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Top Hacker News commenters of 2021
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- Hamuko 5y agoThis dang person should really get a job or something.
- drux 5y agoPlease do not post flamewar comments to HN ;)
- merb 5y agowell his post was sarcasm.
- Debug_Overload 5y agoI'm pretty sure the comment you're replying to is a joke using dang's familiar disciplinary warning format.
- drux 5y agoexactly
- ignoramous 5y agoassuming dang is a person and not some advanced AI.
- emptyparadise 5y agoI'm on the list, does this mean I got into YC?
- NicoJuicy 5y agoAfter me it seems :p
- coolandsmartrr 5y agoIt could be so. IIRC, pg created HN partly to assess how these applicants laid out thoughtful arguments. You gathering much karma may provide leverage when applying to YC.
- Cthulhu_ 5y agoI for one would not object to getting paid for comments. If I had a penny for every shitpost I made on the internet, I'd have tens of thousands of pennies!
- Wilson2 5y ago[flagged]
- baxtr 5y agoI have made into the top 10k... This definitely means that I'm spending way too much time here and need to cut back!
- teekert 5y agoHmm, I feel the same :s For me it's a sign that I need to change something at work, I often flee here because I am making powerpoints, I'd never do it so much if I was writing code more often. At least, that is what I believe. HN does give me back a lot though: Being understood, by like minded people, confirmation of my opinions that are just too different from my group of friends (none have ever for example installed Linux, or tried to run their own cloud services). I feel at home here. It could be called addiction, it's also just finding a community where you can express thoughts you can't express anywhere else, and expect to have interactions based on those thoughts. I've often changed my mind or apologized for being a dick here, I don't want to be banned but I want to validate and invalidate my believes and it works for me, I hope I provide value for others as well. Maybe I have an HN shaped hole in my heart?
- coldtea 5y agoI'd like to thank the academy!
- tomcam 5y agoThey like you! They really like you!
- notRobot 5y agoHeh, the fact that (IMO) I don't comment that often but still am in the top 5k (rank 4228, 185 comments) just goes to show how all things considered HN is still a very niche/small community.
- simonbarker87 5y agoI’m around the same position as you and was equally surprised - I feel like increasing that count would be more work than I’d want to put in though
- jgilias 5y agoWhy would you want to increase the count though, right? I appreciate that HN is a kind of a community where people post when they actually have something to say. I mean, I often write a comment and then delete it before posting it if I figure it doesn't really add anything to the discussion. I actually feel like doing it for this comment too.
- unbanned 5y agoYou should have done
- simonbarker87 5y agoOh I didn’t mean “I want to increase my count but it would be work” I was just thinking that it’s probably one of those systems where doubling what I do now would take 4 times the effort as I’d need to read many more of the articles and other peoples comments so that it would go from casual browsing and commenting to “work” or my wife saying “you have a problem”
- simonh 5y agoI’m glad you didn’t, completely on topic for this thread. I’m sure you’re speaking for an awful lot of people on HN, possibly a large majority. If you would like to contribute more, Caslon has a great post here with advice. It’s more than a game though, we all come here not just for the stories, but for the high quality comments. Contributing high quality comments is a real benefit to others, whether your gamifying it or not. Having the discipline not to comment when you don’t have a real contribution to make is also valuable, you’re being a good member of the community. I commented on this post almost an hour after first reading it. I wanted to be sure I had something I thought was worthwhile to say. Another way you can contribute is through voting, especially if you vote based not on agreement or disagreement, but on insightful or informative contribution to the debate.
- codetrotter 5y agoSpot #595 with 782 comments. Am I.. an addict? :O
- jcelerier 5y ago#295, 1107 comments... one comment per three GH contribution... hmmmmmmm
- codetrotter 5y agoMy ratio is similar too. Spooky.
- coolandsmartrr 5y agoI was able to garner some karma in 2021, but being in a Far East timezone seems to be disadvantageous. Basically, much activity appears to happen while North America wakes up in the morning, which is when I am already asleep. Sometimes I break my vow of online detoxing before sleeping; when I find trending topics related to my domain of knowledge, I frantically respond before the comment section gets too crowded. On the other hand, I can think through more diligently during my noontime, but my effort towards quality commenting is not met by karma from otherwise asleep HNers. It seems like reaping karma is not just about knowing the subject well, but being in the right place at the right time(zone).
- codetrotter 5y agoThis list is ranked by number of comments though, not by karma.
- coolandsmartrr 5y agoGood catch
- clement_b 5y agoOnly 70 comments to be in that top 10k. I was expecting more than that.
- apatters 5y agoAnd it seems that something like the 90-9-1 rule is in effect - with over 7,000 comments, the top non-dang contributor is more than 100x as prolific as contributor #10,000.
