2 ms·

I've used newsgroups, mailing lists, forums for 30 years. This has never been a problem on any of them.

• philipkglass 4y ago
  Perhaps the venues you used had stronger norms than those I used. To check my memory I just downloaded a collection of posts from rec.arts.sf.written (one of the newsgroups I used to use) from the Internet Archive. Matching my recollection, I see nested replies that are short and express attitude without substantially advancing discussion. e.g. >>>> DeLaney didn't say it could have happened, merely that he >>>> would have been happy if it did. >> >>> A distinction without meaning or merit. >> >>Wrong twice. > > On the contrary. It's dead spot on, in fact. You really are a retard, aren't you? I consider it better for participants to vote down this sort of noise rather than add to the chain of "nuh-uh" responses.
  • beefman 4y ago
    Oh, there were flame wars. I don't remember any with individual responses this brief though! I don't remember brevity of any kind being an issue. Flame wars sucked, but I'm beginning to think it's a case of 'cutting off tails on one side kills them on the other'. HN in particular has always given me vibes of: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0734580/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0734580/
  • beefman 4y ago
    At the risk of beating a dead horse, I think the tricky thing in evaluating comment voting is this: It's easy to look at a thread and see that junk comments were downvoted, and conclude it's working. It's harder to know which comments were never posted at all.