18 ms·

What's "it"? What is the problem that you all are trying to solve? I have showdead on, and maybe 2% of the comments I see are unreadable-grey. Pending what? Ap

What's "it"? What is the problem that you all are trying to solve? I have showdead on, and maybe 2% of the comments I see are unreadable-grey. Pending what? Approval? By whom? Sounds scary. Perhaps I missed the tps report. If so, sorry. But as an outsider who spends a lot of time here (work; analogue; fortuitous), I can't wait to have the comments here that I've come to love be editorialized by some cabal of power users. Simple indeed.

nick2021 13y ago
The developer sounds like a complete amateur. Site is slow as f* and they want to implement some pending comments feature in the worst way possible.
edmccard 13y ago
>maybe 2% of the comments I see are unreadable-grey. Maybe that's the problem? That is, maybe bad comments are, to paraphrase Mark Twain, like the weather; everyone talks about them but nobody bothers to downvote them to unreadable greyness. (either that, or there are voting rings that devote themselves to upvoting greyed-out comments).
- prawn 13y ago
  Any dodgy comment with reasonable age seems to be slammed by the time I get to it. Someone must be down voting them. And I can't recall seeing evidence of groups up voting junk comments, only stories. Everything seemed to be working OK to me. I find the quality of comments on HN to be very good and don't think this new feature is necessary.
  - mercer 13y ago
    While I agree that generally the quality is high, I do feel that over the past two years (or so) that I've been active here, I've been seeing more and more reddit-like puns or empty comments. They're not overwhelming, and generally harmless enough, content-wise, but I do find them annoying. I welcome this attempt to fix the situation before it becomes too bad.
    - prawn 13y ago
      I down vote them when I see them. I figure that will discourage people from repeating that style of comment and a few of them here and there won't wreck anything.
spiralganglion 13y ago
There is a large discussion on the subject here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7445761 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7445761
- sounds 13y ago
  I'm scratching my head about what the guidelines are around commenting and endorsing. Here's what I've gathered by looking through pg's comments: (in addition to what he originally posted) • Parameters are loose (click link for more) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7447668 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7447668 • You can post 5 pending comments https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7447568 • You can endorse at 500 karma https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7447701 • Might get a showpending https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7447613 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7447613 • Might make it more AJAXy https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7447778 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7447778 • Users can retract pending comments with the delete link https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7446490 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7446490 • The HN feature suggestion thread is exempt https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7446395 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7446395 • A code snippet showing how it works https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7446596 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7446596 • in this thread: "turning it off for now"
  - sentenza 13y ago
    I find it interesting that the original description [1], if followed to the letter, will with a very high probability kill (all?) user contributions over time. Here's why: It says that you can't post another comment when you have a comment pending. Let's assume that: a) Most "good" contributors write comments of varying quality (maybe on average 90% good 10% not so good) b) Most people, when they interrupt their work flow to participate in the HN community, write on average more than one comment (if they comment at all). So inevitably, the average user will repeatedly bump into the "can't comment, have to wait" wall. Which is inconvenient and constitutes a blunt reminder of the "value asymmetry" between the site and the lowly user. I'd say it is fairly reasonable to assume that being stopped and having to wait is rather off-putting to most HN users. So it hangs on how many repetitions of the wait cycle the average HN user can stand. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7445761 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7445761

nick2021 13y ago

The developer sounds like a complete amateur. Site is slow as f* and they want to implement some pending comments feature in the worst way possible.

edmccard 13y ago

>maybe 2% of the comments I see are unreadable-grey. Maybe that's the problem? That is, maybe bad comments are, to paraphrase Mark Twain, like the weather; everyone talks about them but nobody bothers to downvote them to unreadable greyness. (either that, or there are voting rings that devote themselves to upvoting greyed-out comments).

prawn 13y ago
Any dodgy comment with reasonable age seems to be slammed by the time I get to it. Someone must be down voting them. And I can't recall seeing evidence of groups up voting junk comments, only stories. Everything seemed to be working OK to me. I find the quality of comments on HN to be very good and don't think this new feature is necessary.
- mercer 13y ago
  While I agree that generally the quality is high, I do feel that over the past two years (or so) that I've been active here, I've been seeing more and more reddit-like puns or empty comments. They're not overwhelming, and generally harmless enough, content-wise, but I do find them annoying. I welcome this attempt to fix the situation before it becomes too bad.
  - prawn 13y ago
    I down vote them when I see them. I figure that will discourage people from repeating that style of comment and a few of them here and there won't wreck anything.

spiralganglion 13y ago

There is a large discussion on the subject here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7445761 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7445761

sounds 13y ago
I'm scratching my head about what the guidelines are around commenting and endorsing. Here's what I've gathered by looking through pg's comments: (in addition to what he originally posted) • Parameters are loose (click link for more) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7447668 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7447668 • You can post 5 pending comments https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7447568 • You can endorse at 500 karma https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7447701 • Might get a showpending https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7447613 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7447613 • Might make it more AJAXy https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7447778 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7447778 • Users can retract pending comments with the delete link https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7446490 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7446490 • The HN feature suggestion thread is exempt https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7446395 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7446395 • A code snippet showing how it works https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7446596 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7446596 • in this thread: "turning it off for now"
- sentenza 13y ago
  I find it interesting that the original description [1], if followed to the letter, will with a very high probability kill (all?) user contributions over time. Here's why: It says that you can't post another comment when you have a comment pending. Let's assume that: a) Most "good" contributors write comments of varying quality (maybe on average 90% good 10% not so good) b) Most people, when they interrupt their work flow to participate in the HN community, write on average more than one comment (if they comment at all). So inevitably, the average user will repeatedly bump into the "can't comment, have to wait" wall. Which is inconvenient and constitutes a blunt reminder of the "value asymmetry" between the site and the lowly user. I'd say it is fairly reasonable to assume that being stopped and having to wait is rather off-putting to most HN users. So it hangs on how many repetitions of the wait cycle the average HN user can stand. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7445761 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7445761