4 ms·

I would like to say that 1) I think TL;DR summaries are a good thing (especially the detailed and accurate ones this user has posted). And 2) it would be an exc

by daveguy 11y ago

I would like to say that 1) I think TL;DR summaries are a good thing (especially the detailed and accurate ones this user has posted). And 2) it would be an excellent way to promote an apply HN that does exactly that. I think you just banned someone who is a positive contributor to HN.

dang 11y ago
Certainly opinions can reasonably differ on this, but it's my job to make these calls and in this case it comes from long experience and reflection about what makes for good HN conversations. But there are two issues beyond what you're saying. First, when we ask someone not to do something and they keep doing it, we're within our rights to ban them. It's not something we always do, but we sometimes do. Second, the issue is sometimes swung by additional data that isn't public. If we don't make it public, that's often out of courtesy to the user.
- Angostura 11y ago
  > it comes from long experience and reflection about what makes for good HN conversations. In your long experience, how is this detrimental to good HN conversations?
  - dang 11y ago
    There are a bunch of reasons. Here are two: In real conversation, people don't recite summaries at one another as if into a parliamentary record—everyone would tune out long before they finished. Second, the purpose of such summaries is to save people having to read the article, which is exactly the wrong way to go if we want to have thoughtful discourse. I wrote about this at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11538480 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11538480 and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11538499 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11538499.
    - pierrebai 11y ago
      Well, I'm going to disagree and hope you stop doing that. Better, I'll even tell you why: I use summaries to decide to read the original article or not. Your argument seems to stand on the idea that a short title is enough to decide if an article is worth my time to read. It often is not. The first thing when I see a title that looks interesting is to read the first few top comments to see if other HN reader have found it interesting and get more information about the content. The extreme version of your position would be that we don't need titles either: HN reader should just trust that top links are intersting since they made it to the top and the title line would just give them incorrect information to discuss, everyone should just read every article that appears in the top 30. This is obviously ridiculous. You think titles are enough. I don't, and otehr obviously also disagree.
      - exodust 11y ago
        > "...to see if other HN reader have found it interesting" A summary doesn't tell you that though. The comment ceases to be a comment and instead functions as a sort of mechanical interpretation. As technical people concerned with taxonomy, we can't have "summary comments", that's just crazy talk! Not only that, but what of the ethical dilemma of posting a "TL;DR" for something that isn't your own writing? That's self-appointed editorial control when nobody agreed to that. That said, I like summaries, but only when a genuine opinion comes with them. The summary service I see mentioned sounds interesting for sure, definitely a good idea. Although it's not quite clear to me how I would access that.

by daveguy 11y ago

dang 11y ago

Certainly opinions can reasonably differ on this, but it's my job to make these calls and in this case it comes from long experience and reflection about what makes for good HN conversations. But there are two issues beyond what you're saying. First, when we ask someone not to do something and they keep doing it, we're within our rights to ban them. It's not something we always do, but we sometimes do. Second, the issue is sometimes swung by additional data that isn't public. If we don't make it public, that's often out of courtesy to the user.

Angostura 11y ago
> it comes from long experience and reflection about what makes for good HN conversations. In your long experience, how is this detrimental to good HN conversations?
- dang 11y ago
  There are a bunch of reasons. Here are two: In real conversation, people don't recite summaries at one another as if into a parliamentary record—everyone would tune out long before they finished. Second, the purpose of such summaries is to save people having to read the article, which is exactly the wrong way to go if we want to have thoughtful discourse. I wrote about this at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11538480 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11538480 and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11538499 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11538499.
  - pierrebai 11y ago
    Well, I'm going to disagree and hope you stop doing that. Better, I'll even tell you why: I use summaries to decide to read the original article or not. Your argument seems to stand on the idea that a short title is enough to decide if an article is worth my time to read. It often is not. The first thing when I see a title that looks interesting is to read the first few top comments to see if other HN reader have found it interesting and get more information about the content. The extreme version of your position would be that we don't need titles either: HN reader should just trust that top links are intersting since they made it to the top and the title line would just give them incorrect information to discuss, everyone should just read every article that appears in the top 30. This is obviously ridiculous. You think titles are enough. I don't, and otehr obviously also disagree.
    - exodust 11y ago
      > "...to see if other HN reader have found it interesting" A summary doesn't tell you that though. The comment ceases to be a comment and instead functions as a sort of mechanical interpretation. As technical people concerned with taxonomy, we can't have "summary comments", that's just crazy talk! Not only that, but what of the ethical dilemma of posting a "TL;DR" for something that isn't your own writing? That's self-appointed editorial control when nobody agreed to that. That said, I like summaries, but only when a genuine opinion comes with them. The summary service I see mentioned sounds interesting for sure, definitely a good idea. Although it's not quite clear to me how I would access that.