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I would love to, but those others are just spouting thoughtless nonsense that is impossible to argue with. /s But seriously, thoughtful comments take time; and

I would love to, but those others are just spouting thoughtless nonsense that is impossible to argue with. /s But seriously, thoughtful comments take time; and are often formed by trying to explain why the thoughtless comments are wrong.

grzm 9y ago
Indeed they do take time. Aren't we (HN in particular and our fellow humans in general) worth it? Figuring out what each other means and why we ourselves are misunderstood makes us better people. Like so many things, that does take effort, and does get easier with practice.
- gizmo686 9y ago
  Maybe, but most people want to see that the article (and therefore) there comments will actual get read before investing the time. Combine this with the fact that thoughtless comments simply get written faster, and you have a trend where you get a disproportionate amount of low quality comments at the beginning of a thread's lifecylce, and high quality comments show up later.
  - grzm 9y ago
    Sure. I'm having a hard time figuring out what you see as a good way forward for HN should be if the goal is to have substantial, constructive discussion. Or at minimum, civil discussion. The low quality, incendiary comments degrade discussion and can deter those who would otherwise engage in quality discussion. Edit to add: What's motivating me continuing this discussion is that I feel like you're pushing back on encouraging people from doing better, from improving how they engage with others. I'm not sure if that's really what you intend, so please do elaborate on that point. Clearly this is important to me, so I appreciate that you're taking the time. (Though, with that, I'm signing off fir the night. It's late :)
    - gizmo686 9y ago
      First, big shoutout to dang and team for culling the worst of the comments and maintaining a culture of relatively thoughtful comments. Practically speaking, effective moderation is the only way forward I see As an empirical matter, I would note that most threads (both here and on simmilar sites, such as reddit) seem to follow a predictable life-cycle. An initial wave of low quality posts gets down voted and gives way to more thoughtful discussion. In less trolly topics, the "low quality" posts are actually ok, but still give way to much higher quality posts through upvotes. We can argue about the cause of this lifecycle. I think the general effort calculus I explained above is a part of it. However, I think that often times having low quality posts to respond to can be an effective prompt for high quality posts to respond to; or for a poster to consider why the thoughts expressed in them are wrong, and write a better top level post. Of course, this would be better done with high quality posts, but those take more time. Put another way, the best way to get a good answer is often to give a bad answer and have people correct you. edit for your edit: I am pushing back because: A) I think you initial post is low quality. As such, it has led to (in my opinion) fruitful thinking on my part, and hopefully a fruitfull discussion. and B) Underlying your initial post is, in my opinion, a fundamental misunderstanding of how these threads work. I don't like you insulting everyone who comments on this thread just because you saw the thread at the ugliest part of its lifecylce.
      - guildwriter 9y ago
        > As an empirical matter, I would note that most threads (both here and on simmilar sites, such as reddit) seem to follow a predictable life-cycle. An initial wave of low quality posts gets down voted and gives way to more thoughtful discussion. In less trolly topics, the "low quality" posts are actually ok, but still give way to much higher quality posts through upvotes. Maybe this is true on HN to some degree, but this is definitely not the case on reddit as a general rule. Here's an observation from an ex-mod of TIA: At bigger sub sizes, unpopular opinions don't get that little bit of extra breathing time to justify themselves. Instead, the votes come in just too fast; circlejerks rise to the top immediately, while different ideas either get downvoted or simply ignored, languishing at the bottom of the comment section. https://www.reddit.com/r/TheoryOfReddit/comments/3qjsga/what_i_learned_from_my_time_at_tia/?utm_content=title&utm_medium=front&utm_source=reddit&utm_name=TheoryOfReddit https://www.reddit.com/r/TheoryOfReddit/comments/3qjsga/what... You can see this happen on all sorts of different subreddits where people who post thoughtful opinions that go against the current "meta" of the subreddit get down voted viciously no matter how correct they are. For visibility being first and being in tune with what the community wants to hear supersedes being right or being thoughtful. That's not to say that thoughtful and well written posts don't rise to the top. That's to say that the system frequently does not work this way at all. Especially on subreddits where the community is majority polarized in a certain direction.