- scrollaway 5y agoQuick calculations... 2735447 total comments in that top 10k. The top 20 percent represent 1519843 of the total comments, or just over half (55.56 percent). Though at the top 2k, you're still writing 359 comments per year which is a lot, so I guess the real list going down to comment count = 1 might look a lot more like an 80/20 split. Would love to know the distribution by karma as well, yeah.
- Baeocystin 5y agoI like how the article header helpfully offers a 366 minute read time. I'm also surprised that my name shows up. Like another poster said, small world.
- bambax 5y agoThis only measures the number of comments; it would be interesting to know the karma difference accrued in a year. It may produce the exact same ranking, as intuitively karma is probably heavily correlated with comment frequency... but maybe not?
- MertsA 5y agoJust looking through the top of the list I see a lot of usernames that I'm not familiar with and some of the more recognizable users further down. There is definitely a significant difference between comment count and karma.
- baxtr 5y agoKarma is interesting. But also comment length. A short comment like mine is much less effort than a well thought out proper in-depth answer.
- wly_cdgr 5y agoKarma in my experience has a lot more to do with comment tone and with reading the room well than with the quality of the comment's content. I accumulated I think about 500-600 karma in 2021, but most of that was just me saying stuff that a lot of people in the thread wanted to believe is true. On the other hand I lost a lot of karma from comments that had the same quality or higher in terms of content, but where I was contemptuous or dismissive or flippant in tone, or just went against the grain. I guess even smart nerds are bland herd normies for the most part
- mgh2 5y agoEvery community is bound to contain some bias, that is unavoidable. But at least "nerds" or the more educated are bound to decrease this human error with a more "peer-reviewed" process in curating information, that is one purpose of HN.
- crdrost 5y agoIt's worse than that, karma is mostly about location location location. You're talking about probability of upvote, but that needs to be multiplied by the number of people who read the comment, and that depends heavily on where it is on the comment page itself. When I look at my karma on my recent comments they have very little to do with how much time I spent on them or how unique my perspective is... I even wonder if that aspect is gameable sometimes, whether you could guess the probability that with your upvote a comment that has been recently posted 5 minutes ago could be boosted above the top comment posted 5 hours ago, and if the 15 minute ago one was interesting enough maybe it would be self-sustaining up there, and you could potentially produce the second comment in the page by replying to it. But that's a lot of math when probably if you're trying to optimize karma/comment there are better heuristics, “always comment on any post that is on the front page with < 20 points and < 20 comments” or so, just increasing volume of things that are probably in the right place to be upvoted.
- robinoh 5y ago366 min read !
- gonzo41 5y agoHey, something fun to decorate my resume with:) I at least once said a thing and it wasn't so dumb it go people talking. Hopefully.
- noduerme 5y agoIt would really scare me if dang wasn't the first one. But at the same time, I feel immense pain thinking about what he has to deal with on a daily basis. Literally the entire functioning of the last somewhat civil, fully moderated, independent, anon-friendly board on the internet in 2021 on the shoulders of one admin. I'd like to say how a million flowers should bloom from this shining example, but it seems more like a superhuman attempt to hold back the flood. In any event, it's been worth it and it's been a job well done. Also, I'm surprised and a bit ashamed to be #415 in this list. That's probably a whole side-project's worth of time I could have spent elsewhere. But I guess we all need somewhere to commune, talk shop, make friends or blow off some steam. FWIW I've learned far more from HN in the last year than I've been able to bring to it, and I'm thankful for the avenues it leads me down every day as a reader. I would post a lot less if I stopped drinking but, yeah.
- peoplefromibiza 5y ago> Literally the entire functioning of the last somewhat civil, fully moderated, independent, anon-friendly board on the internet in 2021 I recognize an hyperbole when I see one, but this one is kinda of a big one.
- mohanmcgeek 5y agoTo be honest, This is definitely more civil than other forums on the internet which have essentially become silos of their political leaning. Even the people who disagree with you here are polite. There are your occasional reddit-style "cool" sounding snarky comments every now and then. But decent overall
- noduerme 5y agoName one that's apolitical, anonymous, and personally moderated post by post? Some reddit subs might fit the bill, or some car enthusiast forums or something where wide-ranging conversations are banned. But this is a hard, hard thing to mod. I don't think we have anything else like it these days. That's why I'm actually here.
- 5y ago
- raverbashing 5y agoWhile I have on occasion been given a "stern talking to" by dang, I guess we can all appreciate his work. Though I sometimes wonder when does he sleep. (Though yes I should probably be more conservative with my comments)
- prepend 5y agoI imagine dang has a series of scripts and programs and works on automating himself out of the need to manually do things. While it seems like a boring manual job, it’s an interesting job if looked at as an automation problem. The need to automate in a non-stupid way would be good to apply here.
