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I wish that when I read a large discussion (100+ comments) there would be a way to distinguish comments I have already seen. Because for a large discussion I ca

I wish that when I read a large discussion (100+ comments) there would be a way to distinguish comments I have already seen. Because for a large discussion I care about, I'll revisit it several times to see what was added. Except right now, I have to rescan everythng. When I was using micromobs.com for discussion groups, they had a very simple and elegant system: keep all comments in place to preserve context, but grey out the ones I have already seen. The problem on HN is that it would conflict with bad comments. Maybe use a different color?

danmaz74 14y ago
For that I use this very nice extension: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/fpndmkcfggkffpablcooicmihgcgalil https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/fpndmkcfggkffpablc...
- icebraining 14y ago
  I use the HNHalfLife[1] userscript, and I know find it extremely annoying to browse HN without it. Thanks polyfractal! [1]: https://github.com/polyfractal/HNHalfLife https://github.com/polyfractal/HNHalfLife
  - nuttendorfer 14y ago
    I've just installed it (Chrome) but it doesn't seem to do anything, would you happen to know what I'm doing wrong? Edit: Using the https version of news.ycombinator.com
    - icebraining 14y ago
      I don't know, it "just worked" here. Click on comments page, close it and then it'll mark new comments when you return to it or see it on the stories list.
mgurlitz 14y ago
The hckrnews.com browser extension does this with an orange bar on the left of new comments, and on the hckrnews.com homepage it will list how many new comments have been added to the story alongside the total count.
- iambot 14y ago
  You could try out: hncomment watcher http://christopherdebeer.github.com/hnCommentWatcher/ http://christopherdebeer.github.com/hnCommentWatcher/
kens 14y ago
Yes, please, a way to see new comments in a discussion. One of the unfortunate side-effects of the current system is that interesting conversations get killed off too soon because nobody can follow what's being said any more. (Falling off the front page is also a killer for discussions. It would be nice if active discussion threads remained visible somewhere.) I'm not the first person to bring up Usenet here, but it pains me that Usenet had way more functionality in the 1980s. (Which I don't mean as a criticism of HN, but a wish for more learning from the past.)
- danmaz74 14y ago
  But how many users were there on usenet? The special thing about HN is that it keeps a quality of comments way above average without needing to be too elitist; I think that limiting the conversations (and thus the flame wars etc.) is a choice. But to highlight new comments there are many different solutions already, take a look at the other comments :)
  - moe 14y ago
    The special thing about HN is that it keeps a quality of comments way above average That was in fact also a quality of Usenet, before it went out of fashion for unclear reasons. It would be an interesting exercise to mirror (or even move) HN to a nntp-server. Personally I believe the signal/noise ratio would improve drastically.
prawn 14y ago
I'd also be keen for a way to collapse the comment tree as I lose interest in responses to a particular reply.
dionidium 14y ago
I made something like that a while back: http://dionidium.com/projects/greasemonkey/markasread.user.js http://dionidium.com/projects/greasemonkey/markasread.user.j...

danmaz74 14y ago

For that I use this very nice extension: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/fpndmkcfggkffpablcooicmihgcgalil https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/fpndmkcfggkffpablc...

icebraining 14y ago
I use the HNHalfLife[1] userscript, and I know find it extremely annoying to browse HN without it. Thanks polyfractal! [1]: https://github.com/polyfractal/HNHalfLife https://github.com/polyfractal/HNHalfLife
- nuttendorfer 14y ago
  I've just installed it (Chrome) but it doesn't seem to do anything, would you happen to know what I'm doing wrong? Edit: Using the https version of news.ycombinator.com
  - icebraining 14y ago
    I don't know, it "just worked" here. Click on comments page, close it and then it'll mark new comments when you return to it or see it on the stories list.

mgurlitz 14y ago

The hckrnews.com browser extension does this with an orange bar on the left of new comments, and on the hckrnews.com homepage it will list how many new comments have been added to the story alongside the total count.

iambot 14y ago
You could try out: hncomment watcher http://christopherdebeer.github.com/hnCommentWatcher/ http://christopherdebeer.github.com/hnCommentWatcher/

kens 14y ago

Yes, please, a way to see new comments in a discussion. One of the unfortunate side-effects of the current system is that interesting conversations get killed off too soon because nobody can follow what's being said any more. (Falling off the front page is also a killer for discussions. It would be nice if active discussion threads remained visible somewhere.) I'm not the first person to bring up Usenet here, but it pains me that Usenet had way more functionality in the 1980s. (Which I don't mean as a criticism of HN, but a wish for more learning from the past.)

danmaz74 14y ago
But how many users were there on usenet? The special thing about HN is that it keeps a quality of comments way above average without needing to be too elitist; I think that limiting the conversations (and thus the flame wars etc.) is a choice. But to highlight new comments there are many different solutions already, take a look at the other comments :)
- moe 14y ago
  The special thing about HN is that it keeps a quality of comments way above average That was in fact also a quality of Usenet, before it went out of fashion for unclear reasons. It would be an interesting exercise to mirror (or even move) HN to a nntp-server. Personally I believe the signal/noise ratio would improve drastically.

prawn 14y ago

I'd also be keen for a way to collapse the comment tree as I lose interest in responses to a particular reply.

dionidium 14y ago

I made something like that a while back: http://dionidium.com/projects/greasemonkey/markasread.user.js http://dionidium.com/projects/greasemonkey/markasread.user.j...