4 ms·

> Sorry to go meta here, but this is just rude, both to OP and to other readers. ... You're essentially using the edit feature to end the conversation and ensur

by pc86 2y ago

> Sorry to go meta here, but this is just rude, both to OP and to other readers. ... You're essentially using the edit feature to end the conversation and ensure you have the final word. I've noticed this more and more, especially on more controversial topics (which this is certainly not). Adam makes a statement, Betty responds. Adam responds, and Betty edits her initial response and conversation ends, likely because Adam didn't see the edit.

Aeolun 2y ago
Isn’t that fine? Not all of those conversations have to be taken to the end.
- appleorchard46 2y ago
  Mm, as long as the edit is clear it seems like a good way to avoid unproductive arguments. Adam makes a statement, but the responses show the statement was unclear and/or leads into tangential arguments. An edit can clarify the initial statement for future readers without getting the original poster stuck in the back-and-forth necessary to escape whatever quagmire the unedited version created.
- noduerme 2y ago
  Imagine you're having an in-person conversation with someone in a crowded restaurant. Rather than addressing their next response to you, they wait until you go to the bathroom. Then they turn to everyone at the next table and say, "that guy doesn't get it, but fine." I personally think that in a no-holds-barred debate, you don't bother trying to convince your interlocutor of anything. You focus on persuading everyone else in the room. But it's rude to treat every polite conversation as a smackdown debate. Such a strategy can also backfire by turning off your intended audience, as evidenced here.
  - motorest 2y ago
    > Imagine you're having an in-person conversation with someone in a crowded restaurant. You're not in a crowded restaurant chatting with someone. You're in an online forum broadcasting messages to the vast nothingness.
    - noduerme 2y ago
      This isn't twitter. You're in a highly moderated forum in which both moderator and participants are bound by rule and custom to maintain civil behavior, in the best interest of everyone involved. Even if you weren't, you should still act as if you were in a crowded restaurant. Without agreeing to conventions for how a conversation should be conducted, you can't have any productive conversation at all. So what would be the point? If you ever sense that you're in an online forum broadcasting messages to the vast nothingness then you are truly only wasting your own time. (Which is why this is the only site I ever post on). At that point, just stop, put it down, walk outside and engage in any kind of real interaction you can find.
      - motorest 2y ago
        > This isn't twitter. You're in a highly moderated forum in which both moderator and participants are bound by rule and custom to maintain civil behavior, in the best interest of everyone involved. You're trying to make a storm in a teacup. OP literally edited his post to clearly state its fine if anyone interprete something differently. This is hardly outrage bait. Try to direct your energy to something worth your time. Loudly complaining about vague subjective notions of netiquette in a moderated forum is certainly not it.
        lukan 2y ago
        "Try to direct your energy to something worth your time. Loudly complaining about vague subjective notions of netiquette in a moderated forum is certainly not it." Maybe try not to tell other people what is important for them? That is part of the same debate, how we communicate and to me it also matters a lot.
- elevaet 2y ago
  I agree that it's poor form at least in the context of HN - we want to be able to trace the "commit history"
concordDance 2y ago
Could also be because rate limiting. People need to conserve their number of posts per day.
- ok_dad 2y ago
  Yes some people get rate limited here, I think it’s the default. I’ve edited comments like this simply because I couldn’t respond, even after like an hour. I think I emailed the mods here and they removed the limit, but I still try to conserve posting when I can, even deleting responses that weren’t very good, sometimes.
- s1artibartfast 2y ago
  This is exactly why I do it
yieldcrv 2y ago
It’s because hackernews rate limits users just because someone else downvoted you So you actually can’t finish the conversation when it has the utility to finish it
- alistairSH 2y ago
  Really? The rate limit must be pretty generous, because I've never hit it, and I've had a few comments downvoted heavily.
  - yieldcrv 2y ago
    The threshold gets more sensitive if other users have ever flagged you before and there’s seemingly no way to make the threshold less sensitive without mod intervention so entire accounts can get brigaded in an opaque system that we never know is updated or not
- pc86 2y ago
  Users get rate limited because their account is new, or as you alluded to, they're not productively adding to the conversation (as evidenced by vote ratio at least). It seems like the system working as designed, to be honest.
  - yieldcrv 2y ago
    its overfitting. its like how people within the US thinks the system works because we’ve never had a military coup, instead of looking at how the system hasnt worked
  - mrguyorama 2y ago
    Hi, I've been here almost a decade and have over 10k Karma. I am not allowed to post more than 4ish comments per several hour period. It is not an automated system. I was punished years after creating my account, and after accumulating strong positive karma. It only took like one flagged comment for the punishment to be put in place, imo it was not a significantly out there comment or set of comments either, and it is now years old and it's pretty obvious these punishments have no automatic expiry or re-evaluating date. This is despite plenty of other members of the community posting about 10x the amount I was at the time with zero repercussions, and despite the fact that I've gotten only a couple gentle warnings in particularly heated topics, which I demonstrably took to heart. There is no justice or fairness inherent in HNs systems, and assuming so by default is less than great. The team is tiny, the rules are most likely set in stone from the early 2000s, the tooling is basically just whatever they can cobble together, the rules are purposely opaque, and Dang is a mere mortal full of his own biases and experiences that are impossible to fully prevent from affecting his decisions. I think he puts genuine effort into his work, and despite the occasional complaint I'd give him probably a B+ or better, but there are probably hundreds of HN commentators who were given a punishment, hopefully for good reason but don't take that for granted, literally reformed or just changed over time, and nobody even informed them they were punished or COULD have that punishment removed. I have not emailed dang to get the punishment lifted because sometimes the limit is helpful to limit how distracted I am at work. Other times it completely prevents me from doing the exact kind of useful and productive conversation that HN insists it wants.
mrguyorama 2y ago
Blame HN for having systems, rules, and filters to prevent long comment threads between two people. It's probably for the best as HN doesn't have the best interface for "two people chat back and forth for three days" but even if it isn't the optimum system, we as commenters are utterly powerless to change it.

