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I hate time-ordered subs. They are so inefficient. You end up being forced to read hundreds of "me too" comments with zero substance. Voting, for all its pro

I hate time-ordered subs. They are so inefficient. You end up being forced to read hundreds of "me too" comments with zero substance. Voting, for all its problems of bias and agenda driven voting, eliminates 99% of the chaff that makes chrono-forums unreadable.

hombre_fatal 6y ago
It's a trade-off. The Reddit/HN format makes everything time sensitive. If the post falls off the front-page, nobody will even see your comment, the discussion immediately dies. It's completely unfit for longer form discussion over time. Sometimes you want a forum for discussion, not just a comments section of highlight reel one-liners.
- fakedang 6y ago
  Is there an algorithm that would facilitate discussion though? Regardless of time sensitivity?
cogman10 6y ago
The issue with voting based forums is they tend to cater to low quality mass appeal comments. More often than not an informative comment, while maybe not being downvoted, won't be the top comment. Instead, you'll see really low effort "zingers" which make it to the top. Those are further piled on with a flood of comments trying to one up each other. So, you end up often needing really strict moderation to curtail this problem. Chrono ordering suffers the same issue, somewhat, though it doesn't have the pile on problem (not to the same extent).
- floren 6y ago
  pun chain! Take my upvote! Here's gold for you good sir, hearty lols!
  - ragnese 6y ago
    To be fair, I do get a good chuckle out of some of the pun chains...
  - Kinrany 6y ago
    You can hide the whole subtree with one click though.
heavyset_go 6y ago
Disagree entirely. Trading chronological sort for whatever drives the most ad impressions and engagements is responsible for the destruction of otherwise decent services.
stjohnswarts 6y ago
I agree, I can't stand them. That's why I won't use arstechnica comment section. I might look at the first few. I much prefer reddit and hackernews style
- fakedang 6y ago
  But that allows for discussion bubbles to form in this case. Contrarian views are downvoted to oblivion. Not much of an issue in HN, as it is in reddit.
tomc1985 6y ago
This boils down to the community you are a part of. One of the games I like to play has its own forums and they are still the best source of info compared to reddit. Discussions are surprisingly readable, though that may have something to do with the older target audience.
novok 6y ago
You can add like buttons to posts with out it effecting the time ordering and absorb a bunch of me too comments that way.
bshanks 6y ago
Another solution to this is discussion wikis.

hombre_fatal 6y ago

It's a trade-off. The Reddit/HN format makes everything time sensitive. If the post falls off the front-page, nobody will even see your comment, the discussion immediately dies. It's completely unfit for longer form discussion over time. Sometimes you want a forum for discussion, not just a comments section of highlight reel one-liners.

fakedang 6y ago
Is there an algorithm that would facilitate discussion though? Regardless of time sensitivity?

cogman10 6y ago

The issue with voting based forums is they tend to cater to low quality mass appeal comments. More often than not an informative comment, while maybe not being downvoted, won't be the top comment. Instead, you'll see really low effort "zingers" which make it to the top. Those are further piled on with a flood of comments trying to one up each other. So, you end up often needing really strict moderation to curtail this problem. Chrono ordering suffers the same issue, somewhat, though it doesn't have the pile on problem (not to the same extent).

floren 6y ago
pun chain! Take my upvote! Here's gold for you good sir, hearty lols!
- ragnese 6y ago
  To be fair, I do get a good chuckle out of some of the pun chains...
- Kinrany 6y ago
  You can hide the whole subtree with one click though.

heavyset_go 6y ago

Disagree entirely. Trading chronological sort for whatever drives the most ad impressions and engagements is responsible for the destruction of otherwise decent services.

stjohnswarts 6y ago

I agree, I can't stand them. That's why I won't use arstechnica comment section. I might look at the first few. I much prefer reddit and hackernews style

fakedang 6y ago
But that allows for discussion bubbles to form in this case. Contrarian views are downvoted to oblivion. Not much of an issue in HN, as it is in reddit.

tomc1985 6y ago

This boils down to the community you are a part of. One of the games I like to play has its own forums and they are still the best source of info compared to reddit. Discussions are surprisingly readable, though that may have something to do with the older target audience.

novok 6y ago

You can add like buttons to posts with out it effecting the time ordering and absorb a bunch of me too comments that way.

bshanks 6y ago

Another solution to this is discussion wikis.