47 ms·

The magnitudes of the scores seem different than they might have a year ago, but the directions don't.

by pg 18y ago

bk 18y ago
Based on my sporadic use of reddit, short comments are the noisiest form of rot/cancer a in reddit-like engine/interface, such as puns and lame jokes that self-perpetuate into long threads. Perhaps the comment form should have a self-check note along the lines of: "If your comment is just a witty remark, please don't post it." Good heuristics for self-detection are: short and no substance. Perhaps mods need to nuke bad comments for a while to establish a noticeable standard.
- pg 18y ago
  That's a very interesting observation. I noticed that too. Short comments are occasionally very useful. Occasionally they're the pin that pops the balloon. "What happens when x = 0?" But usually they're short on length because they're short on ideas. I wonder if there is some way to discourage short comments? I could for example bias the comment sorting algorithm to put longer comments higher among siblings.
  - mixmax 18y ago
    I think that bk has an excellent point with putting a small "If your comment is just a witty remark, please don't post it." note under the comment box. The psychology of such a note might help a lot, besides not all recent posters would necessarily know that thoughtless witty comments aren't highly valued here.
    - pg 18y ago
      I already put an invitation to read this http://ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html http://ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html under every comment box for the first day of a new user's account. Maybe I should add an additional confirmation step for short comments.
      - mixmax 18y ago
        You probably should. I hardly ever read EULA's (which this in some ways is), and I'm probably not alone in this behaviour.
        menloparkbum 18y ago
        Unfortunately this idea isn't going to increase the quality of commenting, it is just going to encourage stupid people to pad out their nonsense, Steve Yegge style. It's also going to punish people whose witty remarks are actually witty.
        mixmax 18y ago
        I think that one of the things that holds people to very high standards here is their respect for the community and the many members that have something interesting or insightful to say. I have (almost) never experienced a comment that was an obvious digg-user unwittingly passing by, but many comments from new users that want to join the conversation but haven't been here long enough to get a feel for the unwritten rules, and thus post comments that may not go well with the rest of the community. These users will definitely be helped by a small reminder that they should contribute in a meaningful way. The challenge, as you hint at, is of course what this reminder should be. Maybe something short and witty like "Remember: if it isn't worht reading it isn't worth posting"
        unalone 18y ago
        "Remember: if it isn't worht reading it isn't worth posting" Most people think everything they have to say is worth posting. I'd rather something specifically aimed at short comments, as mentioned above. Something harsh aimed at something under, say, 100 characters, and a brief little reminder towards something under 100 words?
        pg 18y ago
        I wouldn't prevent people from posting short comments, just ask "are you sure?" I don't think anyone would go to the trouble of making their comments longer just to avoid an "are you sure?" screen.
    - cubicle67 18y ago
      I think there's a place for small comments and witty remarks. My appreciation of them is like a bell curve, with the optimum ratio of wit[1]/serious comment probably about 1:20. Higher than that, and it starts to get a bit like reddit. Lower and it's taking itself a bit too seriously. [1] This completely excludes bad puns, memes etc. They have no place here. Edit: replaced the asterisk after wit with a [1]. Anyone know how to escape an * that's not preceded by whitespace?
  - bpyne 18y ago
    Wouldn't the change of algorithm be a variation on the LOC metric that's universally despised? People would simply write longer comments with possibly as little worth.
- msluyter 18y ago
  I don't understand what's so bad about witty one liners, per se. I wish there was a better mechanism for filtering the types of cascades you mention as opposed to arbitrarily declaring one liners off limits. (Ie, have different _views_ into the same thread.) Seems there should be a way to have quality discussion _and_ the occasional bit of humor. Slashdot manages to do ok despite "+5 funny"...
  - DanielBMarkham 18y ago
    Before /. got overrun with trolls and idiots, it used to be a nice combination of one-liners and honest-to-god interesting, information-dense material. I liked it that way. In fact, if you could mix the jokes with the information density in just the right way, I think that would be a hugely popular site. People like laughing, and they like having jokes to share with the other hackers during the day.
thorax 18y ago
A year ago, comments that weren't blatantly offensive/crummy/rude/jerkish usually didn't fall below 0 points. The restraint of the community is what encouraged me to get so involved. I'm all for downvoting a bad troll or uninvited meme/rickroll-speak much lower, but it kind of hurts to see real comments being modded into unreadably gray negatives for disagreement purposes.
- jonnytran 18y ago
  I'm not sure what the exact rule is right now, but would it help to simply increase the threshold at which people are allowed to downvote comments?
  - gravitycop 18y ago
    would it help to simply increase the threshold Priviledge thresholds have been periodically increased by the management. However, the process (so far) has been manual. Threshold-increase might instead simply be automated with code that also calculates karma-inflation.
  - pg 18y ago
    Good idea. I just doubled the karma threshold for downvoting (to 100).
- pg 18y ago
  Yeah, I'm probably going to limit negative scores. It's nasty to see people piling on. And seeing nasty things tends to make people nastier.
  - netcan 18y ago
    Maybe give people a downmod quota
    - unalone 18y ago
      I've seen that work in some cases. In other cases it encourages trolls to post enough times that they can't be downvoted more. HN has the flagging system in place, though, so this might be worth a try. The Achewood community gives you more downvotes ('lames') the more upvotes you've received, though that might encourage groupthink.
mixmax 18y ago
Presumably because there are more users now, so if the direction hasn't changed the values of the community shouldn't have changed either.
aristus 18y ago
You are doing "karma inflation" for various abilities given to users, but what about for post and comment ranking?

