3 ms·

The ordering of comments approximates this. It would be nice if there was some way to re-nest comments, based on scores, while retaining their logical relation

by 6ren 16y ago

The ordering of comments approximates this. It would be nice if there was some way to re-nest comments, based on scores, while retaining their logical relationship (as replies). e.g. It could be done with lines or labels, but it sounds too messy.

pygy_ 16y ago
The ordering is influenced by other factors, I guess either the post length or the average karma of the poster... I've had several comments both older and with less points than others at the same level, but that were still above the rest.
- Mz 16y ago
  The ordering is influenced by other factors, I guess either the post length or the average karma of the poster... My understanding is that average karma of the poster influences it. I used to be more impressed but my average karma score has been as high as about 6 but most of the time sits somewhere around 2, give or take. One good debate where multiple comments of mine got substantially upvoted raised it that high and then it steadily slid (ie regularly changed if you checked it) until it was back down to around 2. Maybe other people have high averages that are more stable than mine but this experience has changed my view of average karma and made me somewhat less impressed. From what I gather, it's a moving, weighted average. It isn't the average across all comments for all of your history. I can understand the logic of that -- if average for all comments were used and you have been here forever and your comment quality has gone up, a million old comments that were never voted up could prevent you from ever seeing any substantial improvements in that area. But, like all such things, it's a bit of a game in some sense.
  - 6ren 16y ago
    Yes, it's the average of recent comments, with the top and bottom discarded (pg said this somewhere or other). The averages of the top 100 (by abs karma) is interesting: http://news.ycombinator.com/leaders http://news.ycombinator.com/leaders (accessible via "lists", frontpage bottom). BTW: edw regularly has amazing averages - all the avgs are much higher than usual now, I suspect because of karma inflation due to not seeing scores (this happened last time pg experimented with it). And yes, it influences the ordering of ones comments. When I said "approximates", I really meant it. ;-)
6ren 16y ago
FOLLOWUP thinking more on re-nesting, slashdot detaches high-scoring comments from their logical nesting (and you have to follow parent links to find the post to which they were replying). I think slashdot knows much of this - I wonder if it would be helpful for cmdtaco and pg to chat (even, a voting-site conference)... or is it still too proprietary/competitive? Another way is too hide a comment if it has lower karma than a reply (using reddit-style [+] so it can be unhidden - or perhaps just omit it, and just use "parent" to see it). The key benefit is that comments that only make sense as a reaction (e.g. criticism) to another comment won't be as interesting, and (hopefully) will get downvoted. This might lead people to change their voting behaviour, to also vote the parent up if they think it does contribute after all (it's a problem that interesting questions don't get voted up, only the interesting answers, because then it's lost down the page... and interesting questions should be encouraged/rewarded, IMHO). A downside might be that people will try to "win" the thread. I really like this idea. tl;dr: don't display parent if a child scores higher (still accessible by "parent" link), so they rank higher. Like slashdot.

by 6ren 16y ago

pygy_ 16y ago

The ordering is influenced by other factors, I guess either the post length or the average karma of the poster... I've had several comments both older and with less points than others at the same level, but that were still above the rest.

Mz 16y ago
The ordering is influenced by other factors, I guess either the post length or the average karma of the poster... My understanding is that average karma of the poster influences it. I used to be more impressed but my average karma score has been as high as about 6 but most of the time sits somewhere around 2, give or take. One good debate where multiple comments of mine got substantially upvoted raised it that high and then it steadily slid (ie regularly changed if you checked it) until it was back down to around 2. Maybe other people have high averages that are more stable than mine but this experience has changed my view of average karma and made me somewhat less impressed. From what I gather, it's a moving, weighted average. It isn't the average across all comments for all of your history. I can understand the logic of that -- if average for all comments were used and you have been here forever and your comment quality has gone up, a million old comments that were never voted up could prevent you from ever seeing any substantial improvements in that area. But, like all such things, it's a bit of a game in some sense.
- 6ren 16y ago
  Yes, it's the average of recent comments, with the top and bottom discarded (pg said this somewhere or other). The averages of the top 100 (by abs karma) is interesting: http://news.ycombinator.com/leaders http://news.ycombinator.com/leaders (accessible via "lists", frontpage bottom). BTW: edw regularly has amazing averages - all the avgs are much higher than usual now, I suspect because of karma inflation due to not seeing scores (this happened last time pg experimented with it). And yes, it influences the ordering of ones comments. When I said "approximates", I really meant it. ;-)

6ren 16y ago

FOLLOWUP thinking more on re-nesting, slashdot detaches high-scoring comments from their logical nesting (and you have to follow parent links to find the post to which they were replying). I think slashdot knows much of this - I wonder if it would be helpful for cmdtaco and pg to chat (even, a voting-site conference)... or is it still too proprietary/competitive? Another way is too hide a comment if it has lower karma than a reply (using reddit-style [+] so it can be unhidden - or perhaps just omit it, and just use "parent" to see it). The key benefit is that comments that only make sense as a reaction (e.g. criticism) to another comment won't be as interesting, and (hopefully) will get downvoted. This might lead people to change their voting behaviour, to also vote the parent up if they think it does contribute after all (it's a problem that interesting questions don't get voted up, only the interesting answers, because then it's lost down the page... and interesting questions should be encouraged/rewarded, IMHO). A downside might be that people will try to "win" the thread. I really like this idea. tl;dr: don't display parent if a child scores higher (still accessible by "parent" link), so they rank higher. Like slashdot.