4 ms·

Why I Stopped Reading Hacker News Comments

6 points by behnamoh 4y ago

themodelplumber 4y ago
> Obviously, no one has time to read all those comments (if you do, please get a job). Wow. Why so dismissive and emotional? I scrolled a bit further to find Louis CK waiting. Then kind of connected the dots from there. There's an unfortunate issue here with lots of emotion getting in the way of what could be a really interesting post for all I know...so I agree that SNR can be a problem! Anyway I guess that's Why I Stopped Reading This Post.
- krapp 4y ago
michaelwww 4y ago
Here's 85 comments you didn't read the last time you posted it: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32400521 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32400521
gus_massa 4y ago
In 10 seconds it's only possible to write an onliner, and onliners usually get downvoted here. I always recommend to write longer comments, unless it's a very clear case and you know what you are doing. Anyway, I agree that it's better to skip the comments when there are like 1000 comments. I try to skip comment sections when there are more than 100. Many of the top comments here are quite good, and my guess is that they took like 5 or 10 minutes to write, or more. Some discussion about papers it's necessary to read the press article, and then read the research article, until it makes sense. Add 10 or 15 minutes, or more. I have to rewrite the comments a few times, my English is horrible (and my Spanish is horrible too), but after a few reviews I can remove all the wavy red lines and write something that makes sense. Sometimes it's difficult to pick the correct technical level of the comment. To shallow and it's only hand waving. Too deep and only a specialist can understand it. What to cut? What to link to Wikipedia? In which order? And replies to comments are very difficult. It's easy to post a generic reply, but for a personalized reply explaining why the parent comment is wrong you must understand exactly where is the error.
- vanilla_nut 4y ago
  Well said. I write, rewrite, and edit most of my comments. They frequently take 5+, even 10+ minutes from the moment I begin to when I hit "reply". I try to upvote and downvote comments based on whether or not they contribute that same level of thought. I suppose enough community members feel the same that we generally keep the comments high quality enough to justify refreshing the page multiple times a day, every day. By the way, your English is quite good for a non-native speaker. Just putting this much conscious effort into writing puts your prose a level above most native English speakers!
vanilla_nut 4y ago
This post conflates "level of effort" that goes into writing about an idea with quality of thought. In some ways, I agree. That's why I blog instead of social media (HN excepted) -- if I'm going to write a post, I'd rather put conscious effort into crafting it, rather than take the easy way out and summarize my vacation with a giant album of photos. However, there's also a certain wisdom to crowds, especially in a well-moderated community like HN. There's an awfully wide array of life experiences and perspectives among the commenters here, and I frequently find comments that are so well-written that they change my mind on a subject. Are comments on most sites 90% trash? Sure. But I'm not sure HN is like that. I don't think visible scores make any kind of difference for comment quality, if anything it's better to make the internet points a secret like HN comments so people talk instead of jousting for points. This post smells like a blog writer who's been lambasted by HN a few too many times, and invented this post as an excuse to protect his or her ego. And please -- if you're going to brag about how much time you spend rewriting sentences, don't commit the "How... look like" sin in the same post.

6 points by behnamoh 4y ago

> Obviously, no one has time to read all those comments (if you do, please get a job). Wow. Why so dismissive and emotional? I scrolled a bit further to find Louis CK waiting. Then kind of connected the dots from there. There's an unfortunate issue here with lots of emotion getting in the way of what could be a really interesting post for all I know...so I agree that SNR can be a problem! Anyway I guess that's Why I Stopped Reading This Post.

krapp 4y ago

michaelwww 4y ago

Here's 85 comments you didn't read the last time you posted it: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32400521 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32400521

gus_massa 4y ago

In 10 seconds it's only possible to write an onliner, and onliners usually get downvoted here. I always recommend to write longer comments, unless it's a very clear case and you know what you are doing. Anyway, I agree that it's better to skip the comments when there are like 1000 comments. I try to skip comment sections when there are more than 100. Many of the top comments here are quite good, and my guess is that they took like 5 or 10 minutes to write, or more. Some discussion about papers it's necessary to read the press article, and then read the research article, until it makes sense. Add 10 or 15 minutes, or more. I have to rewrite the comments a few times, my English is horrible (and my Spanish is horrible too), but after a few reviews I can remove all the wavy red lines and write something that makes sense. Sometimes it's difficult to pick the correct technical level of the comment. To shallow and it's only hand waving. Too deep and only a specialist can understand it. What to cut? What to link to Wikipedia? In which order? And replies to comments are very difficult. It's easy to post a generic reply, but for a personalized reply explaining why the parent comment is wrong you must understand exactly where is the error.

vanilla_nut 4y ago
Well said. I write, rewrite, and edit most of my comments. They frequently take 5+, even 10+ minutes from the moment I begin to when I hit "reply". I try to upvote and downvote comments based on whether or not they contribute that same level of thought. I suppose enough community members feel the same that we generally keep the comments high quality enough to justify refreshing the page multiple times a day, every day. By the way, your English is quite good for a non-native speaker. Just putting this much conscious effort into writing puts your prose a level above most native English speakers!

vanilla_nut 4y ago

This post conflates "level of effort" that goes into writing about an idea with quality of thought. In some ways, I agree. That's why I blog instead of social media (HN excepted) -- if I'm going to write a post, I'd rather put conscious effort into crafting it, rather than take the easy way out and summarize my vacation with a giant album of photos. However, there's also a certain wisdom to crowds, especially in a well-moderated community like HN. There's an awfully wide array of life experiences and perspectives among the commenters here, and I frequently find comments that are so well-written that they change my mind on a subject. Are comments on most sites 90% trash? Sure. But I'm not sure HN is like that. I don't think visible scores make any kind of difference for comment quality, if anything it's better to make the internet points a secret like HN comments so people talk instead of jousting for points. This post smells like a blog writer who's been lambasted by HN a few too many times, and invented this post as an excuse to protect his or her ego. And please -- if you're going to brag about how much time you spend rewriting sentences, don't commit the "How... look like" sin in the same post.