4 ms·

There are two sites that I've seen that have that sort of 'enhancement', neither of which I have an account on: tildes.net slashdot The quality of discussion

by kick 6y ago

There are two sites that I've seen that have that sort of 'enhancement', neither of which I have an account on: tildes.net slashdot The quality of discussion on the former seemed to go down after that feature was added. The quality on the latter has always been controversial. Also, encouraging more irony than there already is on HN would be bad; encouraging low-effort sorts of things like 'oh wow that's ironic' and 'x is bad y is good' would lead to drastic and noticeable dives in the quality of discussion. HN's lack of choice for comment sorting is one of its benefits.

mistermann 6y ago
Done poorly, it could easily do that. I was thinking more of offering reasons for downvotes due to the apparent increase in tribalism and what not, although I didn't exactly use the best examples.
- dang 6y ago
  People occasionally suggest this but in my view it's wishful thinking. It would lead to a lot of bickering about reasons for downvoting, and we don't need more meta noise here.
  - mistermann 6y ago
    That is a reasonable prediction of the future. But then, there's a lot of bickering about other things that could perhaps be addressed to some degree by this approach. One idea I was thinking was to just occasionally run some threads in this mode, and see if it has an effect on culture & thinking styles (predudgement, mind reading, baseless assertions of fact, etc) Just a thought.
- kick 6y ago
  I don't think it can be handled well. The Tildes implementation is done by arguably the only (that said, former-)administrator on reddit.com who can be called "universally-loved"; it wasn't done by an amateur, and it seemed to have a lot of thought put into it.
  - mistermann 6y ago
    > I don't think it can be handled well. Perhaps you are right, but that is an epistemic question. Perhaps people really can never get along ever again, and we should just spare the effort and let the tides of fate carry us where they may. After all, it's not our responsibility here at HN, is it. We have no responsibilities at all, other than adhering to the HN Guidelines, and even that is little more than a suggestion.
saagarjha 6y ago
I believe lobte.rs does this too.
- kick 6y ago
  Probably for the best, I've never been invited to lobste.rs; without an account, lobste.rs is pretty pointless because it has like four new stories on the front page per week, and as such I've never really paid that much attention. It probably does have that feature.

by kick 6y ago

mistermann 6y ago

Done poorly, it could easily do that. I was thinking more of offering reasons for downvotes due to the apparent increase in tribalism and what not, although I didn't exactly use the best examples.

dang 6y ago
People occasionally suggest this but in my view it's wishful thinking. It would lead to a lot of bickering about reasons for downvoting, and we don't need more meta noise here.
- mistermann 6y ago
  That is a reasonable prediction of the future. But then, there's a lot of bickering about other things that could perhaps be addressed to some degree by this approach. One idea I was thinking was to just occasionally run some threads in this mode, and see if it has an effect on culture & thinking styles (predudgement, mind reading, baseless assertions of fact, etc) Just a thought.
kick 6y ago
I don't think it can be handled well. The Tildes implementation is done by arguably the only (that said, former-)administrator on reddit.com who can be called "universally-loved"; it wasn't done by an amateur, and it seemed to have a lot of thought put into it.
- mistermann 6y ago
  > I don't think it can be handled well. Perhaps you are right, but that is an epistemic question. Perhaps people really can never get along ever again, and we should just spare the effort and let the tides of fate carry us where they may. After all, it's not our responsibility here at HN, is it. We have no responsibilities at all, other than adhering to the HN Guidelines, and even that is little more than a suggestion.

saagarjha 6y ago

I believe lobte.rs does this too.

kick 6y ago
Probably for the best, I've never been invited to lobste.rs; without an account, lobste.rs is pretty pointless because it has like four new stories on the front page per week, and as such I've never really paid that much attention. It probably does have that feature.