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Bold. This makes me really happy. Comments sections are the cesspools of the Internet, so it's great to see someone say "This is going away until you think abou

Bold. This makes me really happy. Comments sections are the cesspools of the Internet, so it's great to see someone say "This is going away until you think about what you did wrong." P.S. Yes, I'm aware of the irony in that I'm commenting on a comment-centric site about how much I hate comments. Let's just say HN is the least cesspoolish place I've found so far.

roc 17y ago
There's no real irony. While anonymous-account sites can have reasonable comments, that's a function of size, really. Back in the day slashdot was great for quality comments. Then they grew and added a karma system which... didn't really help, just buried the dreck for a time. Now it's mostly a mess. Similarly, Engadget used to be alright, then they grew and added the voting system... etc. Frankly, what works for smaller sites doesn't scale. At their visibility, Engadget should either go comment-less or do subscriptions for early-access and comments. Anonymous comments just don't provide enough value with that much noise.
- sjs382 17y ago
  I browse slashdot at +4 and I think the comments are pretty good/insightful. They are a bit too slow on the news sometimes, though.
  - JadeNB 17y ago
    It seems to me that this solution also “doesn't scale”, though not necessarily in the sense of the grandparent: For there to be a sufficient supply of +4 posts that you can read, someone has to be going through, reading them, and promoting them above the dreck. Thus, only a limited number of people can pursue your strategy before it stops working.
    - illumin8 17y ago
      Easy fix for this: If you have Slashdot mod points, browse at 0; if you don't and just want to read good comments, browse at +3 or 4.
      - JadeNB 17y ago
        This is an excellent point. I gave up on Slashdot as a comment site a long time ago, and now satisfy my commenting craving on Reddit and HN, where, effectively, you always have mod points; so I forgot that it didn't work that way elsewhere. Thanks!
    - AlisdairO 17y ago
      That's pretty much the premise that sites like reddit and HN operate on at the link level, too - most people only read the first page or two, but some people are interested/obsessed enough to go through the dreck and flag up what's interesting. It seems to scale reasonably well so far.
      - count 17y ago
        s/interested\/obsessed/bored/ I get to page 5 or 6 on reddit, just because I get bored, and read fairly fast...
    - sjs382 17y ago
      Agreed. What I do works for me and I'm glad there are others with the time/patience/masochistic-tendencies to view and moderate things to make them more pleasant for me. :)
    - notauser 17y ago
      I browse /. at +5 (and see only very good comments) except for the once a month or so when I get given mod points. 15 minutes a month of moderation per person seems to be sustainable/scalable, because it's been working for ages and I have noticed no real change in Slashdot's +5 comment quality. Where that fails with HN is that we have infinite mod points all the time, which: - Encourages point inflation as the community grows. - Discourages people from taking moderation seriously as if it was a big deal you wouldn't be able to do it all the time.
      - JadeNB 17y ago