grzm 9y ago

Indeed they do take time. Aren't we (HN in particular and our fellow humans in general) worth it? Figuring out what each other means and why we ourselves are misunderstood makes us better people. Like so many things, that does take effort, and does get easier with practice.

gizmo686 9y ago
Maybe, but most people want to see that the article (and therefore) there comments will actual get read before investing the time. Combine this with the fact that thoughtless comments simply get written faster, and you have a trend where you get a disproportionate amount of low quality comments at the beginning of a thread's lifecylce, and high quality comments show up later.
- grzm 9y ago
  Sure. I'm having a hard time figuring out what you see as a good way forward for HN should be if the goal is to have substantial, constructive discussion. Or at minimum, civil discussion. The low quality, incendiary comments degrade discussion and can deter those who would otherwise engage in quality discussion. Edit to add: What's motivating me continuing this discussion is that I feel like you're pushing back on encouraging people from doing better, from improving how they engage with others. I'm not sure if that's really what you intend, so please do elaborate on that point. Clearly this is important to me, so I appreciate that you're taking the time. (Though, with that, I'm signing off fir the night. It's late :)
  - gizmo686 9y ago
    First, big shoutout to dang and team for culling the worst of the comments and maintaining a culture of relatively thoughtful comments. Practically speaking, effective moderation is the only way forward I see As an empirical matter, I would note that most threads (both here and on simmilar sites, such as reddit) seem to follow a predictable life-cycle. An initial wave of low quality posts gets down voted and gives way to more thoughtful discussion. In less trolly topics, the "low quality" posts are actually ok, but still give way to much higher quality posts through upvotes. We can argue about the cause of this lifecycle. I think the general effort calculus I explained above is a part of it. However, I think that often times having low quality posts to respond to can be an effective prompt for high quality posts to respond to; or for a poster to consider why the thoughts expressed in them are wrong, and write a better top level post. Of course, this would be better done with high quality posts, but those take more time. Put another way, the best way to get a good answer is often to give a bad answer and have people correct you. edit for your edit: I am pushing back because: A) I think you initial post is low quality. As such, it has led to (in my opinion) fruitful thinking on my part, and hopefully a fruitfull discussion. and B) Underlying your initial post is, in my opinion, a fundamental misunderstanding of how these threads work. I don't like you insulting everyone who comments on this thread just because you saw the thread at the ugliest part of its lifecylce.
    - guildwriter 9y ago
      > As an empirical matter, I would note that most threads (both here and on simmilar sites, such as reddit) seem to follow a predictable life-cycle. An initial wave of low quality posts gets down voted and gives way to more thoughtful discussion. In less trolly topics, the "low quality" posts are actually ok, but still give way to much higher quality posts through upvotes. Maybe this is true on HN to some degree, but this is definitely not the case on reddit as a general rule. Here's an observation from an ex-mod of TIA: At bigger sub sizes, unpopular opinions don't get that little bit of extra breathing time to justify themselves. Instead, the votes come in just too fast; circlejerks rise to the top immediately, while different ideas either get downvoted or simply ignored, languishing at the bottom of the comment section. https://www.reddit.com/r/TheoryOfReddit/comments/3qjsga/what_i_learned_from_my_time_at_tia/?utm_content=title&utm_medium=front&utm_source=reddit&utm_name=TheoryOfReddit https://www.reddit.com/r/TheoryOfReddit/comments/3qjsga/what... You can see this happen on all sorts of different subreddits where people who post thoughtful opinions that go against the current "meta" of the subreddit get down voted viciously no matter how correct they are. For visibility being first and being in tune with what the community wants to hear supersedes being right or being thoughtful. That's not to say that thoughtful and well written posts don't rise to the top. That's to say that the system frequently does not work this way at all. Especially on subreddits where the community is majority polarized in a certain direction.