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> That's a lucky side-effect of how comments never expire rather than our intent when conversing online, A lot of online discussion might be a lot more pleasan

> That's a lucky side-effect of how comments never expire rather than our intent when conversing online, A lot of online discussion might be a lot more pleasant if people considered the perspective of themselves, or people they care about, reading their comments years in the future. For sites like stackoverflow the intend is clearly to leave a lasting record of information, perhaps even more than answering the original persons question.

hombre_fatal 3y ago
> A lot of online discussion might be a lot more pleasant if people considered the perspective of themselves, or people they care about, reading their comments years in the future. Or maybe that hasn't worked so well because it's not a sane default nor the one we operate in when we converse with others on a site like Reddit. For example, I'd like to see the argument for why my utterances on a site like Reddit need to be online forever and why I should want them to be. I can see why that's good for Reddit, but not why I should care. HN doesn't let you delete comments. Yet nobody can even respond to my comments in the future. So it's a feature that does nothing for me no matter how great my comments might be.
- thomasahle 3y ago
  It's like writing a blogpost in a conversational format. A way for you to share your thoughts with the world. If you only want to share them with a single person, a phone call would probably be better.
  - hombre_fatal 3y ago
    The person I originally replied to explained that deleting your own posts hurts other humans because your posts aren't available to search in the future. I'm saying that helping someone answer "best blenders 2023 site:reddit" isn't the intention you have when you reply to someone on Reddit/HN, so who cares. It's like saying I shouldn't delete my posts because it will hurt ChatGPT's training data. What I'm not saying is that you should expect privacy for comments you post online.

hombre_fatal 3y ago

> A lot of online discussion might be a lot more pleasant if people considered the perspective of themselves, or people they care about, reading their comments years in the future. Or maybe that hasn't worked so well because it's not a sane default nor the one we operate in when we converse with others on a site like Reddit. For example, I'd like to see the argument for why my utterances on a site like Reddit need to be online forever and why I should want them to be. I can see why that's good for Reddit, but not why I should care. HN doesn't let you delete comments. Yet nobody can even respond to my comments in the future. So it's a feature that does nothing for me no matter how great my comments might be.

thomasahle 3y ago
It's like writing a blogpost in a conversational format. A way for you to share your thoughts with the world. If you only want to share them with a single person, a phone call would probably be better.
- hombre_fatal 3y ago
  The person I originally replied to explained that deleting your own posts hurts other humans because your posts aren't available to search in the future. I'm saying that helping someone answer "best blenders 2023 site:reddit" isn't the intention you have when you reply to someone on Reddit/HN, so who cares. It's like saying I shouldn't delete my posts because it will hurt ChatGPT's training data. What I'm not saying is that you should expect privacy for comments you post online.