5 ms·

Comments: Size Does Matter

26 points by mbrubeck 17y ago

jnaut 17y ago
thanks!
- jnaut 17y ago
  Now that's hilarious!! a "thanks!" getting a -1 :-) I was working on a similar thing, i.e. co-relation between the size of comments and their usefulness, 'coz I wanted to limit the chars on the comments in my next app and also the level of nesting. This analysis helped me and so I said - "thanks!"
  - LukasMathis 17y ago
    You're welcome :-)
    - jnaut 17y ago
      :-) Thanks again Lucas and maybe you will do a favor by upvoting the first "thanks!"=-1 and I can say thanks! for that in advance. Lot's of thanks in a sentence, someone will double downvote it!!...LOL :-)
      - LukasMathis 17y ago
        I did upvote it, but I guess somebody else downvoted it again. Sorry!
dbz 17y ago
I have nothing against short and witty comments but I too have found that when a person takes the time to write a long comment, he or she usually has something intelligent or interesting to say. It seems unlikely that an unintelligent individual will write a very long comment because he or she wont posses the knowledge to captivate the audience or have the ability to think of something long and interesting to say. Nevertheless, I occasionally get surprised by some of the long comments I see.
- chrischen 17y ago
  Well there are comments that are long and interesting and comments that are just long. And from my experience I've seen about equal amounts of both. However to be honest it's the short and witty comments that are always fun to read or funny.
chrischen 17y ago
Whenever I write a long comment here I just know most of the people lose interest after the first paragraph. And it's because that's what I do when I try to tackle a long comment. I have the feeling that they think I am a jackass, or douchebag, writing a bunch of mangled together crap of a response/rant because it's usually the most controversial comments that provoke such a response from me. And the response usually doesn't make much sense or have a point when I read it over. It just ends up being long, repetitive, and I forget what I was talking about by the end of it. As great as long comments are, I always get the feeling no one reads them. maybe HN could implement an "I read this commment" button. Hey if you read this please reply.
- mahmud 17y ago
  Whenever I write a long comment here I just know most of the people lose interest after the first paragraph. Don't right for readers, write to get something off your chest and feel lighter.
  - chrischen 17y ago
    Interestingly that's actually the only reason why I write long comment responses. It's just that after the fact, presumably no one considered the comment and that I got through to no one.
quizbiz 17y ago
Usually long well written comments on HN are the ones to generate high 2-3 digit karma scores. http://news.ycombinator.com/bestcomments http://news.ycombinator.com/bestcomments edit: there are some one liners
- blasdel 17y ago
  MetaFilter's closest equivalent: http://www.metafilter.com/favorites/all http://www.metafilter.com/favorites/all
- juvenn 17y ago
  Oh, I even did not know there are bestcomments. Thanks for the link.
harpastum 17y ago
The big problem I see here is that longer comments are much more likely to include quotes and other contextual information that makes them seem 'better' compared to shorter comments. The author mentions this, but underestimates its importance. For example, using HN karma as an approximate value, I left a one-line comment [1] that seems uninteresting by itself, but added significant information to the discussion, compared to another comment [2] that is very long. The thing is, it's just a gigantic quote. I think that these two cases are the norm, not outliers. On the other hand, I think it would be very interesting (and more accurate) to compare comment length and karma value on HN. [1] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=830887 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=830887 [2] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=814591 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=814591
- LukasMathis 17y ago
  Yes, using ratings that are made in the context the comment originally appears would probably be better. /. is another site which could be used as source material for such an analysis.
blasdel 17y ago
This was clearly inspired by a previous MetaFilter / YouTube comment mashup: http://comments.thatsaspicymeatball.com/ http://comments.thatsaspicymeatball.com/ There were two MetaTalk (backchannel about site-related stuff) threads about Lukas's rating experiment: I posted one when I discovered it: http://metatalk.metafilter.com/18264/Do-we-have-a-minute-to-spare http://metatalk.metafilter.com/18264/Do-we-have-a-minute-to-... There was a follow-up after he made this blog post with his conclusions: http://metatalk.metafilter.com/18275/Metafilter-comments-rated http://metatalk.metafilter.com/18275/Metafilter-comments-rat...
lamby 17y ago
Nice article. It seems a sad reflection of the baseline statistical knowledge that he had to write an entire paragraph distancing his readers from inferring a causal relationship though.
sohooo 17y ago
"If I Had More Time I Would Write a Shorter Letter" -- Mark Twain
beza1e1 17y ago
So what about demanding a minimum amount of characters? In reference to a certain well-known internet service i'd propose to accept only comments with more than 140 characters.
- philh 17y ago
  Sometimes 140 characters is all you need. Why force people to add fluff?
learnalist 17y ago
Firstly, your going to disappoint some poor guy doing research on the size of his penis with your title. As for the content of your article. Really liked it. Some of the numbers in tables were a little hard to follow at times. Other than that, I love these sort of articles which can point out some interesting tip bits of information which you otherwise wouldn't find. ( just assumed maybe )
- learnalist 17y ago
  Thats my first negative score! takes it on the chin A nice feature would be, "negative points because". So that I can learn from it. I have a sneaky feeling it will be related to my opening line. Im guessing im probably not the first to ask for that feature.
  - RyanMcGreal 17y ago
    > A nice feature would be, "negative points because". So that I can learn from it. My hunch is that your comment was too short.
    - learnalist 17y ago
      Thanks for your hunch. You have quite an impressive karma score considering your 68days old here. Thankfully I enjoy this site for more than my karma record. Does deleting it remove the lost karma? Is the idea of negatively voting down a comment. ( Other than the obvious ) To encourage the user to delete it?
      - RyanMcGreal 17y ago
        >Thanks for your hunch. Actually I was being facetious. :) > Does deleting it remove the lost karma? Not that I can tell. My guess is that 'deleting' a comment actually sets a 'deleted' flag somewhere in the data base rather than actually removing it; but I haven't looked at the code so I'm just speculating. > Is the idea of negatively voting down a comment ... To encourage the user to delete it? No. The purpose is to encourage commentary that follows the site's discussion guidelines: http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html (see section titled "In Comments") In fact, the window to delete a comment is only open for a set amount of time after posting, after which the site withdraws the option to delete.
vilya 17y ago
Interesting that this appears on HN right next to an article preaching the value of conciseness: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=850857 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=850857 Ironically, that article itself fell into the TLDR category for me.
edw519 17y ago
This is actually a very interesting analysis. He examines a whole bunch of cofactors that I wouldn't have even thought of. Comment length, word length, common adverbs, common pronouns, punctuation, all caps, swearing (since when is "douchebag" a swear word). I wonder what would be revealed by this kind of analysis on the entire hacker news respository. Now, that's a large data set. (No, I'm not volunteering :-)
- LukasMathis 17y ago
  Yeah, I got some complaints about calling that section "swear words." Some people also complained about "cock" and "suck" and some of the other words. I guess "profanity" would have been a better term to use.

