The problems are that upvotes are invisible and anonymous. The website has no built-in mechanism to tell other people that they should pay attention to a given post.
...which is a great, underrated model that I'm glad HN follows.
Ask HN: Please stop "This."
11–20 of 80 posts
Re: Ask HN: Please stop "This."
#12I agree, it is extremely irritating. Generally it's the last resort of someone unable to explain a coherent statement of agreement.
Re: Ask HN: Please stop "This."
#13Are there actually a significant number of posts which consist of just a single "This"? Or are you making a statement against the use of that as an opening line before someone adds their two cents.
If the former I might suggest it has something to with the fact that commenting is the only visible form of 'voting' on HN now that comment scores are hidden.
If the latter, I am completely ambivalent. Its a popular turn of phrase it successfully and succinctly communicates agreement and endorsement of the parent comment. At the same time I wouldn't mind terribly if it fell into disuse.
Re: Ask HN: Please stop "This."
#14The problems are that upvotes are invisible and anonymous. The website has no built-in mechanism to tell other people that they should pay attention to a given post.
IIRC the individual posts are sorted by votes so upvoting should be sufficient
Usually someone choosing to say "This." over upvoting has more to add, thus he writes a comment.
Re: Ask HN: Please stop "This."
#15The problems are that upvotes are invisible and anonymous. The website has no built-in mechanism to tell other people that they should pay attention to a given post.
IIRC the individual posts are sorted by votes so upvoting should be sufficient
I think they're actually sorted by a function of both votes and time--newer posts are ranked above older posts.
Re: Ask HN: Please stop "This."
#16I like to upvote things that I think add value to HackerNews. However, since upvotes are no longer displayed, it's impossible for my agreement or endorsement to have any visible manifestation unless I add a comment. I'd be tempted to use this emerging new idiom, except I think it looks and sounds stupid.
However, pretty much all dialectic and idiomatic shifts look stupid to those entrenched in the existing "standards" and not part of the current "in-crowd." Language changes, and as it does so it leaves behind the previous generation. Perhaps this will flourish briefly and then die out. Perhaps it will return every 10 years or so, possibly even become mundane rather than regarded by some as "cool" and others as, well, juvenile.
Personally, I think that saying "This" looks stupid, but it succinctly expresses the sentiment of the one who writes it. I certainly think it's less stupid than saying "I could care less" when one means that one doesn't care at all. Even saying "meh" would be more acceptable than that illogical expletive.
But in the end this is unhelpful. The language used here will reflect the norms of the population. You can try a King Canute and stand against the tide, but you can't win.
Re: Ask HN: Please stop "This."
#17The problems are that upvotes are invisible and anonymous. The website has no built-in mechanism to tell other people that they should pay attention to a given post.
IIRC the individual posts are sorted by votes so upvoting should be sufficient
They're sorted by a weird combo of recentness, upvotes, and lack of downvotes.
There's no way to tell if a 1-hour-old comment has more upvotes than a 30-second-old comment positioned above it on the page.
There's no way to tell if a single comment in a subthread has 0 upvotes or 100. This is the biggest problem, IMHO. Factual statements have no visible score for correctness.
There's no way to tell if a comment was upvoted for being interesting, or factually correct.
There's no way to tell if the person who upvoted your comment is the same person you replied to.
Re: Ask HN: Please stop "This."
#18What exactly does "This." signify? In terms of magnitude, is it similar to "I agree" or to "I strongly agree" or to "I vehemently agree"?
I usually interpret it as "I couldn't agree more."
Right, you only use it when the person has completely captured your ideas or feelings on the subject, and you have nothing left to add.
Re: Ask HN: Please stop "This."
#19This.
Re: Ask HN: Please stop "This."
#20[deleted]