4 ms·

To what purpose? To make a new avatar for every new comment, regardless of poster?

• jorvi 3y ago
  No, you would have the same avatar under a post (so it is grokkable who is replying to who), but your avatar would differ between posts. The tree within HN is "post > thread > comment", no? There is a lot of use in having the same avatar within threads and across threads, but I don't see much use in having the same avatar across posts. All it leads to is point farming, echo chambering and bandwagoning. Many times I see well-known users with recognizable usernames offer insightful comments. They are very knowledgeable, well-informed and polite. Many times however, if someone else dares to go against this user with an equally valid well-informed polite countercomment, groupies of said recognizable user will nuke those comments into deep grey, purely because it goes against their god and he must be right. You see this across all subcommunities that have a point system and usernames. People lose sight of the content and will blindly follow whoever is the most well-known person within that community. Something like Reddit, but with the value-judging system of imageboards would be a godsend.
  • neontomo 3y ago
    Interesting! I haven't seen much of that behaviour myself, but I see your point. Counter-point: being downvoted maybe isn't so bad? I'd rather express my (controversial) opinion and be downvoted than stay quiet to avoid scrutiny. Being a person out in the world means sometimes being criticised.