        > Discourages people from taking moderation seriously as if it was a big deal you wouldn't be able to do it all the time. I'm not sure I agree with this. I really like the HN system whereby upvotes are free, but downvotes are restricted. (Well, I assume that's the way it is --at least, it's easy for me to see how to do one, but not the other.) This makes it easy for me to give a post a tiny bump up, so that I don't think much of it, but emphasises the cost of giving it the equivalent tiny bump down; and isn't that a good attitude to instill in a commenting community? Certainly I think the culture here is notably friendlier than just about anywhere public-facing site (LtU (http://lambdatheultimate.org http://lambdatheultimate.org) being perhaps a notable exception). EDIT: I saw a mention of Metafilter elsewhere. I forgot it as an example of another site with a novel approach to the commenting problem; namely, make commenting not free by imposing a small, one-time cost.
  - bootload 17y ago
    "... Back in the day slashdot was great for quality comments. Then they grew and added a karma system which... didn't really help, just buried the dreck for a time. Now it's mostly a mess. .." This tends to be perception only. I'd agree with @sjs382, a +3 browser here and I was surprised at the improvement in discussion from what I remembered. #2774
pg 17y ago
Comments really are a hard problem. 90% of the thought I expend on HN is devoted to saving the site from bad comments. Spammers and overt trolls are easy. The really hard problems are fluff comments and subtle trolls (people who are fundamentally nasty, but who are sophisticated enough to stop short of name calling).
- michael_nielsen 17y ago
  If you ever write an essay on making online community scale, I'll certainly be an enthusiastic reader! Quite a bit has been written on the subject, but I've found surprisingly little that seems really good, despite the importance of the topic. Two useful links on the subject are http://nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/archives/006036.html http://nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/archives/006036.html and http://www.meatballwiki.org/wiki/ http://www.meatballwiki.org/wiki/
  - pg 17y ago
    One reason I don't is that it would attract attention to HN, and one of my strategies for staving off disaster has been to keep a low profile, so that most new users are people who hear about the site from friends.
    - blasdel 17y ago
      You can't "write an essay on making online community scale" because community doesn't scale
      - fbailey 17y ago
        Absolutely true. Social Networks can scale but communities can't. You can scale a site with community functions, that looks like a community (youtube) but there will be no sense of community.
      - Perceval 17y ago
        I wrote a long article on the subject of online community and the problems of scale: http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2009/3/12/33338/3000 http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2009/3/12/33338/3000
mattmaroon 17y ago
I think it depends on context. Some blogs, like AVC, are more of a discussion with users, so the comments are integral. Some, like Engadget or TechCrunch, are much broader-interest, news-oriented sites, and the comment sections quickly devolve into unreadability.
- cpach 17y ago
  Agreed. I think the lesson to be learned here is "feel free to disable comments". Not "you should never enable comments".
mortenjorck 17y ago
I forewent a comments section on my own blog for a philosophical reason: I feel there should be some greater investment to commenting than creating an account on a blog. To comment on anything anywhere, you're free to use the platform you feel is most appropriate for it, be it your own blog, your Twitter account... or perhaps a link submission to a news discussion site like HN.
awa 17y ago
I agree its a good move for the current situation, but just turning comments on and off won't solve the problem in the long run. When the next gizmo is launched they will face the same problem. I think they should take this time to implement a solution to the spam issue either through moderation or a voting system. I am also not able to access old comments which if intentional doesn't seem to be a good move (imho).

