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HN comments are underrated

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Re: HN comments are underrated

#91

Post by yanjuk »

A way to reduce disruptive comments might be to make one downvote cost one karma point.

Down-voting should be for disruption, not ignorance. Ignorant comments are fine. Get them out there so they can be aired and corrected. Laymen get to know what they think. Experts get to know what laymen think. Occasionally there's a good idea.

Talk is cheap and we should do more of it. The alternative is people being far more ignorant than they already are. But silently, in private, with more potential for harm.

Re: HN comments are underrated

#92

Post by Semiapies »

coldtea wrote: post #48
Semiapies wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, using any tool or language that came out after the commenter started programming is "hipster". And you see a lot of xkcd 927 and "I can't help thinking effort would have been better spent on an existing project" when someone writes any program of any type where other examples exist.

> Yes, using any tool or language that came out after the commenter started programming is "hipster". I see this a lot, and I don't think it's a valid criticism of the issue. It assumes either that all periods in IT are equally good, or that there's monotonic progress (both of which are wrong), and that there's no such thing as a fad, so anybody pointing one is clearly a "get off my lawn" person. I'm with Alan Kay on…

It's not a "criticism" of an "issue", it's a description of a behavior that may in some cases and out of some mouths have a point, but is not necessarily rooted in anything worthwhile.

The behavior is frequently ad hominem in use and often seems to express insecurity of some form, mixed with the conservative bias towards freaking out about flaws in new things while brushing them off in existing things.

Re: HN comments are underrated

#93

Post by throwanem »

panic wrote: post #67
internaut wrote: post #56

It's not complicated, just hard to digest. Anti-white racism. It's identical to the antisemitism of the far right in the 30s and 40s, except it is with whites.

There's more to racism than just not liking someone's opinion.

Discounting someone's opinion on the basis of skin color and economic circumstances rather than content, for example.

Re: HN comments are underrated

#94

Post by yanjuk »

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…

Great comment, though I'm not sure 'naive political opinion' even exists. If a topic is political then it's controversial and sophisticated expert opinions count just as little as naive layman opinions.

Re: HN comments are underrated

#95

Post by Semiapies »

50CNT wrote: post #73
qwertyuiop924 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I only post a 927 when there are >6 different standards in the field, and there's no way a new one will catch on. As for the effort better spent posts, those are awful. Never post those. Instead post about how great emacs is compared to vim: you're more likely to spawn useful discussion.

I think that it's interesting that there is an etiquette developing on when which XKCD is appropriate.

Well, here. It's still popular on Reddit to be the first to post an "obligatory" link to a vaguely relevant xkcd. Here, that usually gets downvoted fast.

Re: HN comments are underrated

#96

Post by mooreds »

I have often thought it's be great to do a "best comments of the week" email list the same way "Kernel Traffic" did for a number of years with Linux kernel development: http://www.kerneltraffic.org/kernel-traffic/archives.html

Condensing comments down to the 5-10 gems would be very interesting. And, perhaps with the voting system, not that difficult.

Re: HN comments are underrated

#97

Post by tgb »

anton_tarasenko wrote: post #11

When I worked with the HN post data, I noticed that some years ago HN users had correctly predicted the "Show HN" projects that later got funding. Those projects had more upvotes. The more recent data has no such connection. It seems that the influx of users reduced the quality of judgement. So one way to improve HN submissions and comments is to weight points by the user's tenure on HN. I also suspect that early com…

Interesting, but when I upvote Shown HN posts, it's because it contributed to my enjoyment of reading HN. That's largely orthogonal to whether it would be a good product, and often times is directly contradictory towards it (fun tech demos -> upvotes, products -> meh). I don't think that's a decline in the quality of HN, it's just a different focus. I use HN as entertainment rather than as a prediction market. But I can see that others would not like the shift.

Re: HN comments are underrated

#98

Post by progman »

libeclipse wrote: post #23

Another thing I've noticed about HN comments is that everything is hyped beyond what it deserves. For example, the recent DDoS attacks were just a bunch of skids with Mirai, but it was discussed as if it was the end of the internet. There's also the issue of self-censorship, where users will refrain from posting their opinion in case they get downvotes and negative karma. The things people post here are fascinating,…

> There's also the issue of self-censorship, where users will refrain from posting their opinion in case they get downvotes and negative karma.

This is the price for shadow-banning which some blogs use to censor freedom of speech. The hosters may consider it super smart to silence unwelcome messengers. Actually they just expose their own intolerance.

> The things people post here are fascinating, but the comments, in my honest opinion, aren't.

Truth can be inconvenient and offending, causing downvotes. People often try to silence offenders as "hate speakers" these days just because of (justified) criticism. It is evidence of increasing intolerance.

Re: HN comments are underrated

#99

Post by grzm »

amelius wrote: post #58

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.

Moderation systems and community guidelines on how to use them. (You likely implied that, I think making it explicit is important.)

Re: HN comments are underrated

#100

Post by panic »

throwanem wrote: post #93
panic wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's more to racism than just not liking someone's opinion.

Discounting someone's opinion on the basis of skin color and economic circumstances rather than content, for example.

A person's background is what forms their perspective on the world. That background and perspective affects the content of their posts. You can't separate the two things so easily.
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