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The biggest problem with Hacker News comments -- actually, make that all comments -- is fundamental: the sort of people that leave comments are (more often than
by citricsquid 13y ago
The biggest problem with Hacker News comments -- actually, make that all comments -- is fundamental: the sort of people that leave comments are (more often than not) people that want something, ANYTHING, to say, not people that have something to say.
- RBerenguel 13y agoSomehow I think your comment applies to TV, radio and writers. The signal-to-noise ratio is getting worse and worse I think (as a side note, I thing signal-to-noise is also one of the frequent HN comments :D)
- sker 13y agoI don't think that's a problem. I think that's by design. Internet forums are similar to bars where people gather to hang out and talk about common interests. There are other outlets where the people that have something to say can say it.
- kybernetyk 13y agoa) the internet (and HN) can't get full b) there are downvote arrows To me it's OK if people just leave anything as a comment here because it will be modded down if it's irrelevant to the discussion.
- DanBC 13y ago> it's OK if people just leave anything as a comment here because it will be modded down if it's irrelevant to the discussion. It would be great if down voting was more prevalent. Many people don't down vote for anything but the absolute worst comment. Some people downvote for disagreement and not poor comment.
- dredmorbius 13y agothe internet (and HN) can't get full My reading buffer most certainly can. If the s/n dips sufficiently, I'm out. It's the Yogi Berra Restaurant Syndrome, or the Evaporative Cooling Effect: http://blog.bumblebeelabs.com/social-software-sundays-2-the-evaporative-cooling-effect/ http://blog.bumblebeelabs.com/social-software-sundays-2-the-...
- namenotrequired 13y agoMost people can't downvote.
- mikeash 13y agoThe problem comes when there's enough people leaving dumb comments who start upvoting each other and overcome the people saying interesting stuff.
- Tichy 13y agoIf that were the case, the solution would be simple: just skip reading comments. On the contrary I often learn useful things from HN comments. Sometimes I even submit stuff to HN because I am curious about the opinion of HN commentators.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- Too 13y agoI think the karma system can also be a contributor to this. Any comment you make has the chance to get a few upvotes, regardless of how little it contributes to the conversation. So people just spam comments to get a few points here and there. This phenomena can be seen in forums without karma also but i think in places with karma it is usually worse, worst offenders being digg and reddit where everybody tries to make a silly joke as those are easy points. A better algotithm calculating the karma as an average over all your comments maybe could help..
- crevadi 13y agoYes you are correct. Most people just add comments to get points and karma. Especially when they are new to HN like me.
- coherentpony 13y agoDon't know why you're getting down-voted, you're absolutely right.
- hollerith 13y ago>A better algotithm calculating the karma as an average over all your comments maybe could help The metric I would most like to know is how many votes my comments got divided by the total number of words in my comments.
- jacques_chester 13y agoWouldn't this favour the short smartarsery that's one of the not-done things hereabouts?
- polymatter 13y agoIt would also favour the short and succinct over the long and rambling. Which sounds like a good thing, if you believe that useful information can be distilled losslessly.