26 points by mbrubeck 17y ago

jnaut 17y ago

thanks!

jnaut 17y ago
Now that's hilarious!! a "thanks!" getting a -1 :-) I was working on a similar thing, i.e. co-relation between the size of comments and their usefulness, 'coz I wanted to limit the chars on the comments in my next app and also the level of nesting. This analysis helped me and so I said - "thanks!"
- LukasMathis 17y ago
  You're welcome :-)
  - jnaut 17y ago
    :-) Thanks again Lucas and maybe you will do a favor by upvoting the first "thanks!"=-1 and I can say thanks! for that in advance. Lot's of thanks in a sentence, someone will double downvote it!!...LOL :-)
    - LukasMathis 17y ago
      I did upvote it, but I guess somebody else downvoted it again. Sorry!

dbz 17y ago

I have nothing against short and witty comments but I too have found that when a person takes the time to write a long comment, he or she usually has something intelligent or interesting to say. It seems unlikely that an unintelligent individual will write a very long comment because he or she wont posses the knowledge to captivate the audience or have the ability to think of something long and interesting to say. Nevertheless, I occasionally get surprised by some of the long comments I see.

chrischen 17y ago
Well there are comments that are long and interesting and comments that are just long. And from my experience I've seen about equal amounts of both. However to be honest it's the short and witty comments that are always fun to read or funny.

chrischen 17y ago

Whenever I write a long comment here I just know most of the people lose interest after the first paragraph. And it's because that's what I do when I try to tackle a long comment. I have the feeling that they think I am a jackass, or douchebag, writing a bunch of mangled together crap of a response/rant because it's usually the most controversial comments that provoke such a response from me. And the response usually doesn't make much sense or have a point when I read it over. It just ends up being long, repetitive, and I forget what I was talking about by the end of it. As great as long comments are, I always get the feeling no one reads them. maybe HN could implement an "I read this commment" button. Hey if you read this please reply.

mahmud 17y ago
Whenever I write a long comment here I just know most of the people lose interest after the first paragraph. Don't right for readers, write to get something off your chest and feel lighter.
- chrischen 17y ago
  Interestingly that's actually the only reason why I write long comment responses. It's just that after the fact, presumably no one considered the comment and that I got through to no one.

