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I don't think you have thought this through. Nothing he wrote is different because of some historical bias. It could have been his only comment or posted from a

by Dah00n 5y ago

I don't think you have thought this through. Nothing he wrote is different because of some historical bias. It could have been his only comment or posted from a throwaway account and HN users would still be just fine at understanding it (look at the down votes). If we go through a users history and use it against people the only thing it does is push people to use more throwaway accounts. If there's a need to go through comment history to give or take credibility then HN is broken. Almost no one has the time to do so and to trust a user that do take the time just moves the point of trust one step. Each comment needs to stand on its own for HN to function. Any measures should be by the system, not the users.

meowface 5y ago
If on a site without accounts, of course each comment needs to be taken individually. But if a site has accounts and someone makes a head-scratching comment, I'll sometimes look through their post history to try to get a better understanding of the context. If there's functionality available to view people's previous comments, then the system partly intends this to be a measure to help assess integrity and credibility, among other things. >If we go through a users history and use it against people the only thing it does is push people to use more throwaway accounts. What's wrong with using throwaway accounts? >Each comment needs to stand on its own for HN to function. I don't agree. If that's the case, then why are comments associated with usernames? Why can you see accounts' karma? That information is visible because it's intended to be visible. Personally, I actually do tend to prefer account-less sites on average (where everything is solely a throwaway, so to speak). But if you're going to give me the tools, then I'm sometimes going to use them, especially if I suspect potential for motivated reasoning. So I'd be happy with an anonymous HN fork. But if I'm on a non-anonymous one, I'm going to be looking at people's usernames; often reflexively. If I see something from a name I trust, it'll increase credibility for me, and if I see something from a name I distrust, it'll decrease credibility for me. And if I don't recognize it, I may look at their history and may adjust my perception based on what I see. For example, if they seem to be a "single-issue commenter". I agree you shouldn't actually mention someone's post history in a reply unless you think it's highly, egregiously relevant. In this case, I think it's justified.

by Dah00n 5y ago

meowface 5y ago

If on a site without accounts, of course each comment needs to be taken individually. But if a site has accounts and someone makes a head-scratching comment, I'll sometimes look through their post history to try to get a better understanding of the context. If there's functionality available to view people's previous comments, then the system partly intends this to be a measure to help assess integrity and credibility, among other things. >If we go through a users history and use it against people the only thing it does is push people to use more throwaway accounts. What's wrong with using throwaway accounts? >Each comment needs to stand on its own for HN to function. I don't agree. If that's the case, then why are comments associated with usernames? Why can you see accounts' karma? That information is visible because it's intended to be visible. Personally, I actually do tend to prefer account-less sites on average (where everything is solely a throwaway, so to speak). But if you're going to give me the tools, then I'm sometimes going to use them, especially if I suspect potential for motivated reasoning. So I'd be happy with an anonymous HN fork. But if I'm on a non-anonymous one, I'm going to be looking at people's usernames; often reflexively. If I see something from a name I trust, it'll increase credibility for me, and if I see something from a name I distrust, it'll decrease credibility for me. And if I don't recognize it, I may look at their history and may adjust my perception based on what I see. For example, if they seem to be a "single-issue commenter". I agree you shouldn't actually mention someone's post history in a reply unless you think it's highly, egregiously relevant. In this case, I think it's justified.