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Doesn't this post simply contribute to the problem, though? I mean, if Raganwald wants the community to be more focused on content, rather than pointless meta-d

Doesn't this post simply contribute to the problem, though? I mean, if Raganwald wants the community to be more focused on content, rather than pointless meta-discussion, shouldn't he or she post content? I mean, all this post serves to do is give even more attention to the hipsters and trolls. My recommendation? If you see a comment that's clearly off-topic, vote it down if you're able or ignore it if you're not. Even if you disagree with the content of the comment, don't respond to it. If its a thread; scroll past it without stopping. If enough people do this, the HN algorithm will push these off-topic threads to the bottom, where they'll slowly wither away.

hugh3 15y ago
Only works for top-level threads though. A bad response to a highly-rated OP will continue to hang out near the top of the page. It's a genuine problem, what do you do with bad comments? The average bad commenter is a fifteen-year-old boy with strongly held yet poorly developed opinions. If you downvote them without replying, then you wind up with an angry commenter who thinks their opinions are being shut down by the community, and they'll probably feel compelled to keep posting them LOUDER and MORE EXTREME. But if you reply to them and explain why their comments are bad, you start a rather boring thread. Neither option seems particularly good.
- mquander 15y ago
  This problem is easy to solve. Downvote bad comments and bring in active moderators whose job is to message users that show a pattern of writing bad comments and help them do better. If the user doesn't improve over time, ban. There must be a hundred competent people who would be willing to assume this position.
- quanticle 15y ago
  >Only works for top-level threads, though. A bad response to a highly rated OP will continue to hang out near the top of the page. Yeah, this is why I wish HN had collapsible comments (like Reddit, or even Slashdot). In that way, you could simply collapse irrelevant comments and ignore them. Having comments that can't be collapsed makes this much more difficult, as even a comment that's been downvoted into oblivion still takes up space and forces you to scroll more in order to get to the stuff that you are interested in.
  - icebraining 15y ago
    If you're using Chrome, check out Hacker News Collapse: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/bbkfcamiocfccgmcjngdljolljhifdph https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/bbkfcamiocfccgmcjn...

hugh3 15y ago

Only works for top-level threads though. A bad response to a highly-rated OP will continue to hang out near the top of the page. It's a genuine problem, what do you do with bad comments? The average bad commenter is a fifteen-year-old boy with strongly held yet poorly developed opinions. If you downvote them without replying, then you wind up with an angry commenter who thinks their opinions are being shut down by the community, and they'll probably feel compelled to keep posting them LOUDER and MORE EXTREME. But if you reply to them and explain why their comments are bad, you start a rather boring thread. Neither option seems particularly good.

mquander 15y ago
This problem is easy to solve. Downvote bad comments and bring in active moderators whose job is to message users that show a pattern of writing bad comments and help them do better. If the user doesn't improve over time, ban. There must be a hundred competent people who would be willing to assume this position.
quanticle 15y ago
>Only works for top-level threads, though. A bad response to a highly rated OP will continue to hang out near the top of the page. Yeah, this is why I wish HN had collapsible comments (like Reddit, or even Slashdot). In that way, you could simply collapse irrelevant comments and ignore them. Having comments that can't be collapsed makes this much more difficult, as even a comment that's been downvoted into oblivion still takes up space and forces you to scroll more in order to get to the stuff that you are interested in.
- icebraining 15y ago
  If you're using Chrome, check out Hacker News Collapse: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/bbkfcamiocfccgmcjngdljolljhifdph https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/bbkfcamiocfccgmcjn...