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My favorite comments are those that swing wildly around 0. And I think it's not a big deal if people delete any of their comments. It's internet threads.

resters 8y ago
Exactly. That is the sign of a great comment.
jlawson 8y ago
My favorite is: upvoted, with tons of responses, and flagged to death. At this point being flagged is mostly an indication of speaking outside the window of permitted opinions on HN, which makes the comments actually more interesting.
- AnimalMuppet 8y ago
  I disagree with "mostly". To me, it seems that the majority of flagged comments are attacks on a person or group, or completely off-topic BS. (And if you're going to argue that attacks are "speaking outside the window of permitted opinions on HN", well, yes, they are, and for very good reason.)
  - jlawson 8y ago
    The issue is that it's often possible to stretch the category "attacks" to encompass to useful arguments, if you're motivated to do so. This becomes a mechanism to shut down discussion, ultimately weakening the conversation, leading to groupthink conclusions and boring echo chambers. E.g. Imagine someone posts (in a context where it's on-topic), "Research [0] has shown that Trump supporters have significantly greater racism than Trump resisters." We can easily see how that statement can be interpreted as an "attack on a group". A pro-Trump forum may flag it to death. Yet assuming there is a good-faith effort to link valid science there, it's also an on-topic scientific result that advances discussion. Rational, valid, discussion-advancing points can also be easily interpreted as "attacks on a group". However, just because something pattern matches as an "attack on a group", one should not discount it (assuming one values rational discussion itself, which I do). Because it may be a necessary part of the discussion. -- Appendix: (Of course I don't think a statement about Trump supporters would get flagged here, not because of the form of the statement but because of who is being discussed. Imagine the statement is changed to any of a million ideas or science papers which step outside the very narrow corridor of acceptable beliefs in the San Francisco morality. I use the Trump supporter example to give some perspective of how it might feel to be on the side who thinks a statement is valuable and on-topic, but be slagged by the local majority as making an "attack". And there really is no other way to get those facts into the discussion; it's not a matter of wording or good faith, it's the notion that some facts and ideas are simply not allowed.)
    - AnimalMuppet 8y ago
      True, anyone can in malice claim that almost anything is an attack. But if you have a community that is (mostly) operating on the principle of charity (that is, read comments in the best possible light), you have that problem much less than if you have a community that doesn't, and attempts to mis-label stuff as attacks should be at least somewhat corrected. HN, while not perfect, does it fairly well.
antisthenes 8y ago
The rating of a comment has little to do with its validity as does your emotional attachment to its subjective value, or "favorite" as you call it. You might have a small and vocal minority actively downvoting something, making a comment look controversial when it really isn't (climate change or sexism topics come to mind). You could also have a highly upvoted comment that is essentially a debunked urban myth. We should judge all comments based on the validity and logic of the content they encapsulate, perhaps allowing a few percentage points for impulsive human nature. 80% Logos, 10% Ethos, 10% Pathos. That being said, I wouldn't obsess over any single comment. 99.99% of ideas presented on HN and elsewhere on the internet are by no means unique and if they are, the only way it's possible to tell is in retrospect (the famous Dropbox post comes to mind)
- danharaj 8y ago
  > The rating of a comment has little to do with its validity as does your emotional attachment to its subjective value, or "favorite" as you call it. I don't understand what you're saying here. What exactly is a comment's validity? > 80% Logos, 10% Ethos, 10% Pathos. ...fifty percent pain / and a hundred percent reason to remember the name. How many Logos would your response be if I told you your comment is pompous?
  - antisthenes 8y ago
    As 'many' as I want there to be, obviously. I don't adhere to that rule of thumb for all of my comments, since not all comments are intended to be taken seriously.

resters 8y ago

Exactly. That is the sign of a great comment.

jlawson 8y ago

My favorite is: upvoted, with tons of responses, and flagged to death. At this point being flagged is mostly an indication of speaking outside the window of permitted opinions on HN, which makes the comments actually more interesting.

AnimalMuppet 8y ago
I disagree with "mostly". To me, it seems that the majority of flagged comments are attacks on a person or group, or completely off-topic BS. (And if you're going to argue that attacks are "speaking outside the window of permitted opinions on HN", well, yes, they are, and for very good reason.)
- jlawson 8y ago
  The issue is that it's often possible to stretch the category "attacks" to encompass to useful arguments, if you're motivated to do so. This becomes a mechanism to shut down discussion, ultimately weakening the conversation, leading to groupthink conclusions and boring echo chambers. E.g. Imagine someone posts (in a context where it's on-topic), "Research [0] has shown that Trump supporters have significantly greater racism than Trump resisters." We can easily see how that statement can be interpreted as an "attack on a group". A pro-Trump forum may flag it to death. Yet assuming there is a good-faith effort to link valid science there, it's also an on-topic scientific result that advances discussion. Rational, valid, discussion-advancing points can also be easily interpreted as "attacks on a group". However, just because something pattern matches as an "attack on a group", one should not discount it (assuming one values rational discussion itself, which I do). Because it may be a necessary part of the discussion. -- Appendix: (Of course I don't think a statement about Trump supporters would get flagged here, not because of the form of the statement but because of who is being discussed. Imagine the statement is changed to any of a million ideas or science papers which step outside the very narrow corridor of acceptable beliefs in the San Francisco morality. I use the Trump supporter example to give some perspective of how it might feel to be on the side who thinks a statement is valuable and on-topic, but be slagged by the local majority as making an "attack". And there really is no other way to get those facts into the discussion; it's not a matter of wording or good faith, it's the notion that some facts and ideas are simply not allowed.)
  - AnimalMuppet 8y ago
    True, anyone can in malice claim that almost anything is an attack. But if you have a community that is (mostly) operating on the principle of charity (that is, read comments in the best possible light), you have that problem much less than if you have a community that doesn't, and attempts to mis-label stuff as attacks should be at least somewhat corrected. HN, while not perfect, does it fairly well.

antisthenes 8y ago

The rating of a comment has little to do with its validity as does your emotional attachment to its subjective value, or "favorite" as you call it. You might have a small and vocal minority actively downvoting something, making a comment look controversial when it really isn't (climate change or sexism topics come to mind). You could also have a highly upvoted comment that is essentially a debunked urban myth. We should judge all comments based on the validity and logic of the content they encapsulate, perhaps allowing a few percentage points for impulsive human nature. 80% Logos, 10% Ethos, 10% Pathos. That being said, I wouldn't obsess over any single comment. 99.99% of ideas presented on HN and elsewhere on the internet are by no means unique and if they are, the only way it's possible to tell is in retrospect (the famous Dropbox post comes to mind)

danharaj 8y ago
> The rating of a comment has little to do with its validity as does your emotional attachment to its subjective value, or "favorite" as you call it. I don't understand what you're saying here. What exactly is a comment's validity? > 80% Logos, 10% Ethos, 10% Pathos. ...fifty percent pain / and a hundred percent reason to remember the name. How many Logos would your response be if I told you your comment is pompous?
- antisthenes 8y ago
  As 'many' as I want there to be, obviously. I don't adhere to that rule of thumb for all of my comments, since not all comments are intended to be taken seriously.