4 ms·

I get the feeling that at the very top of every Hacker News comment thread, there's someone who claims that the author of the article is an incompetent idiot be

by jakobe 13y ago

I get the feeling that at the very top of every Hacker News comment thread, there's someone who claims that the author of the article is an incompetent idiot because they found a factual error somewhere in the article. Often this leads to a pedantic discussion of some insignificant details. With all these extremely knowledgeable people from different fields, I wish I found more big picture insights in the comments here.

scott_s 13y ago
You're not the only one - pg has called these posts "the middlebrow dismissal": https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4693920 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4693920
- jacquesm 13y ago
  The problem is that HN actually incentivizes commenters via a feedback loop of upvotes to make this kind of comment. HN loves facts and disagreement with facts is like playing trivial pursuit, you can show off your knowledge with 0 risk because you don't need to take up any position other than pointing out a flaw. As they say, you don't have to play the violin at all or as well as Yehudi Menuhin to be able to point out that he just missed a note. Criticism is easy, creation is hard.
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
  - jacques_chester 13y ago
    And just to prove your point, I'll nitpick a little. Creation is hard, but criticism can still have value.
rubinelli 13y ago
In general, I found that the first reply to the first comment (which is more often than not a counter-dismissal) is an excellent indicator of the quality of the rest of the comments.
ryderm 13y ago
I feel like people complain about this too much. Yeah, there are some bad/exaggerated comments, but overall I find mostly intelligent tech related conversation here. There will always be people who want to put down others for some selfish reason, but I don't think that defines HN. I've certainly learned a lot from the comments.
redthrowaway 13y ago
It's the HN equivalent of a cat picture. It's superficially interesting, easy to agree with, and takes no effort to digest. For all of the successes reddit's voting system has had, its key vulnerability is a tendency to regress to the LCD. On reddit, it's image macros and cat pictures. On HN, it's tangential criticisms in the guise of an actual counterargument.
- saraid216 13y ago
  Yup. That's one of the reasons that voting as a decision mechanism is largely worthless. It's good for tie-breaking and for moving things along when they're otherwise deadlocked, but in practice it's used for quantity over quality, in both positive and negative aspects.
- rubinelli 13y ago
  We also can't ignore the fact that there is no downvote button for stories. So, if you dislike the article or disagree with the author's conclusion, the easiest way to register your disapproval is upvoting a critical comment. (I see this as a sign that the flag link is properly used to mark dupes, spam, and inappropriate content, so there is a silver lining.)
willbill 13y ago
I wonder to what degree these people are gaming the system to get on the front page in the first place...
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
DanBC 13y ago
Those comments are unfortunate. Downvote them. Upvote good comments. > With all these extremely knowledgeable people from different fields, I wish I found more big picture insights in the comments here. The signal to noise ratio is still pretty good, and sometimes there are great posts. Better flagging (and less upvoting) of the stupid politics / news dross would help.
bhitov 13y ago
> there's someone who claims that the author of the article is an incompetent idiot because they found a factual error somewhere in the article. Often this leads to a pedantic discussion of some insignificant details. I think it's important to note that comments can point out (even minor) factual inaccuracies in an article without being dismissive or insulting. I find that type of comment tremendously valuable for articles with topics outside of fields I am learned in.
pg 13y ago
Yes, this is one of the problems I spend the most time thinking about how to solve. FWIW, my current theory is that the problem is not the comments themselves, but the upvotes. There are often moderately stupid comments far down the page in any given thread, but they're comparatively harmless, like someone walking down the street mumbling to himself. The problem is that there's a type of stupid comment that attracts upvotes from a certain type of user. If we can recognize either the comments or the upvoters, we can solve the problem. I've been collecting a corpus of them for a while; it may soon be big enough to be useful.
- MichaelApproved 13y ago
  Here's a system I've been thinking about. Separate users into classes. You could deputize a hand full of trusted users who can deputize other users with their up votes. If X number of deputies give an upvote to a user's comment Y number of times, that deputizes that user. The further away a user is from an original deputy, the more X and Y increase before a new person is deputized. Hopefully, this will give you a class of users who tend to vote intelligently and comment with information that adds to the converation. Votes by these users would carry more weight than the general community. Edit: It also automates the process so you don't have to hand pick more than the original deputies.
  - mikeleeorg 13y ago
    It's possible that giving someone the power to give someone else power could be abused. A person could deputize their friends in order to upvote a link in which they have a vested interest, for instance. But I think what you're essentially talking about is user reputation - the idea that the opinions of certain people weighs stronger than others. I think there's merit to that. The upvotes of a person with a high reputation on HN would weigh more than someone else. Reputation could be determined by any number of ways (has authored comments of high value, is manually designated by HN as reputable, has been active in the last N number of days, etc).
    - MichaelApproved 13y ago
adsr 13y ago
I agree, and I also often find that the attached discussion that follows almost always takes up about half the page. Usually directly skipping half the page takes you to the actual discussion. I think it could be interesting to add a pivot that moves that comment and it's discussion to the bottom (but probably above downvoted comments) when it reaches a certain length. It could still keep it's votes and so on.

