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> I have little motivation to separate the wheat from the proverbial chaff anymore. That’s what it comes down to, really. Comment quality distribution certainl
by d--b 4y ago
> I have little motivation to separate the wheat from the proverbial chaff anymore.
That’s what it comes down to, really. Comment quality distribution certainly follows a bell curve. Voting helps bubble up the best top-level comments. But if you start reading the sub-comments, you’re on your own.
That’s not new, that is how it has been putting one’s voice out since the invention of speech…
The pompeii grafiti were not particularly “front page material”.
- lapcat 4y ago> Voting helps bubble up the best top-level comments. Does it? Seems like early top-level comments take on a life of their own. Everyone wants to reply to the top top-level comment (possibly to maximize the chances of their own comment getting noticed, or possibly just because it's the first thing they see on the page). And the way HN is designed, with discussions expanded by default, you may have to scroll down quite ways on the page to even get to another top-level comment, much less multiple top-level comments. Crazy idea: how about presenting comments at each level in a random order on each page load, and get rid of voting? There could still be flagging to hide the worst comments.
- b3morales 4y agoI'm not sure of the exact details, but HN does have some feature whereby a new comment is displayed at the very top for a few minutes. I see this often when opening an active article. But there is definitely an early-mover advantage in terms of visibility.