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FYI I think all comments begin at the top. My comments also start at the top and then fairly quickly move down into upvote order, my karma is well below the top
by analog 14y ago
FYI I think all comments begin at the top. My comments also start at the top and then fairly quickly move down into upvote order, my karma is well below the top of the leaderboard.
- re 14y agoYes, I believe HN comment sorting uses the same algorithm as news items, where the score of an item is based on both votes and time, decaying over time. Description: http://amix.dk/blog/post/19574 http://amix.dk/blog/post/19574 Comment sorting: https://github.com/nex3/arc/blob/b78c7f/lib/news.arc#L2028-L2030 https://github.com/nex3/arc/blob/b78c7f/lib/news.arc#L2028-L...
- simonsarris 14y agoI've ruled this out as a possibility. For instance here I was the 4th comment (there are now 16), I posted 28 minutes ago and I'm still at the top comment slot at only 1 point. It must be more than just a function of time and score, otherwise any of the new 1-point comments would have superseded mine, but they didn't.
- analog 14y agoIt would make sense if your comments were weighted higher having a higher karma, but I think all of our comments start at the top to make sure that at least someone sees them and that they can get upvotes if they are insightful/interesting.
- pooriaazimi 14y agoYour average karma is 24, so your comments are weighted much, much more than others (it's one of metrics HN uses to rank comments). Also, your comment is long, which is also a factor (though, not a big one). Source: experience :)
- baby 14y agoWow, I never thought about weighing comments that are longer. But that makes a lot of sense!
- nicholassmith 14y agoIf you take comment length + karma per post / comments on post you should end up with reasonably decent comments making it to the top. Ish. It's still never going to be able to fully deal with all the corner cases on a site as large as HN but it's often Good Enough.
- hnriot 14y agoDo people really care about where there comments are. This sounds so ridiculous.
- prawn 14y agoYou wouldn't create a top level comment if you weren't hoping to contribute and for it to be read. For it to be more likely to be read, it's better off at the top. So yes, I'd say that people care.
- hnriot 14y agoIt's rather pathetic. Considering all the things that life has to offer, caring about making poll position in comments is really sad.
- prawn 14y agoWhy comment at the top level in this sort of discussion then? The topic isn't so much poll position but giving every comment a chance at being noticed so that the better options rise naturally to the top and create a better conversation. I don't think this is the "I don't care about silly internet points" discussion you think it is.
- jakejake 14y agoWell, I personally like to see the most interesting comments at the top. But that creates the inherit problem - the first interesting comment gets stuck at the top and prevents all the newer ones from being seen.
- waterlesscloud 14y agoFor HN specifically, collapsible comments would make a huge difference. A top-level comment in position one can have dozens of comments under it, making the next comment (which is perhaps only 1 upvote lower) appear far, far down the page. If you could collapse the top level comments, this problem would evaporate.
- zobzu 14y agoI think HN changed this in the past few days. it's not the case anymore.