roc 17y ago

There's no real irony. While anonymous-account sites can have reasonable comments, that's a function of size, really. Back in the day slashdot was great for quality comments. Then they grew and added a karma system which... didn't really help, just buried the dreck for a time. Now it's mostly a mess. Similarly, Engadget used to be alright, then they grew and added the voting system... etc. Frankly, what works for smaller sites doesn't scale. At their visibility, Engadget should either go comment-less or do subscriptions for early-access and comments. Anonymous comments just don't provide enough value with that much noise.

sjs382 17y ago
I browse slashdot at +4 and I think the comments are pretty good/insightful. They are a bit too slow on the news sometimes, though.
- JadeNB 17y ago
  It seems to me that this solution also “doesn't scale”, though not necessarily in the sense of the grandparent: For there to be a sufficient supply of +4 posts that you can read, someone has to be going through, reading them, and promoting them above the dreck. Thus, only a limited number of people can pursue your strategy before it stops working.
  - illumin8 17y ago
    Easy fix for this: If you have Slashdot mod points, browse at 0; if you don't and just want to read good comments, browse at +3 or 4.
    - JadeNB 17y ago
      This is an excellent point. I gave up on Slashdot as a comment site a long time ago, and now satisfy my commenting craving on Reddit and HN, where, effectively, you always have mod points; so I forgot that it didn't work that way elsewhere. Thanks!
  - AlisdairO 17y ago
    That's pretty much the premise that sites like reddit and HN operate on at the link level, too - most people only read the first page or two, but some people are interested/obsessed enough to go through the dreck and flag up what's interesting. It seems to scale reasonably well so far.
    - count 17y ago
      s/interested\/obsessed/bored/ I get to page 5 or 6 on reddit, just because I get bored, and read fairly fast...
  - sjs382 17y ago
    Agreed. What I do works for me and I'm glad there are others with the time/patience/masochistic-tendencies to view and moderate things to make them more pleasant for me. :)
  - notauser 17y ago
    I browse /. at +5 (and see only very good comments) except for the once a month or so when I get given mod points. 15 minutes a month of moderation per person seems to be sustainable/scalable, because it's been working for ages and I have noticed no real change in Slashdot's +5 comment quality. Where that fails with HN is that we have infinite mod points all the time, which: - Encourages point inflation as the community grows. - Discourages people from taking moderation seriously as if it was a big deal you wouldn't be able to do it all the time.
    - JadeNB 17y ago
      > Discourages people from taking moderation seriously as if it was a big deal you wouldn't be able to do it all the time. I'm not sure I agree with this. I really like the HN system whereby upvotes are free, but downvotes are restricted. (Well, I assume that's the way it is --at least, it's easy for me to see how to do one, but not the other.) This makes it easy for me to give a post a tiny bump up, so that I don't think much of it, but emphasises the cost of giving it the equivalent tiny bump down; and isn't that a good attitude to instill in a commenting community? Certainly I think the culture here is notably friendlier than just about anywhere public-facing site (LtU (http://lambdatheultimate.org http://lambdatheultimate.org) being perhaps a notable exception). EDIT: I saw a mention of Metafilter elsewhere. I forgot it as an example of another site with a novel approach to the commenting problem; namely, make commenting not free by imposing a small, one-time cost.
- bootload 17y ago
  "... Back in the day slashdot was great for quality comments. Then they grew and added a karma system which... didn't really help, just buried the dreck for a time. Now it's mostly a mess. .." This tends to be perception only. I'd agree with @sjs382, a +3 browser here and I was surprised at the improvement in discussion from what I remembered. #2774

pg 17y ago

Comments really are a hard problem. 90% of the thought I expend on HN is devoted to saving the site from bad comments. Spammers and overt trolls are easy. The really hard problems are fluff comments and subtle trolls (people who are fundamentally nasty, but who are sophisticated enough to stop short of name calling).

michael_nielsen 17y ago
If you ever write an essay on making online community scale, I'll certainly be an enthusiastic reader! Quite a bit has been written on the subject, but I've found surprisingly little that seems really good, despite the importance of the topic. Two useful links on the subject are http://nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/archives/006036.html http://nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/archives/006036.html and http://www.meatballwiki.org/wiki/ http://www.meatballwiki.org/wiki/
- pg 17y ago
  One reason I don't is that it would attract attention to HN, and one of my strategies for staving off disaster has been to keep a low profile, so that most new users are people who hear about the site from friends.
  - blasdel 17y ago
    You can't "write an essay on making online community scale" because community doesn't scale
    - fbailey 17y ago
      Absolutely true. Social Networks can scale but communities can't. You can scale a site with community functions, that looks like a community (youtube) but there will be no sense of community.
    - Perceval 17y ago
      I wrote a long article on the subject of online community and the problems of scale: http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2009/3/12/33338/3000 http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2009/3/12/33338/3000

mattmaroon 17y ago

I think it depends on context. Some blogs, like AVC, are more of a discussion with users, so the comments are integral. Some, like Engadget or TechCrunch, are much broader-interest, news-oriented sites, and the comment sections quickly devolve into unreadability.

cpach 17y ago
Agreed. I think the lesson to be learned here is "feel free to disable comments". Not "you should never enable comments".

mortenjorck 17y ago

I forewent a comments section on my own blog for a philosophical reason: I feel there should be some greater investment to commenting than creating an account on a blog. To comment on anything anywhere, you're free to use the platform you feel is most appropriate for it, be it your own blog, your Twitter account... or perhaps a link submission to a news discussion site like HN.

awa 17y ago

I agree its a good move for the current situation, but just turning comments on and off won't solve the problem in the long run. When the next gizmo is launched they will face the same problem. I think they should take this time to implement a solution to the spam issue either through moderation or a voting system. I am also not able to access old comments which if intentional doesn't seem to be a good move (imho).