4 ms·
My sense is that the threads of discussion raganwald mentions have increased since losing the comment karma score. The absence of a number next to each comment
by joshklein 15y ago
My sense is that the threads of discussion raganwald mentions have increased since losing the comment karma score. The absence of a number next to each comment has made it impossible for me to instantly filter what's worth reading and what isn't. When I see a long thread of comments responding to a low karma comment, I know it's a debate I can probably ignore.
The last poll pg ran asking if people wanted karma totals back demonstrated overwhelming support for them. That was months ago, so there must be some compelling reason they're not back, but I certainly think they would go a long way to making HN comments more readable. At least, they do for me, and I'm the only one I can speak for!
- spaghetti 15y agoWould be cool to A/B test the comment scores. All HN readers would see identical frontpage. Half of HN readers would see comment threads with scores. Other half of readers would see comment threads without scores. After a day or so the most active/interesting threads would be compared. How did threads with comment scores evolve vs. threads without comment scores? The results could be interesting. My opinion is that comment scores should be absent (like the current state). I think they lead to snow-balling effects. Lazy readers just go with the group's opinion instead of forming their own.
- jshen 15y agoI'm having a similar thought, there may be a UI fix for such things. While I dislike reddit, one of the features I miss is the 'collapse thread' - sign. Once I realize a thread is unlikely to contain useful info, I collapse the whole thing and move on to the next thread. On HN, i have to scroll past the rest of the thread and do visual/mental work to figure out where it ends.