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Experiment: No Comment Scores

news.ycombinator.com

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Re: Experiment: No Comment Scores

#321

Post by silentOpen »

tptacek wrote: post #316
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?

Leave the numbers all visible, or only show me the number on my own comment, but otherwise, stop messing around. This is distracting. I know there's a mob-voting mentality, but I actually read the comments, not the votes. Stop clubbing me over the head about the votes.

It's just an experiment. We should encourage pg to mess around all he wants -- it's his playground and we stand to benefit from experiments (and the downside isn't disastrous).

Re: Experiment: No Comment Scores

#322

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

#323

Post by crocowhile »

wglb wrote: post #51
wglb wrote: post #21

But don't votes also give feedback to the commentor? I have used this to learn what works within this community and what doesn't. Now, I only know by approximation to my total karma, or if i am bad, that I turn gray.

Just as an example, my karma just jumped a bunch of points. Was it because of the above post, or was it due to europe waking up to some posts made a few hours ago? Perhaps my sense of dislocation will pass in a while.

>Just as an example, my karma just jumped a bunch of points. Was it because of the above post, or was it due to europe waking up to some posts made a few hours ago?

Do you really care so much? Anyway, If I were pg I would play around actually: half users see votes, the other half orange dot or whatever. I bet the numerical scores create a sheep effect and people who see high numbers are more likely to rate comments up.

Re: Experiment: No Comment Scores

#324

Post by Pistos2 »

(Really sorry if this is already discussed, but I don't have time to read 300+ comments in depth)

How about allowing users to set two thresholds for themselves: (1) show only comments above X; (2) begin greying out below Y

What precisely X and Y are or could be I'll leave to the experts.

But this would let everyone decide their own absolute or relative threshold of comments they want to see. Those of you with plenty of time to spend on HN can have fairly low X and Y, whereas those of us that only want to spend a little time on HN each day can have just the popular presented to us. Voluntary herd membership (or rejection), if you will.

Variant along the same lines: An absolute number account setting indicating "I want to see only the N highest-scoring comments/parents".

Re: Experiment: No Comment Scores

#325

Post by qu1j0t3 »

Pistos2 wrote: post #324

(Really sorry if this is already discussed, but I don't have time to read 300+ comments in depth) How about allowing users to set two thresholds for themselves: (1) show only comments above X; (2) begin greying out below Y What precisely X and Y are or could be I'll leave to the experts. But this would let everyone decide their own absolute or relative threshold of comments they want to see. Those of you with plenty…

I'm sure HN is not too proud to steal one of /.'s features. :)

Re: Experiment: No Comment Scores

#326

Post by pbhjpbhj »

jacquesm wrote: post #273
jrwoodruff wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Top-rated comments appear at the top of the thread" True, but often times the top comment will not be the highest rated, but the reply or subsequent replies below the comment will be rated higher than the orginal post, but the entire thread gets moved to the top because of that. Now I have no way of knowing that. [edit] I also have no way of knowing when the MAJORITY of readers are disagreeing with me. Up votes/down…

> 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…

HN is not a popularity contest

Yes it is.

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