by pc86 2y ago

Aeolun 2y ago

Isn’t that fine? Not all of those conversations have to be taken to the end.

appleorchard46 2y ago
Mm, as long as the edit is clear it seems like a good way to avoid unproductive arguments. Adam makes a statement, but the responses show the statement was unclear and/or leads into tangential arguments. An edit can clarify the initial statement for future readers without getting the original poster stuck in the back-and-forth necessary to escape whatever quagmire the unedited version created.
noduerme 2y ago
Imagine you're having an in-person conversation with someone in a crowded restaurant. Rather than addressing their next response to you, they wait until you go to the bathroom. Then they turn to everyone at the next table and say, "that guy doesn't get it, but fine." I personally think that in a no-holds-barred debate, you don't bother trying to convince your interlocutor of anything. You focus on persuading everyone else in the room. But it's rude to treat every polite conversation as a smackdown debate. Such a strategy can also backfire by turning off your intended audience, as evidenced here.
- motorest 2y ago
  > Imagine you're having an in-person conversation with someone in a crowded restaurant. You're not in a crowded restaurant chatting with someone. You're in an online forum broadcasting messages to the vast nothingness.
  - noduerme 2y ago
    This isn't twitter. You're in a highly moderated forum in which both moderator and participants are bound by rule and custom to maintain civil behavior, in the best interest of everyone involved. Even if you weren't, you should still act as if you were in a crowded restaurant. Without agreeing to conventions for how a conversation should be conducted, you can't have any productive conversation at all. So what would be the point? If you ever sense that you're in an online forum broadcasting messages to the vast nothingness then you are truly only wasting your own time. (Which is why this is the only site I ever post on). At that point, just stop, put it down, walk outside and engage in any kind of real interaction you can find.
    - motorest 2y ago
      > This isn't twitter. You're in a highly moderated forum in which both moderator and participants are bound by rule and custom to maintain civil behavior, in the best interest of everyone involved. You're trying to make a storm in a teacup. OP literally edited his post to clearly state its fine if anyone interprete something differently. This is hardly outrage bait. Try to direct your energy to something worth your time. Loudly complaining about vague subjective notions of netiquette in a moderated forum is certainly not it.
      - lukan 2y ago
        "Try to direct your energy to something worth your time. Loudly complaining about vague subjective notions of netiquette in a moderated forum is certainly not it." Maybe try not to tell other people what is important for them? That is part of the same debate, how we communicate and to me it also matters a lot.
elevaet 2y ago
I agree that it's poor form at least in the context of HN - we want to be able to trace the "commit history"

concordDance 2y ago

Could also be because rate limiting. People need to conserve their number of posts per day.

ok_dad 2y ago
Yes some people get rate limited here, I think it’s the default. I’ve edited comments like this simply because I couldn’t respond, even after like an hour. I think I emailed the mods here and they removed the limit, but I still try to conserve posting when I can, even deleting responses that weren’t very good, sometimes.
s1artibartfast 2y ago
This is exactly why I do it

yieldcrv 2y ago

It’s because hackernews rate limits users just because someone else downvoted you So you actually can’t finish the conversation when it has the utility to finish it

alistairSH 2y ago
Really? The rate limit must be pretty generous, because I've never hit it, and I've had a few comments downvoted heavily.
- yieldcrv 2y ago
  The threshold gets more sensitive if other users have ever flagged you before and there’s seemingly no way to make the threshold less sensitive without mod intervention so entire accounts can get brigaded in an opaque system that we never know is updated or not
pc86 2y ago
Users get rate limited because their account is new, or as you alluded to, they're not productively adding to the conversation (as evidenced by vote ratio at least). It seems like the system working as designed, to be honest.
- yieldcrv 2y ago
  its overfitting. its like how people within the US thinks the system works because we’ve never had a military coup, instead of looking at how the system hasnt worked
- mrguyorama 2y ago
  Hi, I've been here almost a decade and have over 10k Karma. I am not allowed to post more than 4ish comments per several hour period. It is not an automated system. I was punished years after creating my account, and after accumulating strong positive karma. It only took like one flagged comment for the punishment to be put in place, imo it was not a significantly out there comment or set of comments either, and it is now years old and it's pretty obvious these punishments have no automatic expiry or re-evaluating date. This is despite plenty of other members of the community posting about 10x the amount I was at the time with zero repercussions, and despite the fact that I've gotten only a couple gentle warnings in particularly heated topics, which I demonstrably took to heart. There is no justice or fairness inherent in HNs systems, and assuming so by default is less than great. The team is tiny, the rules are most likely set in stone from the early 2000s, the tooling is basically just whatever they can cobble together, the rules are purposely opaque, and Dang is a mere mortal full of his own biases and experiences that are impossible to fully prevent from affecting his decisions. I think he puts genuine effort into his work, and despite the occasional complaint I'd give him probably a B+ or better, but there are probably hundreds of HN commentators who were given a punishment, hopefully for good reason but don't take that for granted, literally reformed or just changed over time, and nobody even informed them they were punished or COULD have that punishment removed. I have not emailed dang to get the punishment lifted because sometimes the limit is helpful to limit how distracted I am at work. Other times it completely prevents me from doing the exact kind of useful and productive conversation that HN insists it wants.

mrguyorama 2y ago

Blame HN for having systems, rules, and filters to prevent long comment threads between two people. It's probably for the best as HN doesn't have the best interface for "two people chat back and forth for three days" but even if it isn't the optimum system, we as commenters are utterly powerless to change it.