7 ms·

I just can't be bothered to have comments on my site. It adds nothing but headaches. Cross-posting articles to HN or Reddit for comments is a much nicer way, I

I just can't be bothered to have comments on my site. It adds nothing but headaches. Cross-posting articles to HN or Reddit for comments is a much nicer way, I think.

chistev 1y ago
Yea, it's what modern blogs do. The discussions happen on social media and platforms where they are shared
- notRobot 1y ago
  This has disadvantages though! Often the threads on sites like HN/reddit get "archived" or lose traction and you cannot join the discussion if you don't happen to discover the article in the first few days of it getting published. In blogs people can come along anytime and use comments to add additional information/context/perspectives, point out misunderstandings or outdated information, share updates, pose questions and start interesting conversations that do not have an expiration date on them. The discussion for the article can be found on the same webpage by readers, they don't have to go looking on external sites, most of which have terrible searchability and now require logins just to view content and can delete threads and valuable discussions arbitrarily. I just realised while writing this comment how much I miss web comment culture from the 00s.
  - Cthulhu_ 1y ago
    Counterpoint, blog posts age; information or opinion from 10 years ago may no longer be accurate or reflect the author's held beliefs. Is it still worth discussing it then? That said, I run old fashioned forums and some older threads get revived there from time to time with new insights. Others get flagged up by copyright holders under DMCA takedown threats or bumped by spambots though.
    - niutech 1y ago
      Not necessarily 10 years ago, you cannot comment on a HN post even from a month ago!
      - zenmac 1y ago
        Why is that? Be good to join discussion from the past and bring back some zombie thread? No?
        edoceo 1y ago
        No. Re-post / start a new thread. Many times the old-threads will be cross-linked (I see this pattern a lot on HN)
        zenmac 1y ago
        Can we post one referencing previous HN link? ?
        edoceo 1y ago
        I've not seen it done but, what's a good one? Putnam award?
        accrual 1y ago
        I wanted to add that some zombie/necro posts are useful outside the context of HN. For example on retro computing boards it makes me so happy when someone bumps a 5 year old thread to share new details, benchmarks, etc. about some card or motherboard where the ancient thread is first thing that appears in search results.
    - pseudalopex 1y ago
      Information which is no longer accurate is worth identifying or updating.
    - dr_kretyn 1y ago
      There's a lot between "few hours on hacker news" and "10 years"
  - chistev 1y ago
    Good point.
  - accrual 1y ago
    > I just realised while writing this comment how much I miss web comment culture from the 00s. Remember Shoutboxes? :)
  - efreak 1y ago
    Counterpoint: the last dozen it so times I've wanted to leave a comment on a website, I scrolled down to find that comments were automatically disabled 24hr/a week/year after the post was created. Nobody wants to deal with moderating comments.
- PinkSheep 1y ago
  All roads lead to -Rome- the centralization of the Internet. Keep going!
dspillett 1y ago
I like https://github.com/tessalt/echo-chamber-js https://github.com/tessalt/echo-chamber-js - it is basically a global shadow-ban for everyone who comments…
- magicmicah85 1y ago
  This is so evil. I love it.
- contravariant 1y ago
  Can't wait for the time when everyone is running an LLM on their phone so you can ask them to write their own rebuttals as well.
- drdrek 1y ago
  I Love this!
- snthd 1y ago
  Data protection by design and by default.
- prmoustache 1y ago
  This is awesome!
- tgv 1y ago
  Local storage gets erased at some point. Perhaps it takes so long that nobody notices.
  - dspillett 1y ago
    It will last long enough for even the more determined keyboard warriors to get bored of arguing with themselves and typing in all caps YOU DON'T EVEN CARE DO YOU or similar… TBH, I have considered writing a version (this isn't my work at all, yet) that does submit the blathering server-side so it looks like there is a useful round trip, but: * I have more important projects awaiting the much fabled arrival of Free Time! * While it could potentially keep an idiot “happy” longer, I'd have to mess around with some sort of login system to give the right people the right comments back, it couldn't rely on a just session ID as that would be as volatile as the comments in local storage. * Taking in the data gives the possibility of DoS by extra routes. * Giving back the data gives the possibility of the comments being abused as a Heath-Robinson-esk storage device!
codazoda 1y ago
I use HN a fair amount. I often post articles here but I also feel bad about doing it because 1 or 2 upvotes makes me feel like maybe it doesn't belong. I think it might be good to cross post everything here and link to the HN comments for discussion. Is this frowned on at all? I always worry I'll get shadow banned or something for my 100 low vote posts. Here's the rule I worry about: > Please don't use HN primarily for promotion. It's ok to post your own stuff part of the time, but the primary use of the site should be for curiosity.
- Angostura 1y ago
  BlueSky's ability to let you embed a widget and point it to a discussion seems attractive.
- panstromek 1y ago
  > 1 or 2 upvotes makes me feel like maybe it doesn't belong. This is more or less artifact of HN algorithm, it's common to get single digit votes for majority of your posts. Whether something blows up feel almost random, you have to get pretty lucky to hit a time window when there's not that many posts or a lot of people look at new page and upvote the post at the same time to make it snowball. Many links are posted multiple times with no traction and then they suddenly blow up on 4th attempt.
  - dredmorbius 1y ago
    s/algorithm/dynamic/ HN doesn't have an algorithm, per se. There are voting mechanics, and some sites gain or lose a penalty based on content or type (most generic news sites, for example, are slightly penalised). There are keyword / topic penalties too for issues that are dominating the hivemind for a period. But mostly what you're seeing is simple mass-media power-law effects, along with early-action advantage: - Votes / article tend to follow a power-law curve, where the frequency of high votes is inversely related to the vote. This typically shows as a linear relation when the log of both values is taken (log(frequency) vs. log(votes)). There are 30 front-page slots on HN, about 11,000 opportunities per year (at day's end, more if you count intra-day appearances), vs. about 400,000 submissions (see: <https://whaly.io/posts/hacker-news-2021-retrospective https://whaly.io/posts/hacker-news-2021-retrospective>). Most submissions won't make the grade, often through no fault of their own. I've looked into this in some detail, including looking at votes/comments by story position (there's a sharp decrease here as well). - A small amount of early activity (upvotes, flags, comments) tends to have an outsized effect on the trajectory of a given story. Low-quality comments are particularly deleterious, and are hunted aggressively by mods for this reason. - Stories often do far better on a subsequent submission. Part of this is probably randomness, part also a familiarity effect among those reviewing the "New" queue. If at first you don't succeed ... try again, a few times, at least. - Stories can get selected (or nominated for) the Second Chance or Invited pools. These increase odds of landing higher on the front page, and are used fairly frequently. See "pool" <https://news.ycombinator.com/pool https://news.ycombinator.com/pool> and "invited" <https://news.ycombinator.com/invited https://news.ycombinator.com/invited> under "lists".
guywithahat 1y ago
But then people who find your blog can't comment on it without knowing the cross-post, and you risk spamming HN
- ethmarks 1y ago
  Perhaps one could link to cross-posts from the blog? Maybe a "Discuss on HN" button. And the solution to avoid spamming HN is to avoid writing a large volume of low-quality content on the blog.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
EasyMark 1y ago
it usually ends up with either sugary sweet comments or comment wars; I agree 100%

