4 ms·

How about purging pending comments after a certain time (say 24 hours)? If they haven't been endorsed by that time, they will most likely never be endorsed. And

How about purging pending comments after a certain time (say 24 hours)? If they haven't been endorsed by that time, they will most likely never be endorsed. And even if they would be, nobody would read them anymore.

pg 13y ago
That is exactly what happens.
- hamburglar 13y ago
  Will the comment actually disappear completely, or will it just go into a state where nobody else can see it? It seems like it is 1) useful to be able to see your comments that never got endorsed (to let people build a mental model of what makes the cut and what doesn't), and 2) less confusing than just having stuff mysteriously disappear.
  - pg 13y ago
    People who can see pending comments (= those who can endorse them) will always be able to see them. They just won't be endorsable after a day.
    - Suncho 13y ago
      Hmm... Now I find myself hoping that I never hit 1000 karma so I won't have to wade through all the never-endorsed comments. Could this feature deter high karma users from logging into the site?
      - tripzilch 13y ago
        If the quality of "showdead" comments is any indication I don't think you have anything to worry about. (they are perfectly fine most of the time, their light-greyness is in fact more of an annoyance than the actually quite rare racist slur)
- wildfire 13y ago
  A shame. Whilst I am always intrigued with what hits the front-page, I rather more often than occasionally, find myself getting to page 10 or so on the weekends. Just to see what has been going on that I missed. Your change will basically mean that someone like me who might have something to add to an existing conversation might as well not bother. It'll be years before I have enough karma on ycombinator's hackernews >1000, and that means I might as well seek another avenue. I guess I am back to post link on social media and comment on it. Oh well, back to the 00's I guess.
  - thaumaturgy 13y ago
    > Your change will basically mean that someone like me who might have something to add to an existing conversation might as well not bother. That is already the case. Very few people read or participate in threads more than 24 hours old. You're already walking into an empty room and having a conversation with yourself; all this change does is lock the door.
    - dolinsky 13y ago
      If that were the case then wouldn't a more appropriate solution be to lock commenting altogether after a particular time since thread creation (or an expiry after falling off of the front page?).
    - e12e 13y ago
      Is that really the case? I find quite a few users seem to check replies to their comments -- so eg: answering a question usually isn't a waste of time. It would be if the person asking a question doesn't have 1k karma (see other comments for riff on this topic). Just struck me that this is rather bad -- while hn isn't (probably nor should be) a "stack exchange" type site, there's always someone asking on a story "what is this X that everyone here seem to know". Where X is anything for traditional MVC to data normalization etc[1]. I'm sure we all have some gaping holes in our knowledge of computer science and history -- having such questions answered seems to me to be a good way to maintain a sense of community. [1] For example, not realizing that RC4 is now hopelessly broken, and asking for a couple of recent references.
- tripzilch 13y ago
  Oh, that's just a great solution. You have any idea how much time I spend sometimes on a comment? (it can sometimes be quite a bit longer than the average person would on a similar comment, for reasons I don't really want to go into) The first time one of those gets flushed down the toilet for no other reason than that nobody with >1k karma happened to notice it within 24 hours, I will know not to bother contributing any more. Sometimes when I make a contribution to an older or less popular thread, I take the trouble anyway because I know there will at least be a few people that see it. Random passers-by, maybe in a few years arriving from some Google search. There's gems there. But I don't like to gamble on whether my post will even be kept around or not. Downvote, bury, sure. But to delete without ever even being seen?? Well I guess it ties in with the joyful hellbanning theme here, or something.
- tripzilch 13y ago
  Another problem that you may not have thought of: Several sub-kilo-karma users may realize the same useful and valuable thing to comment (say, a reference link or clarification). They all post this before the first one gets endorsed. All the others get penalized with a 24 hour no-posting timeout, for contributing a thoughtful/useful post. (maybe a few of them will eventually get endorsed, so they may suffer a somewhat shorter penalty, at the cost of everybody else seeing duplicate content)

pg 13y ago

That is exactly what happens.

hamburglar 13y ago
Will the comment actually disappear completely, or will it just go into a state where nobody else can see it? It seems like it is 1) useful to be able to see your comments that never got endorsed (to let people build a mental model of what makes the cut and what doesn't), and 2) less confusing than just having stuff mysteriously disappear.
- pg 13y ago
  People who can see pending comments (= those who can endorse them) will always be able to see them. They just won't be endorsable after a day.
  - Suncho 13y ago
    Hmm... Now I find myself hoping that I never hit 1000 karma so I won't have to wade through all the never-endorsed comments. Could this feature deter high karma users from logging into the site?
    - tripzilch 13y ago
      If the quality of "showdead" comments is any indication I don't think you have anything to worry about. (they are perfectly fine most of the time, their light-greyness is in fact more of an annoyance than the actually quite rare racist slur)
wildfire 13y ago
A shame. Whilst I am always intrigued with what hits the front-page, I rather more often than occasionally, find myself getting to page 10 or so on the weekends. Just to see what has been going on that I missed. Your change will basically mean that someone like me who might have something to add to an existing conversation might as well not bother. It'll be years before I have enough karma on ycombinator's hackernews >1000, and that means I might as well seek another avenue. I guess I am back to post link on social media and comment on it. Oh well, back to the 00's I guess.
- thaumaturgy 13y ago
  > Your change will basically mean that someone like me who might have something to add to an existing conversation might as well not bother. That is already the case. Very few people read or participate in threads more than 24 hours old. You're already walking into an empty room and having a conversation with yourself; all this change does is lock the door.
  - dolinsky 13y ago
    If that were the case then wouldn't a more appropriate solution be to lock commenting altogether after a particular time since thread creation (or an expiry after falling off of the front page?).
  - e12e 13y ago
    Is that really the case? I find quite a few users seem to check replies to their comments -- so eg: answering a question usually isn't a waste of time. It would be if the person asking a question doesn't have 1k karma (see other comments for riff on this topic). Just struck me that this is rather bad -- while hn isn't (probably nor should be) a "stack exchange" type site, there's always someone asking on a story "what is this X that everyone here seem to know". Where X is anything for traditional MVC to data normalization etc[1]. I'm sure we all have some gaping holes in our knowledge of computer science and history -- having such questions answered seems to me to be a good way to maintain a sense of community. [1] For example, not realizing that RC4 is now hopelessly broken, and asking for a couple of recent references.
tripzilch 13y ago
Oh, that's just a great solution. You have any idea how much time I spend sometimes on a comment? (it can sometimes be quite a bit longer than the average person would on a similar comment, for reasons I don't really want to go into) The first time one of those gets flushed down the toilet for no other reason than that nobody with >1k karma happened to notice it within 24 hours, I will know not to bother contributing any more. Sometimes when I make a contribution to an older or less popular thread, I take the trouble anyway because I know there will at least be a few people that see it. Random passers-by, maybe in a few years arriving from some Google search. There's gems there. But I don't like to gamble on whether my post will even be kept around or not. Downvote, bury, sure. But to delete without ever even being seen?? Well I guess it ties in with the joyful hellbanning theme here, or something.
tripzilch 13y ago
Another problem that you may not have thought of: Several sub-kilo-karma users may realize the same useful and valuable thing to comment (say, a reference link or clarification). They all post this before the first one gets endorsed. All the others get penalized with a 24 hour no-posting timeout, for contributing a thoughtful/useful post. (maybe a few of them will eventually get endorsed, so they may suffer a somewhat shorter penalty, at the cost of everybody else seeing duplicate content)