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Experiment: No Comment Scores

news.ycombinator.com

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Re: Experiment: No Comment Scores

#261

Post by die_sekte »

pg wrote: post #256
njl wrote: post #244

This 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?

What do the grey dots mean? Hm. Grey dots vanished. This is better. I also saw a black dot. What about those?

And I really don't like the red dot. It doesn't fit into the flow of the layout and it distracts me from the content.

Re: Experiment: No Comment Scores

#262

Post by [deleted] »

pg wrote: post #256
njl wrote: post #244

This 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?

[deleted]

Re: Experiment: No Comment Scores

#263

Post by davidw »

die_sekte wrote: post #261
pg wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok, comments over a threshold (currently 5) now have a red dot prepended to them. Is that better?

What do the grey dots mean? Hm. Grey dots vanished. This is better. I also saw a black dot. What about those? And I really don't like the red dot. It doesn't fit into the flow of the layout and it distracts me from the content.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Spot_(Treasure_Island)

Re: Experiment: No Comment Scores

#264

Post by tel »

blasdel wrote: post #251
pg wrote: post #242

I'm now experimenting with changing the function used to rank comments. I'm hopeful this will both help users find the good comments on a thread, and solve the problem of good but late comments getting stuck at the bottom of the page.

The ranking changes you just made completely eliminated whatever mental model of thread dynamics I had left. It's not clear that you understand the degree to which you're playing with fire here. A 'good but late' comment won't be seen by anyone anyway, due to your front page ranking algorithm that prevents even the most active threads from spending long enough on the front pages.

I think HN has always been an experiment. Playing with fire sounds almost like a compliment then.

Re: Experiment: No Comment Scores

#265

Post by cvg »

pg wrote: post #256
njl wrote: post #244

This 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?

Perhaps this is just me, but doesn't red seem counter-intuitive for a positive score? I think we're conditioned to think red is bad and green is good.

Could this dot be changed to green? Also, could you put an alt or label on that dot with something like "over 5 votes" or some other descriptive text? A bit more accessible.

Re: Experiment: No Comment Scores

#267

Post by moe »

pg wrote: post #256
njl wrote: post #244

This 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?

The dot adds visual noise (just as the redundant "by").

It might be worthwhile to try and map the color code onto the arrows. Red up arrow instead of red dot could serve both as highlight and as "stop, don't click me".

Re: Experiment: No Comment Scores

#268

Post by icey »

pg wrote: post #256
njl wrote: post #244

This 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?

So, now we know if a comment is at 0 or lower, and if a comment is at 5 or higher... Wouldn't it be easier and more consistent at that point to just show the score?

Although I guess I never saw the karma thing as a huge problem to begin with, so I suppose I'm a bad person to opine about this.

Re: Experiment: No Comment Scores

#269

Post by Confusion »

xenophanes wrote: post #220
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.

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.

You got mad at him for making an impersonal remark

I think Are you saying that you're too lazy to read what people are saying and form your own opinions? is a rather personal remark. A psychologizing one at that. Pot, meet kettle.

Re: Experiment: No Comment Scores

#270

Post by Confusion »

unalone wrote: post #168
Confusion wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For me, comment rankings also serve to verify the correctness of my thoughts about the article or a previous comment. I believe this is completely normal and reflects the ability to doubt yourself. The fact that I initially think a story or comment is valuable, does not mean it actually is valuable: I may be wrong. As there will usually be comments reflecting different sides of the issue, I need to know what the comm…

That implies you trust the community more than you trust your own judgment. If somebody refutes you elegantly, then you should look into their refutation regardless of whether or not the refutation has many points.

I trust both my own and the community's judgment. In general, I don't value one above the other. However, when they are at odds, that is an indication that I need to pay special attention, either because I am wrong, because many people are somehow wrong (which I think is quite relevant knowledge), because the situation isn't as clearcut as I may have thought, etc. In specific cases, I may come to value one judgment above the other, which does not necessarily mean dismissing the other judgment. These things are quite gray and I feel comment scores help in distinguishing the shades of gray.
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