Tell HN: Uptick in mean-spirited comments • Hacker News Board

Re: Tell HN: Uptick in mean-spirited comments

#221

Post by plinkplonk » Sun, Oct 31, 2010, 5:34 PM UTC

pg wrote: post #215

GHFigs wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Replace the total karma score by the username in the upper right of the page with the average that's already visible on the profile page. An average is a better indicator to the user of how well they are engaging with the site. It only goes up if the user consistently posts worthwhile comments, which rewards being selective about when you post and thoughtful about what you post. Fewer and better is encouraged. Consis…

Ok, let's try that for a while.

Is there any way I can see other people's average karma?

The individual users pages (except my own) still seem to display total karma.

The leaderboard is still ranked by total karma. If we are adopting (temporarily perhaps) average karma as a metric , it would be great to see who is ranked highest on it or even just how much average karma a user has, just as we can check total karma of a user today

I also suspect that the frequency of average karma calculation may need to be increased.

Re: Tell HN: Uptick in mean-spirited comments

#222

Post by cperciva » Sun, Oct 31, 2010, 5:34 PM UTC

GHFigs wrote: post #210

pg wrote: post #30

Incidentally, if anyone has any suggestions for technical changes/features/tricks that would help fix the problem, I'm all ears. Fending off the decline everyone thinks is inevitable for forums is the main thing I work on. It has been since practically the beginning.

Replace the total karma score by the username in the upper right of the page with the average that's already visible on the profile page. An average is a better indicator to the user of how well they are engaging with the site. It only goes up if the user consistently posts worthwhile comments, which rewards being selective about when you post and thoughtful about what you post. Fewer and better is encouraged. Consis…

Lousy comments (like one-on-one arguments and "Me too!") are discouraged even if nobody votes them down.

Comments which few people will notice are also discouraged. Most of my 1-point comments are the only comment on their respective articles, and many of those are 'Ask HN' posts. I don't want to find myself thinking "I could contribute here, but doing so will drag my average down".

Re: Tell HN: Uptick in mean-spirited comments

#223

Post by Tycho » Sun, Oct 31, 2010, 5:34 PM UTC

GHFigs wrote: post #210

pg wrote: post #30

Incidentally, if anyone has any suggestions for technical changes/features/tricks that would help fix the problem, I'm all ears. Fending off the decline everyone thinks is inevitable for forums is the main thing I work on. It has been since practically the beginning.

Replace the total karma score by the username in the upper right of the page with the average that's already visible on the profile page. An average is a better indicator to the user of how well they are engaging with the site. It only goes up if the user consistently posts worthwhile comments, which rewards being selective about when you post and thoughtful about what you post. Fewer and better is encouraged. Consis…

A lot of people probably like logging in and instantly seeing their 'karma results' from whatever they recently posted... but I guess that's kind of addictive behaviour we'd probably be better off without (in terms of spending too much time on HN), even if the change causes some irritation.

Re: Tell HN: Uptick in mean-spirited comments

#224

Post by thaumaturgy » Sun, Oct 31, 2010, 5:35 PM UTC

maxklein wrote: post #124

awakeasleep wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd like to register my strong disagreement with this notion. While accountability has many benefits, I believe our world doesn't allow any feasible way to discuss many important topics without anonymity— especially in regard to business or our jobs. Think of the trouble that can come from discussing salaries, and don't even bother going into what sort of trouble opinions on drug policy can bring people. While real n…

Don't you get it? Anonymous and non-anonymous comments have equal ranking. The point of my system is just to encourage most people to be non-anonymous. This means that the vast majority of comments will stay civil, and when most comments are civil, the tone will tend to stay that way. If you need to make commentary on drug policy or your salary, then simply make an anonymous account and say all you want to say. There…

> Don't you get it?

That was a fine example of what people have been complaining about recently.

(And you're not even anonymous! :-)

Re: Tell HN: Uptick in mean-spirited comments

#225

Post by steveklabnik » Sun, Oct 31, 2010, 5:36 PM UTC

JesseAldridge wrote: post #99

pg wrote: post #30

Incidentally, if anyone has any suggestions for technical changes/features/tricks that would help fix the problem, I'm all ears. Fending off the decline everyone thinks is inevitable for forums is the main thing I work on. It has been since practically the beginning.

Possible solution 1: Smaller communities; Dunbar's number. I know it's been suggested before, but here it is again... When everybody knows everybody, people are nicer. Just create one unique, isolated instance of the site for every X number of users. Distribute current users randomly (or whatever) among the instances. Assign new users to the least populous instance. If an instance gets over max_number of users, split…

> Possible solution 1:

I actually built this, but never put it up on a server.

Re: Tell HN: Uptick in mean-spirited comments

#226

Post by [deleted] » Sun, Oct 31, 2010, 5:36 PM UTC

pg wrote: post #215

GHFigs wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Replace the total karma score by the username in the upper right of the page with the average that's already visible on the profile page. An average is a better indicator to the user of how well they are engaging with the site. It only goes up if the user consistently posts worthwhile comments, which rewards being selective about when you post and thoughtful about what you post. Fewer and better is encouraged. Consis…

Ok, let's try that for a while.

