4 ms·

I think the article ranking is probably good enough. Where I have more trouble with is with comment-ranking within an article. The interface makes it hard to

I think the article ranking is probably good enough. Where I have more trouble with is with comment-ranking within an article. The interface makes it hard to understand conversational flow, and of course that flow changes over time according to whatever the algorithm does. This makes it very hard to catch up later on an article’s comments and get a view of what has changed since my last view. Maybe there is a way to do this via the interface, but if so it’s not obvious.

djbusby 4y ago
Comments I haven't seen are a different color. But I read HN from a "custom" UI.
- 8organicbits 4y ago
  Which?
  - djbusby 4y ago
    Some junk I put together.
sillysaurusx 4y ago
At one point you could email hn@ycombinator.com and ask to participate in the new beta, which among other things highlights new comments since you’ve last visited the page. I don’t know the status of it, but it seemed like an interesting idea.
- 8organicbits 4y ago
  That should be pretty easy to do in a browser extension. Keep track of the last time the comment section was opened, highlight comments newer than that.
thunky 4y ago
> This makes it very hard to catch up later on an article’s comments My biggest complaint related to this is that all threads are dead within 24 hours, which kills a lot of interesting discussion. And commenters have no incentive to reply to dead threads. This discourages in depth back and forth conversation which I usually find is the most interesting.
- lawkwok 4y ago
  And even if someone replies to you specifically, the only way you would know is noticing your karma increased on the top right of the page.
  - AnonHP 4y ago
    Someone replying to your comment doesn’t change your karma points. Someone upvoting your comment may probably increase your karma points (the may probably is because of the undisclosed algorithms that attempt to compensate for gaming the system). In other words, looking at karma won’t tell you whether someone replied to your comments or not. There is nothing on HN to indicate replies unless you dig into your comments history. There nay be other sites or browser extensions that could help on getting notified.
- A4ET8a8uTh0 4y ago
  Admittedly, it varies, but I tend to look back for responses to older discussions if it was an interesting engagement to me. I agree with you that long form discussion suffers from current format, but I think it is part of the deal. It is hacker news and not hacker discussions. TBH, I am not sure if there is a good non-invite-only forum that facilitates that.

djbusby 4y ago

Comments I haven't seen are a different color. But I read HN from a "custom" UI.

8organicbits 4y ago
Which?
- djbusby 4y ago
  Some junk I put together.

sillysaurusx 4y ago

At one point you could email hn@ycombinator.com and ask to participate in the new beta, which among other things highlights new comments since you’ve last visited the page. I don’t know the status of it, but it seemed like an interesting idea.

8organicbits 4y ago
That should be pretty easy to do in a browser extension. Keep track of the last time the comment section was opened, highlight comments newer than that.

thunky 4y ago

> This makes it very hard to catch up later on an article’s comments My biggest complaint related to this is that all threads are dead within 24 hours, which kills a lot of interesting discussion. And commenters have no incentive to reply to dead threads. This discourages in depth back and forth conversation which I usually find is the most interesting.

lawkwok 4y ago
And even if someone replies to you specifically, the only way you would know is noticing your karma increased on the top right of the page.
- AnonHP 4y ago
  Someone replying to your comment doesn’t change your karma points. Someone upvoting your comment may probably increase your karma points (the may probably is because of the undisclosed algorithms that attempt to compensate for gaming the system). In other words, looking at karma won’t tell you whether someone replied to your comments or not. There is nothing on HN to indicate replies unless you dig into your comments history. There nay be other sites or browser extensions that could help on getting notified.
A4ET8a8uTh0 4y ago
Admittedly, it varies, but I tend to look back for responses to older discussions if it was an interesting engagement to me. I agree with you that long form discussion suffers from current format, but I think it is part of the deal. It is hacker news and not hacker discussions. TBH, I am not sure if there is a good non-invite-only forum that facilitates that.