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There are some consistently good commenters whose usernames I recognize. I will give anything they say slightly more weight than a random stranger. So usernam

There are some consistently good commenters whose usernames I recognize. I will give anything they say slightly more weight than a random stranger. So usernames are useful to me.

rossenberg79 8y ago
If their comments are consistently good then they should stand on their own merit. Else you just get idol worship and groupthink. Names are not as useful as you think.
- ansible 8y ago
  > If their comments are consistently good then they should stand on their own merit. Else you just get idol worship and groupthink. > Names are not as useful as you think. Ummm... no. I don't have the time and desire to completely verify everything that everyone says in every forum that I look at. I doubt that anyone has time for that. So I will use shortcuts, as does every other human on the planet. One of these shortcuts is reputation. If someone has a good reputation with me, then that increases the credulity of everything they say. That doesn't mean that if one of the commentators I hold in high opinion says that "Goblins are behind the election hacking" I will just believe it. However, if one of these highly-esteemed commentators has an opinion about Docker vs. CoreOS Rkt, I will likely take them at their word, if it isn't a critical issue. This doesn't obviate me from doing my on research on technology decisions, but can help guide my efforts. I don't worship anyone or anything. Everyone's going to be wrong about something, but some are right more often than others, and should be given some benefit of the doubt.
- Tomte 8y ago
  Names are incredibly useful, because I know that tptacek does security, cpercival does cryptography and DannyBee does law. In a thread about legal issues I'll certainly put more weight towards DannyBee's comments, even if he might have totally wrong views on, say, beekeeping.
eps 8y ago
And that's the real problem with HN discussions! HN already boosts comments from high-karma users. Then people like yourself come in, see them and boost them further because of the poster rather than the content, so the top of every discussion is perpetually filled with the same names. If anything, a good experiment would be to obscure the usernames and then see if "good commenters" still get the same share of votes - this time based on the actual contents rather than their glorious posting history. It this happens to be true, bring back the usernames. If not, then see how to remedy this.
- AnimalMuppet 8y ago
  I do the same as ansible. But, to answer your objection, I do it because I recognize the name as someone whose opinions I have noted as being worth listening to. I don't base it on their karma numbers.
- dang 8y ago
  > HN already boosts comments from high-karma users That's not true. That is, if you're talking about the HN software, it does nothing like that. Ranking algorithms don't look at karma. Karma is used for things like spam filter exemptions and turning on flagging (at > 30) and downvoting (at > 500).
dusted 8y ago
Actually, I think that's an excellent point for hiding usernames, since they skew the perception of the actual comment. It might be interesting to be forced to consider what is written entirely on its own merit, and not be biased by who has written it.

There are some consistently good commenters whose usernames I recognize. I will give anything they say slightly more weight than a random stranger. So usernames are useful to me.

rossenberg79 8y ago

If their comments are consistently good then they should stand on their own merit. Else you just get idol worship and groupthink. Names are not as useful as you think.

ansible 8y ago
> If their comments are consistently good then they should stand on their own merit. Else you just get idol worship and groupthink. > Names are not as useful as you think. Ummm... no. I don't have the time and desire to completely verify everything that everyone says in every forum that I look at. I doubt that anyone has time for that. So I will use shortcuts, as does every other human on the planet. One of these shortcuts is reputation. If someone has a good reputation with me, then that increases the credulity of everything they say. That doesn't mean that if one of the commentators I hold in high opinion says that "Goblins are behind the election hacking" I will just believe it. However, if one of these highly-esteemed commentators has an opinion about Docker vs. CoreOS Rkt, I will likely take them at their word, if it isn't a critical issue. This doesn't obviate me from doing my on research on technology decisions, but can help guide my efforts. I don't worship anyone or anything. Everyone's going to be wrong about something, but some are right more often than others, and should be given some benefit of the doubt.
Tomte 8y ago
Names are incredibly useful, because I know that tptacek does security, cpercival does cryptography and DannyBee does law. In a thread about legal issues I'll certainly put more weight towards DannyBee's comments, even if he might have totally wrong views on, say, beekeeping.

eps 8y ago

And that's the real problem with HN discussions! HN already boosts comments from high-karma users. Then people like yourself come in, see them and boost them further because of the poster rather than the content, so the top of every discussion is perpetually filled with the same names. If anything, a good experiment would be to obscure the usernames and then see if "good commenters" still get the same share of votes - this time based on the actual contents rather than their glorious posting history. It this happens to be true, bring back the usernames. If not, then see how to remedy this.

AnimalMuppet 8y ago
I do the same as ansible. But, to answer your objection, I do it because I recognize the name as someone whose opinions I have noted as being worth listening to. I don't base it on their karma numbers.
dang 8y ago
> HN already boosts comments from high-karma users That's not true. That is, if you're talking about the HN software, it does nothing like that. Ranking algorithms don't look at karma. Karma is used for things like spam filter exemptions and turning on flagging (at > 30) and downvoting (at > 500).

dusted 8y ago

Actually, I think that's an excellent point for hiding usernames, since they skew the perception of the actual comment. It might be interesting to be forced to consider what is written entirely on its own merit, and not be biased by who has written it.