Meta: Require users to open a link to enable upvoting and comments

5 points·meri_dian··4 comments

Sometimes I'll comment or upvote without even opening a link, just based off the title of the post. This isn't good and I'm sure there are others that do the same thing.

I know this wouldn't guarantee people actually read the content linked to, but it should help to encourage that.

View on HN

There are plenty of circumstances under which it is possible to contribute in a meaningful way to the discussion without reading the article. If you are failing to participate in a good way, no mod hacks can force you to do so.

This is a personal issue. You need to find some means to solve it for yourself. Clicking on something doesn't make you read it. Asking the mods to force you to click isn't a cure for what ails you.

I would be concerned about links like https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10920180 … if you want to do this for yourself only you could easily make a browser extension.

The other issue is that HN will effectively have to store every link you click on the site. I'm not sure I'm comfortable with knowing that is stored.

I recently made a comment on something where I already knew I didn't care what the article said, I just wanted to read the comments because I knew THOSE would be more interesting than the article.

I did have a valuable reaction to add to one of said comments and did as much.

Sometimes it is more about the conversation than the content.

Maybe enable voting only while viewing an item could work, to ensure that the reader at least saw the discussion or description.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com