Please tell us what features you'd like in news.ycombinator

It would be very useful if 500+ karma users could reply privately to comments. The use case here would be to be able to tell a user why their comment is not appropriate or lowers the quality of discourse.

This feature could also come with the ability for 500+ karma to make such private comments visible (to make sure this privilege isn't being abused).

For example, in the following thread I would love to tell users why their comment does not constructively contribute to the discussion, but I also know that my comments on their comments don't contribute to the OP. There are many comments on there where a downvote is sufficient, but there are also borderline comments that merit an explanation as well. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7469115

If someone has been hell banned could users with showdead on upvote them back to life. It would cut down on the silly Hey so and so you are dead go make a new account posts.

A 'headline needs attention' flag-like button. It shouldn't imply a penalty, like a normal 'flag', just an indication the headline may need tuning. (Some headlines bury the lede, as with ." rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7562859>.)

Re: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7593249 (software to formalize user better-URL recommendations)

An idea along those lines: every item (submission/comment) should have a separate set of children that are 'meta/correction/derailing'. (That is, there's 'reply' and 'reply-meta'.)

Users would have to choose (or earn?) 'showmeta'. (So, no clutter for those who don't want to see that level. But perhaps even people without 'showmeta' see the meta subthreads on their own authored items, and a count of unseen metas-in-reply-to-them.)

Minor editorial nits like typos/headline-improvements/URL-improvements ought to be raised in 'meta' replies... and normal replies can be moved to 'meta' if appropriate, even beyond the normal edit-grace-period - especially if their point become obsolete by parent/admin editorial action.

Perhaps meta-items even have a one-tick way for the parent/admin to acknowledge they've been seen, mark as agreed, or mark as addressed.

All in the spririt of subtle-behind-the-scenes work to keep the "foreground" that most see on-point and high-quality.

Have some marking on the text box on the submission page to give a clue about where the 80 character limit is.

Or just chop titles at 80 chars.

I would find it easier to trim down characters and make replacements if I had a guide. Without the guide it is tempting to remove whole words and sometimes that becomes misleading or link baity.