Sun, Oct 23, 2016, 11:56 AM UTC

k__ wrote: post #7

I follow many people on twitter who dislike HN. Reason for this is opinions here are alsmost entirely from white males with money.

Because that's the demographic that dominates tech. If you go to any other tech forum that's not a SIG for some other demographic, you'll find the same thing.

Re: HN comments are underrated

#16

Post by maxerickson » Sun, Oct 23, 2016, 11:56 AM UTC

scwoodal wrote: post #9

dilemma wrote: post #2

The first and second paragraphs seem to contradict each other. Comments (and previously blogs, but not so much anymore) can have more insight than news articles because they're based on first hand experience. Journalists don't have that, and the organization they work for often has problematic incentives which they push onto the writer. HN comments are indeed very terse, to the point of being unfriendly. It bothered…

I'm guessing the author tried to convey a stereotype about the comments in the first paragraph. Then tried to debunk that stereotype in the rest of the post. There definitely could of been a sentence or two to help transition between the two as it felt odd to me as well.

The post is dismissive of the value of the majority of the comments, it just thinks there are some that are worthwhile.

It also suggests moving that content off of HN (or at least replicating it elsewhere).

Re: HN comments are underrated

#17

Post by willvarfar » Sun, Oct 23, 2016, 11:57 AM UTC

shubhamjain wrote: post #10

I prefer cynicism over unthoughtful, inconsequential comments that floods several discussion forums that I have come across. "Nice article", "Great write-up" and the next thing you know, you have created a place where people are only interested in submitting their articles and getting it upvoted rather than make meaningful contributions. People want to make good contributions here and that's something that differenti…

Sometimes really good articles don't have lots of comments. In these circumstances, I post an "excellent article!" comment just to give the author some feedback that someone somewhere actually read the article, and they really liked it! Humans writing articles appreciate that.

Re: HN comments are underrated

#18

Post by maxerickson » Sun, Oct 23, 2016, 11:58 AM UTC

jessaustin wrote: post #14

k__ wrote: post #7

I follow many people on twitter who dislike HN. Reason for this is opinions here are alsmost entirely from white males with money.

If this were true, it would merit study. How can a forum that is open to all and used in mostly anonymous fashion, so effectively police the race of users? And how could other less open less anonymous activities hope to succeed in diversity?

It probably works like strong acid, destroying anything unfortunate enough to not be strong acid on contact.

Re: HN comments are underrated

#19

Post by drieddust » Sun, Oct 23, 2016, 12:04 PM UTC

qwertyuiop924 wrote: post #13

anexprogrammer wrote: post #3

HN comments are full of naive political opinion, groupthink, and a tendency to blind optimism on all things technology or new. Often older ways have merit too. It's also probably the only place left on the net where, from comments, I'll find out rapidly, and bluntly with citations, when I'm wrong (and, yes I'm often wrong on the Internet!), usually learn something new on the topic, and sometimes talk with the guy who…

>It's also probably the only place left on the net where, from comments, I'll find out rapidly, and bluntly with citations, when I'm wrong (and, yes I'm often wrong on the Internet!), usually learn something new on the topic, and sometimes talk with the guy who invented it. My ADHD brain loves the depth that side topics can get explored and being surrounded by people far cleverer than me This is pretty much why I use…

> This is pretty much why I use HN at all: it doesn't make me feel smart, but I learn new, exciting things constantly.

Thanks for articulating it so well.

Re: HN comments are underrated

#20

Post by berntb » Sun, Oct 23, 2016, 12:05 PM UTC

anton_tarasenko wrote: post #11

When I worked with the HN post data, I noticed that some years ago HN users had correctly predicted the "Show HN" projects that later got funding. Those projects had more upvotes. The more recent data has no such connection. It seems that the influx of users reduced the quality of judgement. So one way to improve HN submissions and comments is to weight points by the user's tenure on HN. I also suspect that early com…

Cool. And sad.

But re old accounts: I've recently seen a few cases where old accounts with high karma dismissed Wikipedia -- without any references of their own. That is a "quality smell", if anything is.

(One particularly shameless fellow just copied the primary link Wikipedia used -- and lied about the content. :-( )

EDIT: I wrote without any references of their own -- i.e. dismissed with hand waving. Wikipedia won't always be correct, but it has references and is whetted by quite a lot of people.