4 ms·

Yep. Same here. I also check the first page of my profile's "comments" page a few minutes after replying something, but that's it. Probably a bad habit. (I just

by ratww 5y ago

Yep. Same here. I also check the first page of my profile's "comments" page a few minutes after replying something, but that's it. Probably a bad habit. (I just discovered now that the "threads" link on the top also does that, lol). Recently I've even been considering using a client stylesheet to hide my karma at the top of the page.

andai 5y ago
Yeah my karma is the first thing I look at involuntarily even though it's not something I want to care about. I feel sad when a comment doesn't get any attention, and an irrational amount of excitement when I get a couple dozen upvotes, even though I know it's largely a factor of timing (ending up near the top of the page) and sharing popular opinions.
- ahofmann 5y ago
  Well, now I had to upvote your post, because I know, that you will feel good about it.
- godelski 5y ago
  This is what I do. Look for karma change, then click comments. It also makes me more conscious about voting since I do want to indicate to the other person that their comment was meaningful. Which I like HN's voting system and lack of displaying numbers next to other users comments. I think a lot of subtle things HN does encourages more engaged discussions and less heated battles.
- chillacy 5y ago
  That sums up my experience as well. I just spent 20 mins trying to make that go away in Safari, I was not able to get Tampermonkey working (possibly due to XSS headers) but Cascadea worked. `#karma { display: none !important; }`
  - nishs 5y ago
    Safari also has a built-in mechanism to achieve this. In Preferences > Advanced > Style sheet, you can pick a custom style sheet file for style overrides.
- scarecrowbob 5y ago
  Feedback feels important to me. Internally, for me it's nice to make a distinction between when I a writing for others and when I am writing for myself. If I am writing for myself, which I often do, it's much like my musical busking practice: I am not doing it for the money or attention, but just because it adds a nice public layer where I feel like I should respect at least some social norms. That addition of a lightweight ruleset feels helpful to me: instead of just eliding over the parts of my thoughts that might not make sense to other people, I am forced to at least notate them in some way. If I am writing for other people, then it's nice to know how something was received; I really am often curious about what others think. Getting feedback in this fashion has led me to shut up when I have an unpopular opinion, but even that's a really good thing to know. It has been helpful to see the couple of points where I wasn't sure how my opinions would be taken, and to then either be taken to task for writing unclearly, find a real problem in my own thinking, or to at least have a chance to gather the wrong-headed arguments people may fall into when confronted with some of my thoughts. And if I am indeed writing for other people and no one is upvoting, than that's good to know as well-- there is literally no point for me to write something for other people which is completely ignored. That's a good indicator about when I am just writing for myself-- which is almost everything I write and then publish as a comment on HN. So, to answer the OP, I just check my comments and if there is a response in the top couple I may respond back. But if folks are writing replies to my very old comments I, I am not checking those because I'm guessing they are just writing for themselves.
  - ratww 5y ago
    I feel like the feedback from karma is not really good. Anything matching the opinion of some echo-chamber can get hundreds of points (be it purely factual, opinion or even being devoid of content). Mildly unpopular opinions, aka "hot takes", the cathartic stuff, can also garner a lot more upvotes. However, curious civil discussion or sourced posts clarifying something non-controversial won't get much attention at all. Because it's boring. Maybe that's alright, though. The only part where I see karma working as feedback is in possible flame wars. Anything controversial will get lots of downvotes. So it accidentally work as a deterrent I guess.

by ratww 5y ago

andai 5y ago

Yeah my karma is the first thing I look at involuntarily even though it's not something I want to care about. I feel sad when a comment doesn't get any attention, and an irrational amount of excitement when I get a couple dozen upvotes, even though I know it's largely a factor of timing (ending up near the top of the page) and sharing popular opinions.

ahofmann 5y ago
Well, now I had to upvote your post, because I know, that you will feel good about it.
godelski 5y ago
This is what I do. Look for karma change, then click comments. It also makes me more conscious about voting since I do want to indicate to the other person that their comment was meaningful. Which I like HN's voting system and lack of displaying numbers next to other users comments. I think a lot of subtle things HN does encourages more engaged discussions and less heated battles.
chillacy 5y ago
That sums up my experience as well. I just spent 20 mins trying to make that go away in Safari, I was not able to get Tampermonkey working (possibly due to XSS headers) but Cascadea worked. `#karma { display: none !important; }`
- nishs 5y ago
  Safari also has a built-in mechanism to achieve this. In Preferences > Advanced > Style sheet, you can pick a custom style sheet file for style overrides.
scarecrowbob 5y ago
Feedback feels important to me. Internally, for me it's nice to make a distinction between when I a writing for others and when I am writing for myself. If I am writing for myself, which I often do, it's much like my musical busking practice: I am not doing it for the money or attention, but just because it adds a nice public layer where I feel like I should respect at least some social norms. That addition of a lightweight ruleset feels helpful to me: instead of just eliding over the parts of my thoughts that might not make sense to other people, I am forced to at least notate them in some way. If I am writing for other people, then it's nice to know how something was received; I really am often curious about what others think. Getting feedback in this fashion has led me to shut up when I have an unpopular opinion, but even that's a really good thing to know. It has been helpful to see the couple of points where I wasn't sure how my opinions would be taken, and to then either be taken to task for writing unclearly, find a real problem in my own thinking, or to at least have a chance to gather the wrong-headed arguments people may fall into when confronted with some of my thoughts. And if I am indeed writing for other people and no one is upvoting, than that's good to know as well-- there is literally no point for me to write something for other people which is completely ignored. That's a good indicator about when I am just writing for myself-- which is almost everything I write and then publish as a comment on HN. So, to answer the OP, I just check my comments and if there is a response in the top couple I may respond back. But if folks are writing replies to my very old comments I, I am not checking those because I'm guessing they are just writing for themselves.
- ratww 5y ago
  I feel like the feedback from karma is not really good. Anything matching the opinion of some echo-chamber can get hundreds of points (be it purely factual, opinion or even being devoid of content). Mildly unpopular opinions, aka "hot takes", the cathartic stuff, can also garner a lot more upvotes. However, curious civil discussion or sourced posts clarifying something non-controversial won't get much attention at all. Because it's boring. Maybe that's alright, though. The only part where I see karma working as feedback is in possible flame wars. Anything controversial will get lots of downvotes. So it accidentally work as a deterrent I guess.