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you are pretty much guaranteed not to see replieds to older comments. I consider this a feature, not a bug. IMO, it's good to let older conversations just kind

you are pretty much guaranteed not to see replieds to older comments. I consider this a feature, not a bug. IMO, it's good to let older conversations just kinda "run out of steam" as attention moves elsewhere. In my experience, extended discussions here tend to be unproductive flame-war level discussion. I don't see any value in making it easier to sustain that.

loceng 5y ago
Maybe a way then to flag a comment to watch for a response? Sometimes I ask a question I'd love answered, or if someone else responds to a conversation I think is important - I'd be happy if they eventually replied.
- ss108 5y ago
  Yeah. Like, I "owe" people a response here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30310575#30310784 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30310575#30310784 I am trying to put some degree of effort into the answer, but it feels like they might not even see my responses to their comments.
  - loceng 5y ago
    Only one of them has contact info in their profile - so at least it'd get to them? https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=tomcam https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=tomcam They thought it'd make a good blog post too, so you can repurpose it for that?
    - ss108 5y ago
      Yeah, I just don't have a blog LOL But I have been thinking about making one, maybe this can kick it off. Would have to be anonymous until I successfully make it back into tech.
      - p49k 5y ago
        You could also do some sort of “Tell HN: this is why I moved from tech to law and back” post, although it does seem like the site penalizes those sort of posts so it might not be very visible either.
account42 5y ago
> I consider this a feature, not a bug. IMO, it's good to let older conversations just kinda "run out of steam" as attention moves elsewhere. That tends to happen even when there are notifications in my experience - it only takes one participant to stop. > In my experience, extended discussions here tend to be unproductive flame-war level discussion. As in here on HN? That can hardly be due to notifications since there are none. I'm also not looking for extended discussion, just being able to see if someone has something to add to an old comment of mine.
- ben_w 5y ago
  > As in here on HN? That can hardly be due to notifications since there are none. I’ve certainly felt that was happening here a few times. I’m glad the “threads” list is so short, because I’m not immune to the siren call of https://xkcd.com/386 https://xkcd.com/386 even though my better self wishes I were.
- mindcrime 5y ago
  As in here on HN? That can hardly be due to notifications since there are none. I'm saying notifications would exacerbate those situations, which is why it's good that HN doesn't have that facility.
tayo42 5y ago
Im not sure i agree with that. old forums used to have interesting threads that would go on for a while and in depth. One thing I dont like about this, idk what this is called, new generation of message board?, is that past 3 or 4 comments deep everything dies and past like 12 hours commenting dies. it actually feels a lot more shallow
- mindcrime 5y ago
  I suspect that may be a result of those boards being more specifically focused on a particular topic. But, that's just a hunch, not something I can prove.
passivate 5y ago
There are many times I don't reply to a comment that is multiple days old simply because nobody is going to read it. In my experience, the "hot takes" are often low quality comments. Quality comments take time and thought, and HN isn't conducive for that.
- dredmorbius 5y ago
  This is one of my own frustrations with HN. The issue isn't quite as bad as on other discussion sites, but generally, conversations ... fade quickly. I'd like to see some kind of mechanism which works against this tendency. That said, notifications of themselves ... probably aren't that. Though there might be ways to tweak the mechanic to induce this. Google+ had a Notifications dynamic that seemed to work well in this effect, though it was somewhat specific to how that site was structured: - Notifications were for specific discussions. - Disucssions were hosted by a specific user. - The Notification went out to all (recent-ish) participants in the discussion. - Discussion hosts could moderate the thread. This was a two-edged sword, but tended to reduce spam and flamebait when used well. - The Notifications Pane itself wasn't merely a "something happened" nag, but a site element where new comments could be directly responded to. - Discussion threads were flat, with most-recent comments appearing at the bottom of the thread. I'd at first missed the threaded style, but came to appreciate a flat disucssion which didn't descend into long separated exchanges (frequently flamefests), and for which each subsequent response was an equal contribution to the thread. - Total thread length was limited to 500 replies. It's not the same as a topical or open-discussion formum, as with HN. But as a conversation-fostering platform given the right host and participants it could and often did work quite well. A result was conversations which evolved naturally over days and weeks, sometimes months and years. Conversations didn't simply die.
  - fouc 5y ago
    I agree about the problem of quality conversations fading too quickly. Perhaps HN could add a /topconversations or /yesterdayconversations link that only highlights the best conversation threads from 24 hours ago. That way attention on good discussions could be maintained for an extra day.

