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> There's an unholy dynamic between those and the upvote system, which means that (by default) worse comments get upvoted more than better comments do... Can y

by lisper 3y ago

> There's an unholy dynamic between those and the upvote system, which means that (by default) worse comments get upvoted more than better comments do... Can you elaborate on this a bit? I don't see why "lame and/or mean comments by otherwise good users who don't intend to and don't realize they're doing that" should have an "unholy dynamic" with the upvote system. (FWIW, what I have observed is that once a comment becomes established as the top comment in a thread -- and it doesn't take much for that to happen -- it is nearly impossible to dislodge it. That means that getting into a thread early is crucial for getting noticed. I've pretty much stopped commenting on threads that are older than an hour or two because I can be 99.9% certain that whatever I write will never been noticed no matter how good it might be. And FWIW2, the comment I'm responding to is 50 minutes old as I write this.)

pavlov 3y ago
> “once a comment becomes established as the top comment in a thread -- and it doesn't take much for that to happen -- it is nearly impossible to dislodge it” Sometimes moderators actively bump down top comments. It’s probably related to what dang wrote above about the “unholy dynamic” of low-content comments that trigger easy upvotes. I remember myself having written some (frankly) lightweight low-effort snark, see it end up at the top of the comments for a few hours, and then it went mysteriously halfway down the list even though the upvotes didn’t stop. To be clear, I think it’s a good thing the moderators do this kind of weighting, and the invisibility of comment upvote counts to non-authors is an important feature because it enables this.
- freedomben 3y ago
  Indeed, the sad reality I've discovered is that vote count != quality. In fact some of the highest quality comments of mine tend to languish in obscurity. I don't care about karma and invisible internet points so this doesn't bother me at all, but it does seem like a reflection of a sub-optimal system, though I of course don't have answers for how to make it better.
supriyo-biswas 3y ago
The dynamic being referred to is that low quality comments in the form of memes, distasteful jokes, attacks on other people, and similar comments tend to get upvoted a lot as they provide some entertainment to the upvoter, but said upvoted comment is highly damaging to the community in the kind of tone it sets for the thread, as well as the example it sets for the future. People optimizing for this kind of low effort but highly upvoted comment is called “karma whoring” on some places.
dang 3y ago
Most upvoting is reflexive rather than reflective [1], so posts which generate a quick response are more likely to get upvoted. I think that mostly happens when the reader has a rapid feeling response—could be indignation (how dare $THEY!), could be familarity (no way! I like $THING too!), could be a quick association from $Familiar-A to $Obvious-B [2], but whatever it is, it's likely to be something that doesn't take much processing. The reflective circuitry, which takes in new information, turns it over, and generates an unpredictable response, is much slower and harder to run. I suppose it's a bit like the difference between a sugar hit and eating nutritious food with fiber. The latter makes you feel better in the long run, but when it comes to mass dynamics, the sugar hit wins out every time. > once a comment becomes established as the top comment in a thread -- and it doesn't take much for that to happen -- it is nearly impossible to dislodge it Moderators downweight top subthreads that are generic or otherwise lame, and repeat this until the top subthread is no longer lame—if possible. The trouble is that this is an intensive manual process. Most likely the software needs to be adjusted as well. [1] https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=reflective%20reflex%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor... [2] This is probably the basis for the generic subthreads which are the bane of this forum: not bad enough to flag, but predictable enough to suffocate.
- rldjbpin 3y ago
  most activity on a thread seems to happen in the first 24 hours of posting it. the discussion tapers off beyond that. context: i read the "past" page every day, so often am several hours or over a day behind discourse. interstingly enough this post is still relatively new and was popular enough before midnight utc to show up in today's past page. i wonder how much positive feedback posts receive if they miss the initial window.
- sfjailbird 3y ago
  I think reddit has the best system for ranking comments and threads of any I have seen. I haven't studied the source, but it seems to hinge on what I have taken to call 'piloting' new posts: Allow it a brief time in the top spot (possibly only for a random subset of users), and see how well it performs (upvote wise) compared with the other comments. And, importantly, the quality requirement for the post increases the higher in the total hierarchy it is: root-level post, top-level reply to a top comment, and so on. I know HN does something similar, but it is not quite as good as reddit. From observation, specifically the 'penalty', or added performance requirement, of latching on to a top post is too weak. The result is that all HN comment threads consist of only a few top level posts, with subthreads growing off them, because you can easily 'jump the queue' just by commenting to a top comment. This is also what contributes to the idea that it is pointless to make new root level comments after an hour - because almost all the action is in subcomments to top comments. Edited to add: Reddit soft-hides (collapses) subthreads that are deemed lower importance, which is probably key to make the ranking system work. Anyone interested in a subthread may expand the hidden/collapsed sections, and they may even be upvoted back to uncollapsed state. But by default they don't muscle into the main conversation. HN already has the collapse feature, which could be reused for this. It's just a client-side collapse, also the reddit one (though in huge threads, deeper threads will be loaded on demand).

