What do you think?
(When I first started using HN, I thought the count next to my name in the orange bar was unread count. Lol. Later I realized that it was Karma)
That means only people who care enough to check the comments get into long threads.
Other sites I feel like the notices just feed long threads of low effort arguing and mud slinging.
It also means that when people reply to me here beyond one reply, they put some effort into finding out if I responded again.... that's a nice feeling.
I think quite a few people (myself included) would disagree with that. I think optimizing for convenience is exactly what we shouldn't do in many cases.
Notifications are bad for you--especially for pointless trivial stuff like HN comment threads.
Consider the difficulty of checking on old HN threads a feature, which aids in Letting Things Go.
Just my own opinion, of course.
When I previously used Reddit it felt like I would just sit there refreshing all day waiting until that envelope turned orange...
I had been very careful about email notifications unsubscribing and avoiding giving out my email address so it hadn't been a problem .... then I was laid off and decided to change careers and my email just exploded (sadly not with job offers yet). Turning off email notifications was really stress relieving.
Since you never enter into a conversation you ensure all your replies are pointless and trivial.....
...except you will never know this. ;-)
You can also get email notifications here: http://www.hnreplies.com
Without this all conversations also die as soon as they are off the front page. I read HN through RSS at my leisure, so I come in late. It's generally already too late for me to participate, since no one know I have replied to them or made a comment.
These are amazing conversations! let's give them a chance / choice. to live on more in time
I use http://www.hnreplies.com - but only just was lucky enough to find out about it.
PS - the the people who think inconvenience is a feature. Consider - this way only the first comments actually get conversations, because no one can read / check farther down.
UX through hurdles is generally a very bad approach.
I’d actually request for a better UI to navigate threaded comments instead. I personally can’t handle multiple levels of replies on HN like many others seem to be doing here. The interface is terrible to figure out who’s replying to what when one reads several comments, comment replies and scrolls down. Add to that the almost microscopic buttons and links to vote and collapse. These are good features to keep me from going deeper into the rabbit hole.
That being said, it would be nice to see "new comments since last login" on my profile page... or something similar.
Edit: There may be a psychological reason not to do this though, because there are certain posts I don't want to think about anymore, and it's nice not knowing anything about them.
So if maybe there is a filter "only show comments on posts made in the past 2 days" or something, then I wouldn't get dragged into old discussions I am happy to leave well enough alone.
It's meant to be a minimalist kind of site and it does that well. I'd leave it as it is.
But if an user (voluntarily/actively) can go to a page and in it there is info on:
1) replies on own thread
2) replies to own comments
3) total number of replies on threads user posted a comment to
It would IMHO not be anymore a nuisance/interruption (like notifications are) but rather a resource.
The last thing this forum needs is more back-and-forth bickering. Sometimes gotta let other people into the conversation and take the stage.
Forgetting to check to see if someone responded to you is a critical part of HN. I just don’t think every response needs a retort from OP.
And make sure this can be turned off in settings.