I just can't be bothered to have comments on my site. It adds nothing but headaches. Cross-posting articles to HN or Reddit for comments is a much nicer way, I think.

chistev 1y ago

Yea, it's what modern blogs do. The discussions happen on social media and platforms where they are shared

notRobot 1y ago
This has disadvantages though! Often the threads on sites like HN/reddit get "archived" or lose traction and you cannot join the discussion if you don't happen to discover the article in the first few days of it getting published. In blogs people can come along anytime and use comments to add additional information/context/perspectives, point out misunderstandings or outdated information, share updates, pose questions and start interesting conversations that do not have an expiration date on them. The discussion for the article can be found on the same webpage by readers, they don't have to go looking on external sites, most of which have terrible searchability and now require logins just to view content and can delete threads and valuable discussions arbitrarily. I just realised while writing this comment how much I miss web comment culture from the 00s.
- Cthulhu_ 1y ago
  Counterpoint, blog posts age; information or opinion from 10 years ago may no longer be accurate or reflect the author's held beliefs. Is it still worth discussing it then? That said, I run old fashioned forums and some older threads get revived there from time to time with new insights. Others get flagged up by copyright holders under DMCA takedown threats or bumped by spambots though.
  - niutech 1y ago
    Not necessarily 10 years ago, you cannot comment on a HN post even from a month ago!
    - zenmac 1y ago
      Why is that? Be good to join discussion from the past and bring back some zombie thread? No?
      - edoceo 1y ago
        No. Re-post / start a new thread. Many times the old-threads will be cross-linked (I see this pattern a lot on HN)
        zenmac 1y ago
        Can we post one referencing previous HN link? ?
        edoceo 1y ago
        I've not seen it done but, what's a good one? Putnam award?
      - accrual 1y ago
        I wanted to add that some zombie/necro posts are useful outside the context of HN. For example on retro computing boards it makes me so happy when someone bumps a 5 year old thread to share new details, benchmarks, etc. about some card or motherboard where the ancient thread is first thing that appears in search results.
  - pseudalopex 1y ago
    Information which is no longer accurate is worth identifying or updating.
  - dr_kretyn 1y ago
    There's a lot between "few hours on hacker news" and "10 years"
- chistev 1y ago
  Good point.
- accrual 1y ago
  > I just realised while writing this comment how much I miss web comment culture from the 00s. Remember Shoutboxes? :)
- efreak 1y ago
  Counterpoint: the last dozen it so times I've wanted to leave a comment on a website, I scrolled down to find that comments were automatically disabled 24hr/a week/year after the post was created. Nobody wants to deal with moderating comments.
PinkSheep 1y ago
All roads lead to -Rome- the centralization of the Internet. Keep going!

