4 ms·

Timing plays a role into this too. If you're interested in getting into a discussion on a submission, you need to check the site frequently because after a few

Timing plays a role into this too. If you're interested in getting into a discussion on a submission, you need to check the site frequently because after a few hours the discussion is going to be dead. Likewise, you need to make the comment fairly quickly instead of waiting a day or two to chime in. And after making a comment, there's pressure to check frequently to see if you got replies - again, if you wait for too long nobody is going to notice your reply back to them. With the old web forums you could wait a day or two to respond or a day or two to check for replies. But the timing dynamic here (and on many other sites) encourages much more frequent checks and much more rapid-fire conversations.

juanuys 9y ago
I usually come here from Hacker Newsletter, i.e. a few days late and leave a comment that no-one will ever read.
hanklazard 9y ago
Your points still stand but in case you haven’t heard about it, someone around here created hnreplies.com to help mitigate the “frequent checking” problem. Its awesome and free. (I have nothing to do with it, just an appreciative fan)
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
fsavard 9y ago
I don't often comment on HN and this (the short-timed nature of discussions) is one of the main reasons. The other main reason is that I have a high threshold for considering my participation is worthy of other people's attention. More often then not, when that threshold is crossed, I realize I'm too late and my post will just sit there, unread. Aren't there others who think it'd be great to have a "sticky" or "follow" button, in essence signalling "I'm going to follow this discussion for a few days / weeks, because I'm genuinely interested"? Also if there was a way to easily "suscribe" to a thread (email alerts) that'd help. (Someone mentioned hnreplies.com in a sibling comment, never tried it, but I'll check it out)
- Chathamization 9y ago
  > The other main reason is that I have a high threshold for considering my participation is worthy of other people's attention. This is one of the problems with online conversations in general. Person A makes a lot of low effort comments without putting much thought into it and without bothering to check the accuracy of what they're writing. Person B thinks about whether or not they have anything to add to the conversation, spends time thinking about other people's comments, checks any claims they make to see if they're accurate, rewrites their comment so that it flows better, etc. Person A is going to end up making many, many more comments than Person B. The conversation will look more and more like Person A's posts, even when those people are in the minority. There are some places that suffer more from this than others, but I think it affects just about every online conversation to some extent. It would be interesting to see what effect posting limits would have.
  - fsavard 9y ago
    You're right about that. It might be that I suffer from a "person B" problem :) However I still think that the "short-lived" nature of discussions here is a relatively independent problem. I think integrating a way to "subscribe to a story" with email alerts on HN itself (rather than independent apps like hnreplies.com), and _displaying_ the number of people who did subscribe, would pave the way for longer-lived discussions. By seeing the number of people who did "subscribe to the story" you'd know whether or not it's still worth posting a comment even though it's been a day or two. Maybe that's the reason forums have longer-lived discussions. You can easily get alerts when there are new posts in a discussion where you've posted.
    - Chathamization 9y ago
      It would be interesting if someone started a HN News discussion forum where people could continue the conversations that start here. That would at least help alleviate the problem of feeling pressure to respond to stories and comments rapidly, even if the other issues involved in online discussions (like the "Person A/Person B" one) remain. In general I wish there was more attention paid to the way different platforms shape our conversations, and more interest in exploring alternative platforms.
philipodonnell 9y ago
I find this frustrating as well. Occasionally a good back and forth does develop and then just... dies. No way to actually reach out to anyone just pray they keep checking the 'threads' link until that thread gets too far down.
- insin 9y ago
  I have no idea how anyone manages to follow conversations beyond their first visit to a story on vanilla HN - I can only manage it with a Greasemonkey script [1] which shows which previously-viewed stories have new comments, highlighting new comments and collapsing trees without new comments when you revisit them. [1] https://greasyfork.org/en/scripts/18066-hn-comment-trees https://greasyfork.org/en/scripts/18066-hn-comment-trees
  - philipodonnell 9y ago
    It would be nice if the site maintainers took notice of people using scripts like this and incorporate those improvements, but I suppose that will always be the nature of free but non-advertising-driven websites. Be careful what you wish for I suppose.

juanuys 9y ago

I usually come here from Hacker Newsletter, i.e. a few days late and leave a comment that no-one will ever read.

hanklazard 9y ago

Your points still stand but in case you haven’t heard about it, someone around here created hnreplies.com to help mitigate the “frequent checking” problem. Its awesome and free. (I have nothing to do with it, just an appreciative fan)

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]

fsavard 9y ago

I don't often comment on HN and this (the short-timed nature of discussions) is one of the main reasons. The other main reason is that I have a high threshold for considering my participation is worthy of other people's attention. More often then not, when that threshold is crossed, I realize I'm too late and my post will just sit there, unread. Aren't there others who think it'd be great to have a "sticky" or "follow" button, in essence signalling "I'm going to follow this discussion for a few days / weeks, because I'm genuinely interested"? Also if there was a way to easily "suscribe" to a thread (email alerts) that'd help. (Someone mentioned hnreplies.com in a sibling comment, never tried it, but I'll check it out)

Chathamization 9y ago
> The other main reason is that I have a high threshold for considering my participation is worthy of other people's attention. This is one of the problems with online conversations in general. Person A makes a lot of low effort comments without putting much thought into it and without bothering to check the accuracy of what they're writing. Person B thinks about whether or not they have anything to add to the conversation, spends time thinking about other people's comments, checks any claims they make to see if they're accurate, rewrites their comment so that it flows better, etc. Person A is going to end up making many, many more comments than Person B. The conversation will look more and more like Person A's posts, even when those people are in the minority. There are some places that suffer more from this than others, but I think it affects just about every online conversation to some extent. It would be interesting to see what effect posting limits would have.
- fsavard 9y ago
  You're right about that. It might be that I suffer from a "person B" problem :) However I still think that the "short-lived" nature of discussions here is a relatively independent problem. I think integrating a way to "subscribe to a story" with email alerts on HN itself (rather than independent apps like hnreplies.com), and _displaying_ the number of people who did subscribe, would pave the way for longer-lived discussions. By seeing the number of people who did "subscribe to the story" you'd know whether or not it's still worth posting a comment even though it's been a day or two. Maybe that's the reason forums have longer-lived discussions. You can easily get alerts when there are new posts in a discussion where you've posted.
  - Chathamization 9y ago
    It would be interesting if someone started a HN News discussion forum where people could continue the conversations that start here. That would at least help alleviate the problem of feeling pressure to respond to stories and comments rapidly, even if the other issues involved in online discussions (like the "Person A/Person B" one) remain. In general I wish there was more attention paid to the way different platforms shape our conversations, and more interest in exploring alternative platforms.

philipodonnell 9y ago

I find this frustrating as well. Occasionally a good back and forth does develop and then just... dies. No way to actually reach out to anyone just pray they keep checking the 'threads' link until that thread gets too far down.

insin 9y ago
I have no idea how anyone manages to follow conversations beyond their first visit to a story on vanilla HN - I can only manage it with a Greasemonkey script [1] which shows which previously-viewed stories have new comments, highlighting new comments and collapsing trees without new comments when you revisit them. [1] https://greasyfork.org/en/scripts/18066-hn-comment-trees https://greasyfork.org/en/scripts/18066-hn-comment-trees
- philipodonnell 9y ago
  It would be nice if the site maintainers took notice of people using scripts like this and incorporate those improvements, but I suppose that will always be the nature of free but non-advertising-driven websites. Be careful what you wish for I suppose.