quizbiz 17y ago

Usually long well written comments on HN are the ones to generate high 2-3 digit karma scores. http://news.ycombinator.com/bestcomments http://news.ycombinator.com/bestcomments edit: there are some one liners

blasdel 17y ago
MetaFilter's closest equivalent: http://www.metafilter.com/favorites/all http://www.metafilter.com/favorites/all
juvenn 17y ago
Oh, I even did not know there are bestcomments. Thanks for the link.

harpastum 17y ago

The big problem I see here is that longer comments are much more likely to include quotes and other contextual information that makes them seem 'better' compared to shorter comments. The author mentions this, but underestimates its importance. For example, using HN karma as an approximate value, I left a one-line comment [1] that seems uninteresting by itself, but added significant information to the discussion, compared to another comment [2] that is very long. The thing is, it's just a gigantic quote. I think that these two cases are the norm, not outliers. On the other hand, I think it would be very interesting (and more accurate) to compare comment length and karma value on HN. [1] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=830887 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=830887 [2] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=814591 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=814591

LukasMathis 17y ago
Yes, using ratings that are made in the context the comment originally appears would probably be better. /. is another site which could be used as source material for such an analysis.

blasdel 17y ago

This was clearly inspired by a previous MetaFilter / YouTube comment mashup: http://comments.thatsaspicymeatball.com/ http://comments.thatsaspicymeatball.com/ There were two MetaTalk (backchannel about site-related stuff) threads about Lukas's rating experiment: I posted one when I discovered it: http://metatalk.metafilter.com/18264/Do-we-have-a-minute-to-spare http://metatalk.metafilter.com/18264/Do-we-have-a-minute-to-... There was a follow-up after he made this blog post with his conclusions: http://metatalk.metafilter.com/18275/Metafilter-comments-rated http://metatalk.metafilter.com/18275/Metafilter-comments-rat...

lamby 17y ago

Nice article. It seems a sad reflection of the baseline statistical knowledge that he had to write an entire paragraph distancing his readers from inferring a causal relationship though.

sohooo 17y ago

"If I Had More Time I Would Write a Shorter Letter" -- Mark Twain

beza1e1 17y ago

So what about demanding a minimum amount of characters? In reference to a certain well-known internet service i'd propose to accept only comments with more than 140 characters.

philh 17y ago
Sometimes 140 characters is all you need. Why force people to add fluff?

learnalist 17y ago

Firstly, your going to disappoint some poor guy doing research on the size of his penis with your title. As for the content of your article. Really liked it. Some of the numbers in tables were a little hard to follow at times. Other than that, I love these sort of articles which can point out some interesting tip bits of information which you otherwise wouldn't find. ( just assumed maybe )

learnalist 17y ago
Thats my first negative score! takes it on the chin A nice feature would be, "negative points because". So that I can learn from it. I have a sneaky feeling it will be related to my opening line. Im guessing im probably not the first to ask for that feature.
- RyanMcGreal 17y ago
  > A nice feature would be, "negative points because". So that I can learn from it. My hunch is that your comment was too short.
  - learnalist 17y ago
    Thanks for your hunch. You have quite an impressive karma score considering your 68days old here. Thankfully I enjoy this site for more than my karma record. Does deleting it remove the lost karma? Is the idea of negatively voting down a comment. ( Other than the obvious ) To encourage the user to delete it?
    - RyanMcGreal 17y ago
      >Thanks for your hunch. Actually I was being facetious. :) > Does deleting it remove the lost karma? Not that I can tell. My guess is that 'deleting' a comment actually sets a 'deleted' flag somewhere in the data base rather than actually removing it; but I haven't looked at the code so I'm just speculating. > Is the idea of negatively voting down a comment ... To encourage the user to delete it? No. The purpose is to encourage commentary that follows the site's discussion guidelines: http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html (see section titled "In Comments") In fact, the window to delete a comment is only open for a set amount of time after posting, after which the site withdraws the option to delete.

vilya 17y ago

Interesting that this appears on HN right next to an article preaching the value of conciseness: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=850857 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=850857 Ironically, that article itself fell into the TLDR category for me.

edw519 17y ago

This is actually a very interesting analysis. He examines a whole bunch of cofactors that I wouldn't have even thought of. Comment length, word length, common adverbs, common pronouns, punctuation, all caps, swearing (since when is "douchebag" a swear word). I wonder what would be revealed by this kind of analysis on the entire hacker news respository. Now, that's a large data set. (No, I'm not volunteering :-)

LukasMathis 17y ago
Yeah, I got some complaints about calling that section "swear words." Some people also complained about "cock" and "suck" and some of the other words. I guess "profanity" would have been a better term to use.