5 ms·

Like comments like this, but just a heads up that dang has ban user who repeatedly post summaries in the comments. EDIT: Here's a recent comment from dang (the

• mkaziz 10y ago
  Takeaways are the best part of HN comments. It's always interesting for me to see what stood out to other people versus myself. Why are they a cause for banning users? That seems like stifling intellectual discourse to me.
  • fouc 10y ago
    I agree, I enjoy takeaways because it gives me a point of comparison. Also if I suspect I'm not interested enough to check out the actual link, it's helpful to determine if the link is worth checking out after all. dang's position is that HN threads are about conversation. That's a weird constraint though, and I doubt takeaways reduce conversation in the first place since there's always going to be a difference to one's own internal summary of the post. Perhaps the conversation aspect should be measured empirically, compare threads w/ takeaways vs without ;) EDIT: I will also say that HN's main draw to me are the comments that are informative. The meta-analysis is super helpful. Takeaways could be considered at the bottom of the range of meta-analysis, so banning people for takeaways might also reduce informative comments.
    • krapp 10y ago
      I think that takeaways do always reduce the quality of conversation. If someone is unwilling to be engaged enough to even glance at the linked article, they probably can't provide meaningful or relevant commentary on it, having read only the synopsis. The amount of effort it takes to RTFA is practically nil. I've seen entire threads spawn from a clear misinterpretation of the title alone. Encouraging people to put as little effort as possible into understanding a topic can't possibly improve the quality of the discussion around it. And that doesn't even consider the likelihood that whomever is creating the summary is consciously or subconsciously applying a bias to controversial articles. Unfortunately, it does seem like a bit of a zero sum game. Providing a summary of the article will prevent people from reading the article, and people would rather engage entirely with the comments than the article itself.
      • developer2 10y ago
        >> Providing a summary of the article will prevent people from reading the article >> I've seen entire threads spawn from a clear misinterpretation of the title alone Those who would only read the summary are the same ones who would only read the title when no takeaway is present. Should these people be willing to at least read a summary, I suspect that in the majority of cases the resulting comments are a tad more on point. Barring any serious bias by the author of the summary as you mentioned. >> If someone is unwilling to be engaged enough to even glance at the linked article, they probably can't provide meaningful or relevant commentary on it Unfortunately the commentary will come, whether it's based on a title or a summary. >> The amount of effort it takes to RTFA is practically nil. I agree... most of the time. Sometimes, articles are far too long for what is being reported. How in the world some authors manage to write 20 pages of drivel to stretch out an article that could be presented in one paragraph is beyond me. If I'm not quite sure whether a certain submission interests me, and the article is extremely lengthy, I appreciate having a summary to look at to decide whether I'm willing to invest 15-45 minutes to RTFA - or whether to close the tab and move on. If even skimming the article becomes too much of a chore, I'd rather just get the important tidbits from a summary and move on - usually without dropping a comment. Common example: articles on criminals and their court proceedings. I just want the facts pertaining to the case. More often than not, I don't give a rat's ass about the 90% of the article that is dedicated to detailing every moment of the defendant's childhood and the lives of every single family member and acquaintance they've ever had. I'm not interested in a woven tale designed to evoke my sympathies. I really don't care to know their favourite flavour of ice cream. I understand why authors choose to write such articles; namely, to tell the other side of the story and humanize the situation. They often just stretch it out too far for my liking, and a summary saves a lot of time.
  • intended 10y ago
    Mod experience - Mods see user behavior patterns inverted - you see comments, they see users who make repeated comments of a certain type. Good mods eventually curtail some of that behavior for valid but hard to deduce reasons. I'm guessing that in this case, it's been stopped because user behavior shifts, and people use summaries instead of reading the article. Edit: it's also generally bad form to have meta discussions, it encourages a form of navel gazing which worsens the signal to noise ratio.
    • deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
• tomp 10y ago
  Hm... I didn't realize that. I posted my summary because (1) the article was written in a very long-winded way, (2) the discussion here wasn't that good, and (3) I was trying to expose the (for me) most interesting aspect of the whole ecosystem, chemosynthesis - in hope of generating a bit more of discussion around that!
  • dang 10y ago
    Your comment was fine. We mostly just don't want predictable patterns. The litmus test is whether it fits with good conversation or not.
  • exodust 10y ago
    It helps that you put "interesting takeaways" rather than tl;dr, because it brings your own opinion into the fold. I don't need to guess whether you've missed anything or not because it doesn't matter. You've stated clearly your points are those you find interesting. Which is much better than simply mechanically spouting a summary like a machine.
• DanBC 10y ago
  That user was applying for funding from HN to start a summarising service. They started dumping summaries in HN threads to advertise the effectiveness of the service. There's a bit more context than just "dang bans users who tl;dr".
• dkersten 10y ago
  I often only read articles because I thought the summaries/takeaways were interesting... :/
• dang 10y ago
  We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11683260 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11683260 and marked it off-topic.
  • forgotpwtomain 10y ago
    I tend to agree with the user who defended summary comments on the basis of the utility of top-comments to decide whether the article is worth reading. If people consider summary comments to be a non-positive addition to HN discussion threads then I would hope this can be resolved by the normal down-vote process rather then through special measures.
  • nxzero 10y ago
    Any reason that HN doesn't have a meta and way to visualize show that a submission/comment has meta related content tied to it?
    • dang 10y ago
      I'm not sure I follow, but the answer is probably that it would complicate things.