by lisper 3y ago

pavlov 3y ago

> “once a comment becomes established as the top comment in a thread -- and it doesn't take much for that to happen -- it is nearly impossible to dislodge it” Sometimes moderators actively bump down top comments. It’s probably related to what dang wrote above about the “unholy dynamic” of low-content comments that trigger easy upvotes. I remember myself having written some (frankly) lightweight low-effort snark, see it end up at the top of the comments for a few hours, and then it went mysteriously halfway down the list even though the upvotes didn’t stop. To be clear, I think it’s a good thing the moderators do this kind of weighting, and the invisibility of comment upvote counts to non-authors is an important feature because it enables this.

freedomben 3y ago
Indeed, the sad reality I've discovered is that vote count != quality. In fact some of the highest quality comments of mine tend to languish in obscurity. I don't care about karma and invisible internet points so this doesn't bother me at all, but it does seem like a reflection of a sub-optimal system, though I of course don't have answers for how to make it better.

supriyo-biswas 3y ago

The dynamic being referred to is that low quality comments in the form of memes, distasteful jokes, attacks on other people, and similar comments tend to get upvoted a lot as they provide some entertainment to the upvoter, but said upvoted comment is highly damaging to the community in the kind of tone it sets for the thread, as well as the example it sets for the future. People optimizing for this kind of low effort but highly upvoted comment is called “karma whoring” on some places.

dang 3y ago

Most upvoting is reflexive rather than reflective [1], so posts which generate a quick response are more likely to get upvoted. I think that mostly happens when the reader has a rapid feeling response—could be indignation (how dare $THEY!), could be familarity (no way! I like $THING too!), could be a quick association from $Familiar-A to $Obvious-B [2], but whatever it is, it's likely to be something that doesn't take much processing. The reflective circuitry, which takes in new information, turns it over, and generates an unpredictable response, is much slower and harder to run. I suppose it's a bit like the difference between a sugar hit and eating nutritious food with fiber. The latter makes you feel better in the long run, but when it comes to mass dynamics, the sugar hit wins out every time. > once a comment becomes established as the top comment in a thread -- and it doesn't take much for that to happen -- it is nearly impossible to dislodge it Moderators downweight top subthreads that are generic or otherwise lame, and repeat this until the top subthread is no longer lame—if possible. The trouble is that this is an intensive manual process. Most likely the software needs to be adjusted as well. [1] https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=reflective%20reflex%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor... [2] This is probably the basis for the generic subthreads which are the bane of this forum: not bad enough to flag, but predictable enough to suffocate.

rldjbpin 3y ago
most activity on a thread seems to happen in the first 24 hours of posting it. the discussion tapers off beyond that. context: i read the "past" page every day, so often am several hours or over a day behind discourse. interstingly enough this post is still relatively new and was popular enough before midnight utc to show up in today's past page. i wonder how much positive feedback posts receive if they miss the initial window.
sfjailbird 3y ago
I think reddit has the best system for ranking comments and threads of any I have seen. I haven't studied the source, but it seems to hinge on what I have taken to call 'piloting' new posts: Allow it a brief time in the top spot (possibly only for a random subset of users), and see how well it performs (upvote wise) compared with the other comments. And, importantly, the quality requirement for the post increases the higher in the total hierarchy it is: root-level post, top-level reply to a top comment, and so on. I know HN does something similar, but it is not quite as good as reddit. From observation, specifically the 'penalty', or added performance requirement, of latching on to a top post is too weak. The result is that all HN comment threads consist of only a few top level posts, with subthreads growing off them, because you can easily 'jump the queue' just by commenting to a top comment. This is also what contributes to the idea that it is pointless to make new root level comments after an hour - because almost all the action is in subcomments to top comments. Edited to add: Reddit soft-hides (collapses) subthreads that are deemed lower importance, which is probably key to make the ranking system work. Anyone interested in a subthread may expand the hidden/collapsed sections, and they may even be upvoted back to uncollapsed state. But by default they don't muscle into the main conversation. HN already has the collapse feature, which could be reused for this. It's just a client-side collapse, also the reddit one (though in huge threads, deeper threads will be loaded on demand).