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> Commenting for visibility Can you elaborate? Do you believe that HN's algorithm prioritizes "comments that have replies" more highly?

• lamontcg 5y ago
  human eyeballs sorta do
• TheRealPomax 5y ago
  Human nature is going to give those comments more upvotes, which automatically moves them to "top comment" position, so at the risk of being facetious: yes, obviously?
  • scubbo 5y ago
    If you're claiming that upvotes on replies count against the ranking of the parent comment - I didn't know that, thank you! If you're claiming that replies can be "top comment" - I don't think that's true, but I've learned that HN has a lot of secret UI and features that are only unlocked at certain reputation levels, so maybe you're a higher-level Laser Lotus than I am. If you are claiming that "comments with replies" are more likely to garner upvotes _because of_ those replies - I don't believe that's true. I can't remember ever having read a reply and then going back to upvote the parent. If you're claiming that "comments with replies" are more likely to garner upvotes due to some shared underlying cause ("good comments get replies, good comments get upvotes") - while that's probably true, it doesn't affect my question of "why would you leave a comment that _just_ says 'upvoting for visibility'?", if that doesn't affect the underlying comment's ranking?
• nindalf 5y ago
  I don’t think the HN comment ranking algorithm is public. I’ve seen people speculate that it’s a function of comment age (newest ranked higher), average comment score of author, current upvotes and current comments. That said, it doesn’t make sense to add a comment to game the ranking.