7 ms·

As someone who often makes these comments, were they declared offtopic somewhere official?

by aw3c2 12y ago

DanBC 12y ago
Here's a comment from dang. Someone made a good, technical, submission. For a while the highest comment was about the design of the blog. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9238739 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9238739 > A reader emailed to complain about how this and other HN discussions often become derailed by off-topic carping about blog design. I agree completely. Could there be a more classic form of bikeshedding? It would seem parodic if it weren't sadly real. This has become more of a thing on HN lately. It needs to become less of a thing. > I don't mean to pick on you personally, or just on this one comment. (Your second sentence alone, by the way, would have been a helpful contribution.) The problem is the tedious stampedes such comments spawn. This submission is a bit different because the design of the page is the thing being submitted, but I'm aware that I too easily make comments about the design of the page rather than the content of the page. Some design choices are weird and prevent people from being able read the content and I wish there was a way to provide that feedback without derailing a thread.
- aw3c2 12y ago
  Aye, that was my comment. :) I hope HN will come up with a nice solution to allow these kinds of comments but have them be less distracting.
  - krapp 12y ago
    Arguably, a threaded forum by design encourages tangential discussions which deviate from the topic the deeper you go. The problem in HN's case is all the threads are open and entirely visible - which is one of the cases where its minimalist layout works against readability. I think the best solution would be thread folding (which I know is being worked on anyway) where the default is that all threads are collapsed. Then, off topic discussion wouldn't take up any more than a single post's worth of space by default. Having it be a conscious choice to move deeper into a thread also ensures that no one has to scroll past much content they don't care about.
    - aw3c2 12y ago
      That would be incredibly annoying on touch interfaces and generally not allow quick scanning of comments anymore. It would take a lot more time.
      - krapp 12y ago
        I suppose open threads by default would be more friendly, or maybe defaulting to open for mobile layouts. But it taking more time would kind of be the point - opting in to participate rather than opting out by scrolling past content means fewer sarcastic comments about how a thread is off topic and irrelevant.
- Dewie 12y ago
  "Bikeshedding" has become yet another empty dismissal. The colour of a bikeshed is irrelevant when designing a nuclear reactor. But the "bikeshed" of a webpage has to do with usability, which is a critical component of any webpage.
  - DanBC 12y ago
    Yes, when someone submits a webpage the design of that page is up for discussion. Whe someone writes an interesting technical post about Cache Line Aliasing it's a shame when the most visible commet is a complaint about the blog platform. I want more articles like that on HN so I'm going to stop leaving empty comments about page design on HN unless, like this example, the design is an intrinsic part of the submission. And even here I could have worded my post much better. Having said all that: a lot of the stuff submitted here is not accessible and that's a shame. It feels like we've gone backwards. Where you used to have a web page that had keyboard navigable elements that would announce themselves to the assistive technology it feels like we now have apps that abandoned usability and started making it up as they go along. What happens when you press and hold and image? What happens when you put your phone into landscape? Who knows, everyone does things differently.
    - elmerland 12y ago
      You make some good points and you are correct that my redesign of the manual is far from ideal in terms of accessibility. I will definitely take these things into consideration and improve upon them. This is not an area I'm familiar with, which is the perfect excuse to go a learn about it! In regards to the 'experimentation' done by websites. I would say that this 'experimentation' is something that should happen. How else are we supposed to discover new and better ways of doing things than by trying something different. Not all new things are better, and most of them fail. This trial and error, however eventually leads to better design and better 'standard' ways of doing things. It is unfortunate that today accessibility has fallen down the priority list. Likely, a side effect of all the new ways we can interact with our electronics. So above all let me say thank you! We need people like you who remind developers to keep accessibility a top priority.

As someone who often makes these comments, were they declared offtopic somewhere official?

by aw3c2 12y ago

As someone who often makes these comments, were they declared offtopic somewhere official?

DanBC 12y ago

Here's a comment from dang. Someone made a good, technical, submission. For a while the highest comment was about the design of the blog. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9238739 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9238739 > A reader emailed to complain about how this and other HN discussions often become derailed by off-topic carping about blog design. I agree completely. Could there be a more classic form of bikeshedding? It would seem parodic if it weren't sadly real. This has become more of a thing on HN lately. It needs to become less of a thing. > I don't mean to pick on you personally, or just on this one comment. (Your second sentence alone, by the way, would have been a helpful contribution.) The problem is the tedious stampedes such comments spawn. This submission is a bit different because the design of the page is the thing being submitted, but I'm aware that I too easily make comments about the design of the page rather than the content of the page. Some design choices are weird and prevent people from being able read the content and I wish there was a way to provide that feedback without derailing a thread.

aw3c2 12y ago
Aye, that was my comment. :) I hope HN will come up with a nice solution to allow these kinds of comments but have them be less distracting.
- krapp 12y ago
  Arguably, a threaded forum by design encourages tangential discussions which deviate from the topic the deeper you go. The problem in HN's case is all the threads are open and entirely visible - which is one of the cases where its minimalist layout works against readability. I think the best solution would be thread folding (which I know is being worked on anyway) where the default is that all threads are collapsed. Then, off topic discussion wouldn't take up any more than a single post's worth of space by default. Having it be a conscious choice to move deeper into a thread also ensures that no one has to scroll past much content they don't care about.
  - aw3c2 12y ago
    That would be incredibly annoying on touch interfaces and generally not allow quick scanning of comments anymore. It would take a lot more time.
    - krapp 12y ago
      I suppose open threads by default would be more friendly, or maybe defaulting to open for mobile layouts. But it taking more time would kind of be the point - opting in to participate rather than opting out by scrolling past content means fewer sarcastic comments about how a thread is off topic and irrelevant.
Dewie 12y ago
"Bikeshedding" has become yet another empty dismissal. The colour of a bikeshed is irrelevant when designing a nuclear reactor. But the "bikeshed" of a webpage has to do with usability, which is a critical component of any webpage.
- DanBC 12y ago
  Yes, when someone submits a webpage the design of that page is up for discussion. Whe someone writes an interesting technical post about Cache Line Aliasing it's a shame when the most visible commet is a complaint about the blog platform. I want more articles like that on HN so I'm going to stop leaving empty comments about page design on HN unless, like this example, the design is an intrinsic part of the submission. And even here I could have worded my post much better. Having said all that: a lot of the stuff submitted here is not accessible and that's a shame. It feels like we've gone backwards. Where you used to have a web page that had keyboard navigable elements that would announce themselves to the assistive technology it feels like we now have apps that abandoned usability and started making it up as they go along. What happens when you press and hold and image? What happens when you put your phone into landscape? Who knows, everyone does things differently.
  - elmerland 12y ago
    You make some good points and you are correct that my redesign of the manual is far from ideal in terms of accessibility. I will definitely take these things into consideration and improve upon them. This is not an area I'm familiar with, which is the perfect excuse to go a learn about it! In regards to the 'experimentation' done by websites. I would say that this 'experimentation' is something that should happen. How else are we supposed to discover new and better ways of doing things than by trying something different. Not all new things are better, and most of them fail. This trial and error, however eventually leads to better design and better 'standard' ways of doing things. It is unfortunate that today accessibility has fallen down the priority list. Likely, a side effect of all the new ways we can interact with our electronics. So above all let me say thank you! We need people like you who remind developers to keep accessibility a top priority.