dspillett 1y ago

I like https://github.com/tessalt/echo-chamber-js https://github.com/tessalt/echo-chamber-js - it is basically a global shadow-ban for everyone who comments…

magicmicah85 1y ago
This is so evil. I love it.
contravariant 1y ago
Can't wait for the time when everyone is running an LLM on their phone so you can ask them to write their own rebuttals as well.
drdrek 1y ago
I Love this!
snthd 1y ago
Data protection by design and by default.
prmoustache 1y ago
This is awesome!
tgv 1y ago
Local storage gets erased at some point. Perhaps it takes so long that nobody notices.
- dspillett 1y ago
  It will last long enough for even the more determined keyboard warriors to get bored of arguing with themselves and typing in all caps YOU DON'T EVEN CARE DO YOU or similar… TBH, I have considered writing a version (this isn't my work at all, yet) that does submit the blathering server-side so it looks like there is a useful round trip, but: * I have more important projects awaiting the much fabled arrival of Free Time! * While it could potentially keep an idiot “happy” longer, I'd have to mess around with some sort of login system to give the right people the right comments back, it couldn't rely on a just session ID as that would be as volatile as the comments in local storage. * Taking in the data gives the possibility of DoS by extra routes. * Giving back the data gives the possibility of the comments being abused as a Heath-Robinson-esk storage device!

codazoda 1y ago

I use HN a fair amount. I often post articles here but I also feel bad about doing it because 1 or 2 upvotes makes me feel like maybe it doesn't belong. I think it might be good to cross post everything here and link to the HN comments for discussion. Is this frowned on at all? I always worry I'll get shadow banned or something for my 100 low vote posts. Here's the rule I worry about: > Please don't use HN primarily for promotion. It's ok to post your own stuff part of the time, but the primary use of the site should be for curiosity.

Angostura 1y ago
BlueSky's ability to let you embed a widget and point it to a discussion seems attractive.
panstromek 1y ago
> 1 or 2 upvotes makes me feel like maybe it doesn't belong. This is more or less artifact of HN algorithm, it's common to get single digit votes for majority of your posts. Whether something blows up feel almost random, you have to get pretty lucky to hit a time window when there's not that many posts or a lot of people look at new page and upvote the post at the same time to make it snowball. Many links are posted multiple times with no traction and then they suddenly blow up on 4th attempt.
- dredmorbius 1y ago
  s/algorithm/dynamic/ HN doesn't have an algorithm, per se. There are voting mechanics, and some sites gain or lose a penalty based on content or type (most generic news sites, for example, are slightly penalised). There are keyword / topic penalties too for issues that are dominating the hivemind for a period. But mostly what you're seeing is simple mass-media power-law effects, along with early-action advantage: - Votes / article tend to follow a power-law curve, where the frequency of high votes is inversely related to the vote. This typically shows as a linear relation when the log of both values is taken (log(frequency) vs. log(votes)). There are 30 front-page slots on HN, about 11,000 opportunities per year (at day's end, more if you count intra-day appearances), vs. about 400,000 submissions (see: <https://whaly.io/posts/hacker-news-2021-retrospective https://whaly.io/posts/hacker-news-2021-retrospective>). Most submissions won't make the grade, often through no fault of their own. I've looked into this in some detail, including looking at votes/comments by story position (there's a sharp decrease here as well). - A small amount of early activity (upvotes, flags, comments) tends to have an outsized effect on the trajectory of a given story. Low-quality comments are particularly deleterious, and are hunted aggressively by mods for this reason. - Stories often do far better on a subsequent submission. Part of this is probably randomness, part also a familiarity effect among those reviewing the "New" queue. If at first you don't succeed ... try again, a few times, at least. - Stories can get selected (or nominated for) the Second Chance or Invited pools. These increase odds of landing higher on the front page, and are used fairly frequently. See "pool" <https://news.ycombinator.com/pool https://news.ycombinator.com/pool> and "invited" <https://news.ycombinator.com/invited https://news.ycombinator.com/invited> under "lists".

guywithahat 1y ago

But then people who find your blog can't comment on it without knowing the cross-post, and you risk spamming HN

ethmarks 1y ago
Perhaps one could link to cross-posts from the blog? Maybe a "Discuss on HN" button. And the solution to avoid spamming HN is to avoid writing a large volume of low-quality content on the blog.
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]

EasyMark 1y ago

it usually ends up with either sugary sweet comments or comment wars; I agree 100%