loceng 5y ago

Maybe a way then to flag a comment to watch for a response? Sometimes I ask a question I'd love answered, or if someone else responds to a conversation I think is important - I'd be happy if they eventually replied.

ss108 5y ago
Yeah. Like, I "owe" people a response here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30310575#30310784 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30310575#30310784 I am trying to put some degree of effort into the answer, but it feels like they might not even see my responses to their comments.
- loceng 5y ago
  Only one of them has contact info in their profile - so at least it'd get to them? https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=tomcam https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=tomcam They thought it'd make a good blog post too, so you can repurpose it for that?
  - ss108 5y ago
    Yeah, I just don't have a blog LOL But I have been thinking about making one, maybe this can kick it off. Would have to be anonymous until I successfully make it back into tech.
    - p49k 5y ago
      You could also do some sort of “Tell HN: this is why I moved from tech to law and back” post, although it does seem like the site penalizes those sort of posts so it might not be very visible either.

account42 5y ago

> I consider this a feature, not a bug. IMO, it's good to let older conversations just kinda "run out of steam" as attention moves elsewhere. That tends to happen even when there are notifications in my experience - it only takes one participant to stop. > In my experience, extended discussions here tend to be unproductive flame-war level discussion. As in here on HN? That can hardly be due to notifications since there are none. I'm also not looking for extended discussion, just being able to see if someone has something to add to an old comment of mine.

ben_w 5y ago
> As in here on HN? That can hardly be due to notifications since there are none. I’ve certainly felt that was happening here a few times. I’m glad the “threads” list is so short, because I’m not immune to the siren call of https://xkcd.com/386 https://xkcd.com/386 even though my better self wishes I were.
mindcrime 5y ago
As in here on HN? That can hardly be due to notifications since there are none. I'm saying notifications would exacerbate those situations, which is why it's good that HN doesn't have that facility.

tayo42 5y ago

Im not sure i agree with that. old forums used to have interesting threads that would go on for a while and in depth. One thing I dont like about this, idk what this is called, new generation of message board?, is that past 3 or 4 comments deep everything dies and past like 12 hours commenting dies. it actually feels a lot more shallow

mindcrime 5y ago
I suspect that may be a result of those boards being more specifically focused on a particular topic. But, that's just a hunch, not something I can prove.

passivate 5y ago

There are many times I don't reply to a comment that is multiple days old simply because nobody is going to read it. In my experience, the "hot takes" are often low quality comments. Quality comments take time and thought, and HN isn't conducive for that.

dredmorbius 5y ago
This is one of my own frustrations with HN. The issue isn't quite as bad as on other discussion sites, but generally, conversations ... fade quickly. I'd like to see some kind of mechanism which works against this tendency. That said, notifications of themselves ... probably aren't that. Though there might be ways to tweak the mechanic to induce this. Google+ had a Notifications dynamic that seemed to work well in this effect, though it was somewhat specific to how that site was structured: - Notifications were for specific discussions. - Disucssions were hosted by a specific user. - The Notification went out to all (recent-ish) participants in the discussion. - Discussion hosts could moderate the thread. This was a two-edged sword, but tended to reduce spam and flamebait when used well. - The Notifications Pane itself wasn't merely a "something happened" nag, but a site element where new comments could be directly responded to. - Discussion threads were flat, with most-recent comments appearing at the bottom of the thread. I'd at first missed the threaded style, but came to appreciate a flat disucssion which didn't descend into long separated exchanges (frequently flamefests), and for which each subsequent response was an equal contribution to the thread. - Total thread length was limited to 500 replies. It's not the same as a topical or open-discussion formum, as with HN. But as a conversation-fostering platform given the right host and participants it could and often did work quite well. A result was conversations which evolved naturally over days and weeks, sometimes months and years. Conversations didn't simply die.
- fouc 5y ago
  I agree about the problem of quality conversations fading too quickly. Perhaps HN could add a /topconversations or /yesterdayconversations link that only highlights the best conversation threads from 24 hours ago. That way attention on good discussions could be maintained for an extra day.