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Ask HN: Should HN require you to click on the story link before commenting?
I don't think it's a huge issue here, but I know it happens. (I know I do it occasionally.) You get people who just click on the comments and read them and then based solely on the title they begin to jerk their knee. You can't actually force people to read a story before they comment but you can force them to at least click the link. Maybe since they've already gone through the trouble of clicking through to the story those people would be more inclined to read first before commenting.
Just create an outgoing link redirector. Something like http://news.ycombinator.com/out?[url]. Once the site logs that you've clicked the link then you are free to comment.
- carbocation 15y agoThen people will create a javascript tool that auto-clicks any URL on news.ycombinator.com that it hasn't yet seen in order to enable comments. Or they'll just tab-open other the links.
- edmarferreira 15y agoSaving all this clicks and checking who clicked in what will require resources and will have a small return.
- Mz 15y agoSometimes people will admit they didn't click the link or read the article but have something meaningful and valuable to add in response to a specific comment. I don't see any reason to discourage such contributions by increasing the burden to participate. It's easy enough to downvote people doing the knee-jerk thing and making themselves look like jerks. So I think there is already a mechanism in place for addressing this issue. In most cases, upping the ante with increasing attempts to control people (which is basically what this suggestion amounts to) are a net social negative.
- steve8918 15y agoWhat's the point? To increase comment quality? People clicking on the link would most likely not do anything to improve quality. If you look at the comments underneath most news articles, you'll see that.