[deleted]

Re: Tell HN: Uptick in mean-spirited comments

#227

Post by resdirector » Sun, Oct 31, 2010, 5:37 PM UTC

pg wrote: post #186

chaosmachine wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Downvoted comments are bad for the community. They are literally negative. Remove downvotes. Anything that truly deserves downvotes probably deserves flagging/deading, too. Downvotes change how you think about reading comments. Instead of "was this helpful?" you're thinking "do i love this or hate this?". It's polarizing, and as the number of users increases, it's easy for a comment to hit -4 in a couple minutes. Peo…

I've often thought of it. The reason I had downvotes originally was to deter people from saying things that were mean or stupid. But maybe the right way to deal with that is a separate mechanism from voting, as it is with stories. Maybe the right combo for comments is an uparrow, plus a flag link, and encourage users to flag comments that are mean or stupid. I'll think about the real solution more after I'm done read…

We had a saying in physics: "there are no stupid questions, (only stupid people)". We encouraged people to ask stupid questions, because (a) quite often that's the only way you learn, (b) it encourages shy people to speak up, and, (c) sometimes a stupid question isn't stupid at all, and leads to a deeper insight.

I'm a little disappointed that HN isn't like this. Most of the time I have a "stupid question", but I don't comment due to the HN's disapproval of stupid comments. I self-censor to the extreme with HN, and I don't think I'm the only one.

Maybe I'm in a minority here, but I'd like to see mean comments flagged/deaded. And stupid comments filtered to the bottom (but not otherwise punished).

Re: Tell HN: Uptick in mean-spirited comments

#228

Post by pornel » Sun, Oct 31, 2010, 5:45 PM UTC

GHFigs wrote: post #210

pg wrote: post #30

Incidentally, if anyone has any suggestions for technical changes/features/tricks that would help fix the problem, I'm all ears. Fending off the decline everyone thinks is inevitable for forums is the main thing I work on. It has been since practically the beginning.

Replace the total karma score by the username in the upper right of the page with the average that's already visible on the profile page. An average is a better indicator to the user of how well they are engaging with the site. It only goes up if the user consistently posts worthwhile comments, which rewards being selective about when you post and thoughtful about what you post. Fewer and better is encouraged. Consis…

This definitely discourages posting things that won't be highly upvoted.

The problem I have with this is that absolute number of upvotes is not equal to quality of a comment.

A good comment posted under less popular news item will get eyeballs, less upvotes, and lower poster's average.

Similarly participation in long thread (even if that's constructive thread, not a flamewar) or response far down the page is unlikely to get many upvotes, regardless of quality.

Re: Tell HN: Uptick in mean-spirited comments

#229

Post by Zev » Sun, Oct 31, 2010, 5:45 PM UTC

GHFigs wrote: post #210

pg wrote: post #30

Incidentally, if anyone has any suggestions for technical changes/features/tricks that would help fix the problem, I'm all ears. Fending off the decline everyone thinks is inevitable for forums is the main thing I work on. It has been since practically the beginning.

Replace the total karma score by the username in the upper right of the page with the average that's already visible on the profile page. An average is a better indicator to the user of how well they are engaging with the site. It only goes up if the user consistently posts worthwhile comments, which rewards being selective about when you post and thoughtful about what you post. Fewer and better is encouraged. Consis…

An average is a better indicator to the user of how well they are engaging with the site. It only goes up if the user consistently posts worthwhile comments, which rewards being selective about when you post and thoughtful about what you post. Fewer and better is encouraged. Consistently good is encouraged. Lousy comments (like one-on-one arguments and "Me too!") are discouraged even if nobody votes them down.

I disagree. I like it when people make a post because they have something to say to someone else. I like it when I reply to someone and they reply back and it starts a conversation. Maybe it leads to an interesting train of thought that I might not have otherwise come up with, maybe it does the same for the other person. I wouldn't like to see HN losing that.

And possibly like this post. I don't know how many other people will find it interesting or will agree with me. But, if I cared about average, I might be hesitant to make this post.

Re: Tell HN: Uptick in mean-spirited comments

#230

Post by bokonist » Sun, Oct 31, 2010, 5:45 PM UTC

cperciva wrote: post #222

GHFigs wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Replace the total karma score by the username in the upper right of the page with the average that's already visible on the profile page. An average is a better indicator to the user of how well they are engaging with the site. It only goes up if the user consistently posts worthwhile comments, which rewards being selective about when you post and thoughtful about what you post. Fewer and better is encouraged. Consis…

Lousy comments (like one-on-one arguments and "Me too!") are discouraged even if nobody votes them down. Comments which few people will notice are also discouraged. Most of my 1-point comments are the only comment on their respective articles, and many of those are 'Ask HN' posts. I don't want to find myself thinking "I could contribute here, but doing so will drag my average down".

The ideal measure would be number of upvotes of a comment divided by the number of views of the comment. That way you wouldn't get punished for making comments late in a thread or on a less well read post. Unfortunately measuring this statistic would require a lot of work to implement.