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Coming Soon to Hacker News: Pending Comments

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Re: Coming Soon to Hacker News: Pending Comments

#711

Post by existencebox »

mintone wrote: post #492
beloch wrote: post #274

My may concern with this system: Sledgehammer meets tack. The comments on HN aren't perfect, but they're far from bad when compared to other sites of this nature. There has been a downwards trend most probably due to the increasing popularity of HN. A response is warranted. However, this system has the potential to silence a lot of high quality comments on any threads that aren't on the front-page for an extended per…

I'm not sure that I qualify to contribute a reply (and that may be a problem here) - I've read HN for 4+ years and have only started actively contributing very recently on this account - I have neither karma nor history of posting in my favour. One of the most powerful things about HN is that it is currently not like reddit - we don't end up with 400+ comments that sit at the bottom of the page gathering dust and dow…

This really worries me as well. I'm in the somewhat the same boat as you, a good relatively recent anecdote is one of my early threads, an Ask HN thread which while it never got more than a few votes, got enough productive answers and discussion that it cleared up some issues on my part. (also, the entire discussion took place within the first 24 hours by primarily low karma users, after which the thread was dead.) If that discussion wouldn't be feasible without "approval" that entire exchange and the benefit I drew from it would have been unobtainable.

I must admit I do not feel compelled by this change.

Re: Coming Soon to Hacker News: Pending Comments

#712

Post by thaumasiotes »

rmrfrmrf wrote: post #687
yeukhon wrote: post #661

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you think people can comment on each other's comment without a single emotion that's a mistake. People share stories about their past experience, anger and frustration with one another. He cares about his ability to express here thoroughly and fully. Clearly thaumaturgy is now the one getting upset and doesn't want to make direct response anymore after offending OP.

Well, I don't think I said without a single emotion . I do think, however, that you can express concerns without resorting to anger and negativity.

I don't think there's a useful distinction to draw between the community where expressing any emotion is prohibited and the one where positive emotions, but only positive emotions, are welcome.

Re: Coming Soon to Hacker News: Pending Comments

#715

Post by dnc »

Sorry, if I'm asking stupid question or if I'm suggesting something already implemented, but why not do opposite: endorse all comments at start and give 'delete comment' right to HN users with karma > 1000? This way the number of false positives (published comments w/o value) will certainly increase, but you loose none of valuable/significant ones.

Re: Coming Soon to Hacker News: Pending Comments

#716

Post by joshuaellinger »

Given that you seem to be viewing this as a first level screening, I think you need to make the 1000+ karma people review 10-20 pending comments before reading any article based on what's in the queue.

This would insures that the queue doesn't pile up. It would actually encourage good comments in the same ways that knowing a blog reads everything does. It would insure that if the system doesn't work or has problem, you'd hear about it immediately from long-term users.

I would implement it as "( ) endorse ( ) favorite" side-by-side so that the net effect is that great comments pop out of pending with better velocity.

Finally, the 1000+ karma rule for reviewers while convenient is probably a bad framing.

Instead, I'd say that 1000+ karma users are required to review and 100-1000 karma can volunteer to review. If you volunteer, your endorsements have to correlate with 1000+ over 95% of the time or they don't count. Obviously, you can randomly test that to whatever statistical significance you like.

Good luck with the new system -- this is the only site where comments are any good in my experience.

Re: Coming Soon to Hacker News: Pending Comments

#717

Post by hrabago »

hrktb wrote: post #683
waterlesscloud wrote: post #383

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An additional suggestion- don't show username on pending comments. Let the comments get approved solely on their own merit. That should cut out a lot of concern about a ol' boys club, and honestly should do a lot to improve comment quality as well.

The are discussions where user name matters, for instance when refering to the nth parent in the same thread, or when trying to bring more context to a point made previously or even retracting a comment (knowing it's the same user posting is important). We could get away with temporary user names, changing on a per thread basis for instance, but that might be heavy to implement.

>for instance when refering to the nth parent in the same thread

waterlesscloud's suggestion is to hide them only while the comment is pending. Once the comment is approved, then the username can be displayed as normal, allowing references.

Re: Coming Soon to Hacker News: Pending Comments

#718

Post by ldng »

hrktb wrote: post #683
waterlesscloud wrote: post #383

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An additional suggestion- don't show username on pending comments. Let the comments get approved solely on their own merit. That should cut out a lot of concern about a ol' boys club, and honestly should do a lot to improve comment quality as well.

The are discussions where user name matters, for instance when refering to the nth parent in the same thread, or when trying to bring more context to a point made previously or even retracting a comment (knowing it's the same user posting is important). We could get away with temporary user names, changing on a per thread basis for instance, but that might be heavy to implement.

Apply the on first participation to the thread then ?

Re: Coming Soon to Hacker News: Pending Comments

#719

Post by fzltrp »

commandar wrote: post #696
doorhammer wrote: post #382

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To me a problem with karma systems that are based on a specific relatively well-defined ruleset is that you still end up with a score that doesn't really convey much. For instance, the karma I have is made up of meaningful discussions, which involve telling others about relevant facts, as well as one liner jokes and a few quotes from random dead folks that are smarter than I am. I always wonder how useful it is to re…

It's been a decade since I've posted there with any regularity, but this more or less lays out why I feel like I still haven't seen a more elegant solution to moderating comments than Slashdot's metamoderation system. Comments not only receive a +/- minus score, but they receive a reason for that score. Additionally, meta-moderators are selected randomly from eligible moderators who go behind and moderate whether the…

+1 Interesting.

There's probably a parallel to make between moderation systems and Russel's paradox[1].

[1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell's_paradox

Re: Coming Soon to Hacker News: Pending Comments

#720

Post by rantanplan »

tptacek wrote: post #288
jsmthrowaway wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As I understand the idea, endorsing a comment doesn't mean you agree with it. Yeah, that's exactly how it will be used. Sarcasm aside, the word "endorse" has a very specific definition which basically guarantees how this system will be used, intentions or not. I think about every single grayed-out comment I've seen, downvoted simply because it shared an opinion that made people feel uncomfortable but was nonetheles…

It will work better than you think it will. People will endorse comments they disagree with just to get the opportunity to rebut them. Users don't debate things on HN to right the wrongs of the universe; they debate because debating is (or can be, when the comments aren't horrible) gratifying.

No it won't actually. What you described might be the 1/1000 of the cases. Most of the times when someone tells an unpopular truth that is hard to debate, it'll be more gratifying to just silence that unpopular truth. And that is called human nature.
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