12 ms·

A big one is marking comments as read, so one could resume reading a thread the next day and not see previous comments anymore. But I don't know how one would i

A big one is marking comments as read, so one could resume reading a thread the next day and not see previous comments anymore. But I don't know how one would integrate that with a tree view, which, as such, also has some advantages. Encouraging selective quoting with interspersed comments, but having seen the triumph of top quoting in e-mail discussions, this might be a lost art anyway. Also, personal kill files. Bring back the PLONK! Thanks to the thread organization of HN, subject kill files are no longer really necessary, but being able to mute people for 30 days or permanently may still be useful (And it might contribute to downvotes being used less for subjective differences of opinion). I also used to like the ability to easily take discussions to email, but Usenet was a smaller place back then and this may no longer scale.

tptacek 7y ago
I used to think HN would benefit from more state-keeping, to make it easier to follow threads over longer time periods. I'm now convinced the opposite is true: that HN pushes threads towards being more ephemeral is something that makes it better as a community, not worse. I spent a lot of time on Usenet, and I don't think month-long threads (and their attendant personality factions) would make this place better.
- lifeisstillgood 7y ago
  One thing that might make a difference is to have a count of comments below mine - I often check my own 'thread' and it would be useful to have something like "you made 6 comments made in past day, and people have left 14 sub comments, 3 in last 2 hours". If I cared I could dive down and see where conversations were happening. as it is I really only spot a top couple. I guess it's halfway between real state and ephemeral
- kick 7y ago
  Months-long? Let's not kid ourselves: years-long. A modern example of this is lambda-the-ultimate.org, which has so many threads that have been running for years without any clear purpose that it's almost impossible to find a thread that hasn't. Of course, that could be a matter of scale; with less posts to keep track of, I guess it would be easier to continue things eternally.
  - JohnL4 7y ago
    Long-lived thread as emergent community? :-)
Too 7y ago
Quoting might look temping on first glance but i think it encourages harsher argumentation and pointless counter-replies explaining every way someone thought of something when they wrote their first post. They are more personal and lead to things taken out of their context and "thats not what i really meant if you read the rest of my post". Looking at HN discussions today it has very few of these, in fact you hardly every see the parent counter-replying to someone opposing his argument. Instead often others reply with a different perspective or the discussion dies because why argue with a troll. Maybe even the lack of quoting is a big contributor to the healthy discussions here.

tptacek 7y ago

I used to think HN would benefit from more state-keeping, to make it easier to follow threads over longer time periods. I'm now convinced the opposite is true: that HN pushes threads towards being more ephemeral is something that makes it better as a community, not worse. I spent a lot of time on Usenet, and I don't think month-long threads (and their attendant personality factions) would make this place better.

lifeisstillgood 7y ago
One thing that might make a difference is to have a count of comments below mine - I often check my own 'thread' and it would be useful to have something like "you made 6 comments made in past day, and people have left 14 sub comments, 3 in last 2 hours". If I cared I could dive down and see where conversations were happening. as it is I really only spot a top couple. I guess it's halfway between real state and ephemeral
kick 7y ago
Months-long? Let's not kid ourselves: years-long. A modern example of this is lambda-the-ultimate.org, which has so many threads that have been running for years without any clear purpose that it's almost impossible to find a thread that hasn't. Of course, that could be a matter of scale; with less posts to keep track of, I guess it would be easier to continue things eternally.
- JohnL4 7y ago
  Long-lived thread as emergent community? :-)

Too 7y ago

Quoting might look temping on first glance but i think it encourages harsher argumentation and pointless counter-replies explaining every way someone thought of something when they wrote their first post. They are more personal and lead to things taken out of their context and "thats not what i really meant if you read the rest of my post". Looking at HN discussions today it has very few of these, in fact you hardly every see the parent counter-replying to someone opposing his argument. Instead often others reply with a different perspective or the discussion dies because why argue with a troll. Maybe even the lack of quoting is a big contributor to the healthy discussions here.