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>Yet, you cannot do any of that on HN (other than a limited case like italic). But, we can communicate just fine without those features. Can we? Comments can'

>Yet, you cannot do any of that on HN (other than a limited case like italic). But, we can communicate just fine without those features. Can we? Comments can't have tables, so you almost never see any actually tabular data like statistics. I frequently see people misstating copied across data, or getting confused by things that would be simple in a table. Quoting from the article is very difficult, as laws and guidance often use formatting despite being very simple documents. I've run into this a few times when trying to quote GDPR guidance, and people very often misunderstand quotes. People frequently struggle making lists, or having problems with ambiguity about which point a comment is replying to. Code snippets just don't work on mobile. > then plain text with very limited markup works best since it minimizes the required vertical scrolling and it allows you to see the overall discussion Sure, if your discussion is short and shallow point-scoring! For in-depth discussion headings or any structure at all is really important.

u801e 7y ago
> Comments can't have tables, so you almost never see any actually tabular data like statistics. I frequently see people misstating copied across data, or getting confused by things that would be simple in a table. It can be done in plain text, but I don't commonly see it. For example: Column 1 Column 2 first second third fourth > Quoting from the article is very difficult, as laws and guidance often use formatting despite being very simple documents. I've run into this a few times when trying to quote GDPR guidance, and people very often misunderstand quotes. I have quoted statutes from federal and state laws numerous times as part of a discussions where copying and pasting the text into a plain text format works. For example, a bullet point becomes an asterisk. > People frequently struggle making lists, or having problems with ambiguity about which point a comment is replying to. I think it's a lack of convention. I spent a lot of time on email lists, forums and newsgroups and have seen various conventions, but most people didn't struggle to make lists. The most common convention was just to use numbering or asterisks to indicate items in a list: * item 1 * item 2 3. item 3 4. item 4 > Code snippets just don't work on mobile. Code is one type of text that shouldn't be soft-wrapped, but the lines are frequently too long to render without wrapping on a mobile. > Sure, if your discussion is short and shallow point-scoring Not all online discussions are like that. For example, look at the mailing lists for the Linux kernel and git. I've also seen many substantial discussions on sites like this and reddit. In the past, I've learned a lot from newsgroups (usenet).
- chipotle_coyote 7y ago
  The OP's point is that it might be better if HN allowed slightly more formatting than it does. Personally, while I wouldn't want full-bore HTML, I'd like to see a more substantial subset of Markdown[1] supported. Your own examples of tables, lists, and block quotes would look a lot better if they were, you know, actual tables, lists, and block quotes. [1]: Markdown isn't perfect, but it's pretty well-known, and by design mimics a lot of conventions that came from plain text email to start with.
  - u801e 7y ago
    > Your own examples of tables, lists, and block quotes would look a lot better if they were, you know, actual tables, lists, and block quotes. I would agree with what you said about tables (which, in my experience, is an uncommon use case), but the rest can easily be rendered in plain text. Block quotes, in particular, could be done by indenting the text by several spaces (or a tab), just like it's done on HN.
- mwcampbell 7y ago
  FWIW, your plain-text table is not as accessible with a screen reader as an HTML one. For the past two decades or so, screen readers have had commands for navigating tables, reading the row and column headers, etc. But those only work with something like HTML or a Word document, where the structure is well-defined.

u801e 7y ago

> Comments can't have tables, so you almost never see any actually tabular data like statistics. I frequently see people misstating copied across data, or getting confused by things that would be simple in a table. It can be done in plain text, but I don't commonly see it. For example: Column 1 Column 2 first second third fourth > Quoting from the article is very difficult, as laws and guidance often use formatting despite being very simple documents. I've run into this a few times when trying to quote GDPR guidance, and people very often misunderstand quotes. I have quoted statutes from federal and state laws numerous times as part of a discussions where copying and pasting the text into a plain text format works. For example, a bullet point becomes an asterisk. > People frequently struggle making lists, or having problems with ambiguity about which point a comment is replying to. I think it's a lack of convention. I spent a lot of time on email lists, forums and newsgroups and have seen various conventions, but most people didn't struggle to make lists. The most common convention was just to use numbering or asterisks to indicate items in a list: * item 1 * item 2 3. item 3 4. item 4 > Code snippets just don't work on mobile. Code is one type of text that shouldn't be soft-wrapped, but the lines are frequently too long to render without wrapping on a mobile. > Sure, if your discussion is short and shallow point-scoring Not all online discussions are like that. For example, look at the mailing lists for the Linux kernel and git. I've also seen many substantial discussions on sites like this and reddit. In the past, I've learned a lot from newsgroups (usenet).

chipotle_coyote 7y ago
The OP's point is that it might be better if HN allowed slightly more formatting than it does. Personally, while I wouldn't want full-bore HTML, I'd like to see a more substantial subset of Markdown[1] supported. Your own examples of tables, lists, and block quotes would look a lot better if they were, you know, actual tables, lists, and block quotes. [1]: Markdown isn't perfect, but it's pretty well-known, and by design mimics a lot of conventions that came from plain text email to start with.
- u801e 7y ago
  > Your own examples of tables, lists, and block quotes would look a lot better if they were, you know, actual tables, lists, and block quotes. I would agree with what you said about tables (which, in my experience, is an uncommon use case), but the rest can easily be rendered in plain text. Block quotes, in particular, could be done by indenting the text by several spaces (or a tab), just like it's done on HN.
mwcampbell 7y ago
FWIW, your plain-text table is not as accessible with a screen reader as an HTML one. For the past two decades or so, screen readers have had commands for navigating tables, reading the row and column headers, etc. But those only work with something like HTML or a Word document, where the structure is well-defined.