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Second, it is very much out of the norms of HN to do email-style alternating quote/response the way you are. I've seen such used before (though with italics to
by nitrogen 6y ago
Second, it is very much out of the norms of HN to do email-style alternating quote/response the way you are.
I've seen such used before (though with italics to help the eye find the breaks), when a comment makes too many points or is too complex to reply to without making it clear which part of the comment is relevant to which part of a reply.
Is there a better way to format conversations on HN when comments reach this level of branching complexity?
- tptacek 6y agoI really think the right way to do it is just to write a natural paragraph that refers to what the parent was saying. But what you did, with a single italicized reference at the top, is an HN idiom as well. A long back-and-forth of quote and rebuttal though is definitely not the style here. That style makes sense in Email and Usenet, because you're often using readers that don't show the parent comment at the same time or in a thread. It makes very little sense here, where we're essentially reading the same comment twice.
- stonogo 6y agoPeople can edit comments here. It makes no sense to permit the commenter to whom you are responding to recontextualize your words by editing their post after a response is received. Anyway, there is nothing in the site guidelines defining "the style here," as you call it. Are you the sole repository of the style here, or are there others?
- tptacek 6y agoIt's mostly just me.
- mistermann 6y ago> It makes very little sense here, where we're essentially reading the same comment twice. For standard/default conversations, I agree that it doesn't make sense (as is the case with many standard situations). But for non-standard situations, sometimes non-standard approaches are more suited.