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HN comments are underrated

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Re: HN comments are underrated

#51

Post by Chathamization »

witty_username wrote: post #4
anexprogrammer wrote: post #3

HN comments are full of naive political opinion, groupthink, and a tendency to blind optimism on all things technology or new. Often older ways have merit too. It's also probably the only place left on the net where, from comments, I'll find out rapidly, and bluntly with citations, when I'm wrong (and, yes I'm often wrong on the Internet!), usually learn something new on the topic, and sometimes talk with the guy who…

> blind optimism on all things technology or new. Often older ways have merit too. I've seen plenty of "if it ain't broke don't fix it" in the comments and complaints about engineers always trying to use the newest technology.

It depends on the subject. Take Mars colonization or self-driving cars. There's recently been a few posts (with a large number of upvotes) that were more or less press releases from companies, with the majority of the comments being very positive and the most up-voted comment in each post complaining about the existence of a few comments that were skeptical.

Re: HN comments are underrated

#52

Post by coldtea »

latch wrote: post #46
crispyambulance wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How about just reading and evaluating what the damn words say instead of relying on a "score"?

Because there are a lot of topics, even in my professional field, where I don't have the necessary foundation. Because sometimes a comment reaffirms or conflicts with my evaluation and it's useful to have a weight assigned to that. Because the world has enough people who make their own evaluation and refuse to change their opinion regardless of overwhelming evidence.

>Because there are a lot of topics, even in my professional field, that I simply don't have the necessary foundation.

And what makes you think that the "majority vote" on them will be correct?

Most often, it's the majority that doesn't have the necessary foundation.

Re: HN comments are underrated

#53

Post by jordanpg »

shubhamjain wrote: post #10

I prefer cynicism over unthoughtful, inconsequential comments that floods several discussion forums that I have come across. "Nice article", "Great write-up" and the next thing you know, you have created a place where people are only interested in submitting their articles and getting it upvoted rather than make meaningful contributions. People want to make good contributions here and that's something that differenti…

It's important to distinguish between cynicism/negativity and terseness. Good comments are just that: comments. They contain no emotional content at all and make a technical point. Nothing more, nothing less.

Of course, some flavor of tone is unavoidable in written or spoken language, but if terseness or conciseness is labeled as mean or cynical, then I think that's fine (and irrelevant).

Re: HN comments are underrated

#54

Post by coldtea »

jessaustin wrote: post #14
k__ wrote: post #7

I follow many people on twitter who dislike HN. Reason for this is opinions here are alsmost entirely from white males with money.

If this were true, it would merit study. How can a forum that is open to all and used in mostly anonymous fashion, so effectively police the race of users? And how could other less open less anonymous activities hope to succeed in diversity?

>How can a forum that is open to all and used in mostly anonymous fashion, so effectively police the race of users?

By being targeted at programmers and startup founders, that is, two predominantly white (ok, and asian) fields?

It's not that HN does anything special, it's the actual world that does.

Most programmers are middle class (so could afford university in the first place), most founders are upper middle class, and most of both groups are white. There are of course exceptions, but not enough to skew the majority.

The most open and diverse "forum" in the world is YouTube -- you can find everybody there under a cat video or some such (which is also why it has the nastier comments, but that's life outside an echo bubble).

Re: HN comments are underrated

#55

Post by [deleted] »

Jimmy wrote: post #27
anexprogrammer wrote: post #3

HN comments are full of naive political opinion, groupthink, and a tendency to blind optimism on all things technology or new. Often older ways have merit too. It's also probably the only place left on the net where, from comments, I'll find out rapidly, and bluntly with citations, when I'm wrong (and, yes I'm often wrong on the Internet!), usually learn something new on the topic, and sometimes talk with the guy who…

>I'll find out rapidly, and bluntly with citations, when I'm wrong (and, yes I'm often wrong on the Internet!), usually learn something new on the topic If you stay off the default subreddits and only go on the intellectual/debate subreddits, then I honestly think reddit is better for this. The amount of expertise on reddit is astounding. It's very easy to find someone to rigorously challenge any view I have. I'd go…

[deleted]

Re: HN comments are underrated

#57

Post by criddell »

coldtea wrote: post #52
latch wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because there are a lot of topics, even in my professional field, where I don't have the necessary foundation. Because sometimes a comment reaffirms or conflicts with my evaluation and it's useful to have a weight assigned to that. Because the world has enough people who make their own evaluation and refuse to change their opinion regardless of overwhelming evidence.

> Because there are a lot of topics, even in my professional field, that I simply don't have the necessary foundation. And what makes you think that the "majority vote" on them will be correct? Most often, it's the majority that doesn't have the necessary foundation.

Well, if we had the vote counts, we could test your conjecture.

Re: HN comments are underrated

#58

Post by amelius »

I wish there was more research in moderation systems. I think it is a fascinating topic, because it can make or break an online forum. And perhaps it even has applications in political decision making.

Re: HN comments are underrated

#59

Post by runeks »

crispyambulance wrote: post #35
latch wrote: post #32

Removing the vote count was a step back. You end up with highly positioned comments that are factually wrong and no way to weigh the corrections made in replies. If you saw that a comment had 20 votes, but a reply had 500, you'd have something to go by. If nothing else, they could show the relative score of a reply to its parent.

How about just reading and evaluating what the damn words say instead of relying on a "score"?

Some expressions cannot be evaluated without knowing what people think about them. The truth is not determined by popularity, except from the perspective of the person who chooses to believe in the falsehood. I think it's relevant, but not sufficient, to know what other people believe if you want to understand the world.

Of course, the whole problem is that this reflects back on itself. Such that a highly upvoted comment will be upvoted by a person who values popularity too much, whereby he thus alters the very property he used to judge whether or not he should alter the property in the first place. So some people's over-reliance on popularity destroys the usefulness of the reading for everyone else.

Classic observer effect.

Re: HN comments are underrated

#60

Post by latch »

coldtea wrote: post #52
latch wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because there are a lot of topics, even in my professional field, where I don't have the necessary foundation. Because sometimes a comment reaffirms or conflicts with my evaluation and it's useful to have a weight assigned to that. Because the world has enough people who make their own evaluation and refuse to change their opinion regardless of overwhelming evidence.

> Because there are a lot of topics, even in my professional field, that I simply don't have the necessary foundation. And what makes you think that the "majority vote" on them will be correct? Most often, it's the majority that doesn't have the necessary foundation.

It's not an all-or-nothing. It's an extra piece of information.

There might be valid reasons to remove it (it hurts the community, it leads to negative behavior, .... I forget why they took it off).

But when it comes to trying to assess the quality of the comment, more data is better than less. Then you have the option to weigh it as you see fit, including ignoring it.

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