The magnitudes of the scores seem different than they might have a year ago, but the directions don't.

by pg 18y ago

The magnitudes of the scores seem different than they might have a year ago, but the directions don't.

bk 18y ago

Based on my sporadic use of reddit, short comments are the noisiest form of rot/cancer a in reddit-like engine/interface, such as puns and lame jokes that self-perpetuate into long threads. Perhaps the comment form should have a self-check note along the lines of: "If your comment is just a witty remark, please don't post it." Good heuristics for self-detection are: short and no substance. Perhaps mods need to nuke bad comments for a while to establish a noticeable standard.

pg 18y ago
That's a very interesting observation. I noticed that too. Short comments are occasionally very useful. Occasionally they're the pin that pops the balloon. "What happens when x = 0?" But usually they're short on length because they're short on ideas. I wonder if there is some way to discourage short comments? I could for example bias the comment sorting algorithm to put longer comments higher among siblings.
- mixmax 18y ago
  I think that bk has an excellent point with putting a small "If your comment is just a witty remark, please don't post it." note under the comment box. The psychology of such a note might help a lot, besides not all recent posters would necessarily know that thoughtless witty comments aren't highly valued here.
  - pg 18y ago
    I already put an invitation to read this http://ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html http://ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html under every comment box for the first day of a new user's account. Maybe I should add an additional confirmation step for short comments.
    - mixmax 18y ago
      You probably should. I hardly ever read EULA's (which this in some ways is), and I'm probably not alone in this behaviour.
      - menloparkbum 18y ago
        Unfortunately this idea isn't going to increase the quality of commenting, it is just going to encourage stupid people to pad out their nonsense, Steve Yegge style. It's also going to punish people whose witty remarks are actually witty.
        mixmax 18y ago
        I think that one of the things that holds people to very high standards here is their respect for the community and the many members that have something interesting or insightful to say. I have (almost) never experienced a comment that was an obvious digg-user unwittingly passing by, but many comments from new users that want to join the conversation but haven't been here long enough to get a feel for the unwritten rules, and thus post comments that may not go well with the rest of the community. These users will definitely be helped by a small reminder that they should contribute in a meaningful way. The challenge, as you hint at, is of course what this reminder should be. Maybe something short and witty like "Remember: if it isn't worht reading it isn't worth posting"
        unalone 18y ago
        "Remember: if it isn't worht reading it isn't worth posting" Most people think everything they have to say is worth posting. I'd rather something specifically aimed at short comments, as mentioned above. Something harsh aimed at something under, say, 100 characters, and a brief little reminder towards something under 100 words?
        pg 18y ago
        I wouldn't prevent people from posting short comments, just ask "are you sure?" I don't think anyone would go to the trouble of making their comments longer just to avoid an "are you sure?" screen.
  - cubicle67 18y ago
    I think there's a place for small comments and witty remarks. My appreciation of them is like a bell curve, with the optimum ratio of wit[1]/serious comment probably about 1:20. Higher than that, and it starts to get a bit like reddit. Lower and it's taking itself a bit too seriously. [1] This completely excludes bad puns, memes etc. They have no place here. Edit: replaced the asterisk after wit with a [1]. Anyone know how to escape an * that's not preceded by whitespace?
- bpyne 18y ago
  Wouldn't the change of algorithm be a variation on the LOC metric that's universally despised? People would simply write longer comments with possibly as little worth.
msluyter 18y ago
I don't understand what's so bad about witty one liners, per se. I wish there was a better mechanism for filtering the types of cascades you mention as opposed to arbitrarily declaring one liners off limits. (Ie, have different _views_ into the same thread.) Seems there should be a way to have quality discussion _and_ the occasional bit of humor. Slashdot manages to do ok despite "+5 funny"...
- DanielBMarkham 18y ago
  Before /. got overrun with trolls and idiots, it used to be a nice combination of one-liners and honest-to-god interesting, information-dense material. I liked it that way. In fact, if you could mix the jokes with the information density in just the right way, I think that would be a hugely popular site. People like laughing, and they like having jokes to share with the other hackers during the day.

thorax 18y ago

A year ago, comments that weren't blatantly offensive/crummy/rude/jerkish usually didn't fall below 0 points. The restraint of the community is what encouraged me to get so involved. I'm all for downvoting a bad troll or uninvited meme/rickroll-speak much lower, but it kind of hurts to see real comments being modded into unreadably gray negatives for disagreement purposes.

jonnytran 18y ago
I'm not sure what the exact rule is right now, but would it help to simply increase the threshold at which people are allowed to downvote comments?
- gravitycop 18y ago
  would it help to simply increase the threshold Priviledge thresholds have been periodically increased by the management. However, the process (so far) has been manual. Threshold-increase might instead simply be automated with code that also calculates karma-inflation.
- pg 18y ago
  Good idea. I just doubled the karma threshold for downvoting (to 100).
pg 18y ago
Yeah, I'm probably going to limit negative scores. It's nasty to see people piling on. And seeing nasty things tends to make people nastier.
- netcan 18y ago
  Maybe give people a downmod quota
  - unalone 18y ago
    I've seen that work in some cases. In other cases it encourages trolls to post enough times that they can't be downvoted more. HN has the flagging system in place, though, so this might be worth a try. The Achewood community gives you more downvotes ('lames') the more upvotes you've received, though that might encourage groupthink.

mixmax 18y ago

Presumably because there are more users now, so if the direction hasn't changed the values of the community shouldn't have changed either.

aristus 18y ago

You are doing "karma inflation" for various abilities given to users, but what about for post and comment ranking?