3 ms·

I disagree with you that it is off-topic, and the comment itself has nearly as many upvotes as the article. The comment is short because it the problem with th

• dang 6y ago
  You can't go by upvotes alone. Indignation attracts them. Indeed, indignation generates more upvoteage than intellectual interest does—such is how we're wired. The job of moderation is to have someone paying enough attention to nudge the system out of the failure modes it gets into by default. https://hn.algolia.com/?query=%22upvotes%20alone%22%20by:dang&dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?query=%22upvotes%20alone%22%20by:dan... Many good comments are short, but short + indignant + inflammatory equals flamebait, which is not good. Also, generic tangents are not good, i.e. taking the thread away from the specifics of the story into something else which is more generic and therefore more repetitive. Worst of all, generic ideological tangents are basically always flamebait. I'd say the comment at least dipped a toe in that. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=generic%20discussion%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor... https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=generic%20ideolog%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...