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Coming Soon to Hacker News: Pending Comments

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Re: Coming Soon to Hacker News: Pending Comments

#462

Post by minimaxir »

gruseom wrote: post #446
minimaxir wrote: post #370

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For note, HN isn't necessarily increasing in popularity. Number of HN submissions over 3 years: http://i.imgur.com/r9Ayvb1.png Number of HN comments over 3 years: http://i.imgur.com/4FwglA8.png

Does that graph include comments under "submissions", or only stories? I bet the latter. There are only so many conceivably-appropriate-for-HN stories out there, and many of the rest get taken out as spam. If the number of comments, on the other hand, hadn't gone up since 2012, I'd be shocked.

Submissions only.

Here is a chart of the comments: http://i.imgur.com/4FwglA8.png

Re: Coming Soon to Hacker News: Pending Comments

#464

Post by jfoster »

aspensmonster wrote: post #431

I know I'll get downvoted to hell for this reddit-like behaviour, but... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=umDr0mPuyQc Others have already stated the specific reasons why this isn't a good idea very clearly and concisely.

What do you think will happen? When it happens, what will happen next?

Something will break. HN will tweak, fix, and iterate until nothing substantial is broken.

It will be okay.

Re: Coming Soon to Hacker News: Pending Comments

#465

Post by stock_toaster »

tsycho wrote: post #128

I fear this change will have some unintended consequences: 1. In a Ask/Show HN post, (which is often similar to a reddit AMA), the OP will not be able to reply to clarifications questions until their previous one is 'endorsed'. 2. Multiple ( 2a. Either moderators endorsing multiple such comments, due to race conditions and stale views during moderation, or 2b. Moderators would endorse the first (or "best") of them, a…

> 1. Apply this policy on a per-page basis, rather than on a global HN basis.

Maybe even only for articles on the front page.

Re: Coming Soon to Hacker News: Pending Comments

#466

Post by timo614 »

Since this will probably be the last time a comment of mine appears in HN due to the new system I figured I'd give my take on it.

I'm someone who doesn't join in threads pretty often; I'll chime in if I find the topic to be something I'm interested in but my ignorance to most other matters leaves me from wanting to join into threads because of a fear of people piling on negative responses or "schooling" me in terms of the topic at hand.

I don't submit new articles because most things I'm interested in are discovered by more well connected individuals so I'm usually late the party so my score is relatively low despite how long I've lurked.

I'm fearful this new system discourages my participation further; if I don't add some insightful comment or my ignorance of a topic causes others to question whether my opinion is worth discussing I'll be kept from participating because I haven't built up a score. I won't even have the chance to join future conversations because my comments will be pending so until someone decides my opinion has merit I'll be censored from joining into other aspects of an article.

I may not be the most social of the HN folks here on the board but I do like to join into conversations when the topic is of interest to me. I guess this sort of system just makes me feel unwelcome because I'm being punished for not joining in earlier.

Even the most negative comments incite conversation; a person who may have an unwelcome opinion or whose ignorance prevents them from understanding a topic can learn from discussions based off their response.

I understand the reasoning for this and I think, for the most part, it'll help keep the comments section fairly civil. I'm just worried by solving this issue you're throwing away a part of the community who haven't had a chance to prove ourselves over time. I'm regretful I haven't spent time building up my karma in retrospect.

Re: Coming Soon to Hacker News: Pending Comments

#467

Post by atom-morgan »

pg wrote: post #289
JeremyNT wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps add the ability for a poster to retract his orher pending comments? You could add a mandatory waiting period to prevent abuse.

That's what the delete link does.

This may be a stupid question but exactly where is the delete link? I see deleted comments, but I don't see a delete link or even a downvote button when comments are downvoted. Is there a karma threshold for these?

Re: Coming Soon to Hacker News: Pending Comments

#468

Post by abrimo »

booruguru wrote: post #172

This is ridiculous. It's bad enough that people are downvoted for contrarian opinions, but now our comments need to be vetted by the elite HN users before they can be shown to the rest. I don't get it. This site looks like something made in 1996 (with absolutely no regard for readability), but the big new upgrade we're getting is a draconian (and wholly unnecessary) comment moderation feature/policy? A lot of HN user…

I agree! My reply would never be endorsed either!

Re: Coming Soon to Hacker News: Pending Comments

#469

Post by pikachu_is_cool »

I am also going to add my two cents and say that I think this is not a good idea. HN has in no way reached Eternal September, and if it has, then this isn't the way to fix it.

I think it would make much more sense to add moderators (if there already aren't any, I'm not sure). A dozen or so moderators could definitely mitigate any threat that post quality is going down. There are only a dozen new posts per hour, they could definitely handle it.

Re: Coming Soon to Hacker News: Pending Comments

#470

Post by thaumaturgy »

mbreese wrote: post #452
thaumaturgy wrote: post #409

Earlier quoted context omitted.

HN is not a good place for conversation. (I wrote about this once and it was sorta well-received and then, case in point, everyone forgot about it the next day.) HN is primarily a news feed. There is some discussion, but it's topical and very short-lived. I only mention this because the site seems a lot better once you give up on the notion of it being conversational.

I wish it was more conversational. There are lots of experts on here from a variety of disciplines, and a meaningful back and forth can be great on here. But, it's not a good fit for the current format. Perhaps if when a thread got too deep, it could collapse and require a reader to actively expand it. That would help support the threads that start to push too far to the right. But, it's probably better dealt with in…

Yeah, me too.

There really needs to be an entirely new kind of discussion forum, something that merges the various strengths of phpBB, IRC, newsgroups, and reddit. I have some ideas on that, but sadly not the time to code it. I hope someone beats me to it.

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