- chrismorgan 5y agoA query on methodology: Near the end of the list, it’s sitting at around a hundred accounts for each number, yet 70 comments has only 18 accounts listed before the 10000 cutoff is reached. Presumably some 80 or so more accounts were also at 70 comments, but are not mentioned. How wewre items ordered? Not by username, not by creation date, not by karma, I guess it’s just random? Alas for the ~⅘ of the 70-comments-per-year users who were excluded by capricious randomness!
- vmception 5y ago#5! A lot can be written while waiting for an incremental build to compile Thanks for all the substantive entertainment everyone
- filleokus 5y agoI think it would be even more interesting to see the list of highest average comment karma or something. Maybe that would better highlight what I really enjoy with HN: A story about aviation and suddenly 4 airline pilots appear and share insight, or when some tech legend dies and several colleagues pop in and tell stories about them. Or like the other day when one of the authors of the BLAKE3 algorithm (?) participated in some friendly flame-waring.
- ravenstine 5y agoLooks like I made spot #844. I already knew I spent too much time on HN, but that seems excessive, so it boggles my mind how anyone could have the time to be in the top 100.
- ycombinete 5y agoYeah, the top commentor behind dang is averaging almost 25 comments a day!
- WA 5y agoInteresting observation: I'm place 3501, I have been reading HN since 2009 and I only recognize 2 handles in the top 10. I guess this is because HN de-emphasises usernames.
- notRobot 5y agoSame. In the top-10, I only recognise vmception and dang.
- capableweb 5y ago> I guess this is because HN de-emphasises usernames. Not sure I agree, HN makes the username visible right next to the post? What I think (granted, I grew up with mailing lists and forums without images), is that we're so used to associating people online with pictures nowadays, that when there is no picture, why don't pick up the usernames anymore. Because I do recognize a lot of the usernames in the top 100, some even from just one comment I read but had an impact on me, and my memory made of flesh is really crappy most of the time.
- ignoramous 5y ago> Not sure I agree, HN makes the username visible right next to the post? Yes, but grayed out, in the background, so to speak. I usually do not notice the username at all (capableweb, hi! this is the first time I've noticed you...). Especially the usernames next to topics/stories are completely ignored by my brain's eyes.
- capableweb 5y agoInteresting that while your brain seems to ignore the usernames, my brain automatically parses the username when reading the comment, somehow. I'm not thinking about it, it just gets associated automatically. As I mentioned before, I grew up back when the internet was mostly text, so maybe that's why? Are you perhaps a bit younger than that?
- ignoramous 5y ago
- NKosmatos 5y agoIt would be fun if there were rankings and statistics for karma/upvotes/submissions for all users and from all available years. I'm sure there must be a web page for it somewhere :-) BTW, I barely made it to the list in #9279 with 77 comments. I agree that we're a somewhat niche community here but there are more readers than users and most users just read/vote and rarely submit and comment.
- totetsu 5y agoIt would be interesting to see a network graph of how commenters are connected and grouped.
- bob1029 5y agoI was hoping I wouldn't be on this list. Lots of time spent here. Maybe too much. HN is such a good community though... No other place like this exists on the internet.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- Sebb767 5y agoI'm number 536, suprising I made it that high :) Reading over the top few names, even though HN doesn't emphasize usernames at all, I recognized quite a few of them. Quite fascinating and a compliment to their comment quality.
- LightG 5y agoNot a good advert for HN that I'm in the top 30% !
- capableweb 5y agoIf OP is here: Would be really great to see each users top comment for the year as well, so we can get an idea of A) what kind of topics they are passionate/knowledgeable about and B) how much of the score for just one comment related to their overall score of the year
- janandonly 5y agoDoes HN have about 10K active users? Then this entire post is more or less clickbait because we are all in here ( I just found myself in the list as well). More useful is knowing * What were 2021's most upvoted articles? * Wat were 20201's most upvoted comments?
- capableweb 5y ago> There was 150k+ active users of Hacker News in 2021 and below is the list of the 10k most active users.[1] - [1] https://whaly.io/posts/top-10k-commenters-of-hacker-news-in-2021 https://whaly.io/posts/top-10k-commenters-of-hacker-news-in-...
- poulpi 5y agoYou can find answers to the first question here: https://whaly.io/posts/hacker-news-2021-retrospective https://whaly.io/posts/hacker-news-2021-retrospective And here: https://app.whaly.io/hacker-news/public/report/3596f39c-5a56-4c4e-88d6-9a3deb26136e https://app.whaly.io/hacker-news/public/report/3596f39c-5a56...
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- toomuchtodo 5y agoHere’s to spending more time on things that matter in 2022. Great post.
- sershe 5y agoHeh, I came here to lurk for a better slashdot/lower-volume r/programming, but I'm actually in the upper Nk because I get dragged into all kinds of political discussions against the part of my will that I endorse. It would be nice if there was a "solving the world's problems" tag and an rss feed without it ;)