6 ms·
Are comments which diverge from the linked article somehow discouraged? I've surprised that this was treated as a problem that had to be corrected.
by bostonpete 10y ago
Are comments which diverge from the linked article somehow discouraged? I've surprised that this was treated as a problem that had to be corrected.
- cooper12 10y agoWell if you look at the actual comments they're completely off-topic and talking about heavy metal music, nothing to do with steel.
- bostonpete 10y agoI know, but sometimes conversations with smart people lead to interesting places -- just doesn't seem like a bad thing. We're often reminded that the comments can be flagged or downvoted if they seem inappropriate. Why not trust the HN community to self-regulate something like this...?
- cooper12 10y agoBecause as you saw here, everyone just went with the heavy metal comments. It's self-perpetuating because they see other comments like that and it validates that they are appropriate. Ideally there could have been one comment thread on that which people upvoted or added to, but there were multiple comments. I don't necessarily disagree with you, off-topic comments can be very fruitful at times, and the mods here often move off-topic comments to their own parent comment chain. At the end of the day though, we're here to discuss the actual content, no matter how much easier it is to criticize the title than to read the long article. (The system also has its own flaws: newer users don't have enough karma to downvote and they outnumber the more experienced portion of the community that could self-police)
- Tomte 10y agoOh. I thought it was about music and ignored the article. With the new title I immediately opened it. So thanks!
- twic 10y agoAlthough funnily enough, Sheffield has also been something of a crucible for musical heavy metal: http://www.blabbermouth.net/news/sheffield-heavy-metal-metal-scene-profiled-in-new-book/ http://www.blabbermouth.net/news/sheffield-heavy-metal-metal...
- dang 10y agoNow this is the sort of whimsical tangent that makes a thread interesting again.
- tptacek 10y agoSpeaking solely from too much experience on HN: they're a problem when: 1. They consume a disproportionate amount of the thread. Even collapsible comments don't totally fix this problem, because relevant subthreads sometimes sneak their way into sprawling digressions. 2. They become hostile. In fact, the real issue here is subtle: digressions and the original topic compete for attention, and whichever subthread is more hostile will tend to win. It's not a problem that "needs to be corrected"; there have been some fantastic digressions on HN threads over the years! But it's helpful for thread participants to acknowledge that they're tacking the thread away from the article, and important that digressions not become contentious.
- dang 10y agoUnpredictable tangents are often fine, but predictable ones make discussion boring.