by jakobe 13y ago

scott_s 13y ago

You're not the only one - pg has called these posts "the middlebrow dismissal": https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4693920 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4693920

jacquesm 13y ago
The problem is that HN actually incentivizes commenters via a feedback loop of upvotes to make this kind of comment. HN loves facts and disagreement with facts is like playing trivial pursuit, you can show off your knowledge with 0 risk because you don't need to take up any position other than pointing out a flaw. As they say, you don't have to play the violin at all or as well as Yehudi Menuhin to be able to point out that he just missed a note. Criticism is easy, creation is hard.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- jacques_chester 13y ago
  And just to prove your point, I'll nitpick a little. Creation is hard, but criticism can still have value.

rubinelli 13y ago

In general, I found that the first reply to the first comment (which is more often than not a counter-dismissal) is an excellent indicator of the quality of the rest of the comments.

ryderm 13y ago

I feel like people complain about this too much. Yeah, there are some bad/exaggerated comments, but overall I find mostly intelligent tech related conversation here. There will always be people who want to put down others for some selfish reason, but I don't think that defines HN. I've certainly learned a lot from the comments.

redthrowaway 13y ago

It's the HN equivalent of a cat picture. It's superficially interesting, easy to agree with, and takes no effort to digest. For all of the successes reddit's voting system has had, its key vulnerability is a tendency to regress to the LCD. On reddit, it's image macros and cat pictures. On HN, it's tangential criticisms in the guise of an actual counterargument.

saraid216 13y ago
Yup. That's one of the reasons that voting as a decision mechanism is largely worthless. It's good for tie-breaking and for moving things along when they're otherwise deadlocked, but in practice it's used for quantity over quality, in both positive and negative aspects.
rubinelli 13y ago
We also can't ignore the fact that there is no downvote button for stories. So, if you dislike the article or disagree with the author's conclusion, the easiest way to register your disapproval is upvoting a critical comment. (I see this as a sign that the flag link is properly used to mark dupes, spam, and inappropriate content, so there is a silver lining.)

willbill 13y ago

I wonder to what degree these people are gaming the system to get on the front page in the first place...

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

DanBC 13y ago

Those comments are unfortunate. Downvote them. Upvote good comments. > With all these extremely knowledgeable people from different fields, I wish I found more big picture insights in the comments here. The signal to noise ratio is still pretty good, and sometimes there are great posts. Better flagging (and less upvoting) of the stupid politics / news dross would help.

bhitov 13y ago

> there's someone who claims that the author of the article is an incompetent idiot because they found a factual error somewhere in the article. Often this leads to a pedantic discussion of some insignificant details. I think it's important to note that comments can point out (even minor) factual inaccuracies in an article without being dismissive or insulting. I find that type of comment tremendously valuable for articles with topics outside of fields I am learned in.

pg 13y ago

Yes, this is one of the problems I spend the most time thinking about how to solve. FWIW, my current theory is that the problem is not the comments themselves, but the upvotes. There are often moderately stupid comments far down the page in any given thread, but they're comparatively harmless, like someone walking down the street mumbling to himself. The problem is that there's a type of stupid comment that attracts upvotes from a certain type of user. If we can recognize either the comments or the upvoters, we can solve the problem. I've been collecting a corpus of them for a while; it may soon be big enough to be useful.

MichaelApproved 13y ago
Here's a system I've been thinking about. Separate users into classes. You could deputize a hand full of trusted users who can deputize other users with their up votes. If X number of deputies give an upvote to a user's comment Y number of times, that deputizes that user. The further away a user is from an original deputy, the more X and Y increase before a new person is deputized. Hopefully, this will give you a class of users who tend to vote intelligently and comment with information that adds to the converation. Votes by these users would carry more weight than the general community. Edit: It also automates the process so you don't have to hand pick more than the original deputies.
- mikeleeorg 13y ago
  It's possible that giving someone the power to give someone else power could be abused. A person could deputize their friends in order to upvote a link in which they have a vested interest, for instance. But I think what you're essentially talking about is user reputation - the idea that the opinions of certain people weighs stronger than others. I think there's merit to that. The upvotes of a person with a high reputation on HN would weigh more than someone else. Reputation could be determined by any number of ways (has authored comments of high value, is manually designated by HN as reputable, has been active in the last N number of days, etc).
  - MichaelApproved 13y ago

adsr 13y ago

I agree, and I also often find that the attached discussion that follows almost always takes up about half the page. Usually directly skipping half the page takes you to the actual discussion. I think it could be interesting to add a pivot that moves that comment and it's discussion to the bottom (but probably above downvoted comments) when it reaches a certain length. It could still keep it's votes and so on.