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Comment by smokeyj | Hacker News Reader

The principle still stands. Why care about points? Wasn’t that the motivating factor to remove displaying comment points on HN in the first place? Facilitating hive mentality?

If everyone agrees with a comment it probably adds no value. If everyone disagrees it probably adds no value. Maybe interesting discussions should be sorted by controversial, but I don’t think that would be a “safe space”.

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That's a fallacy. The best comments in HN aren't the "edgy" or controversial ones, they are the ones where someone shares information that I've never seen somewhere else.

Saying offensive things doesn't lift the level of discourse, no matter how much people who would love not to be downvoted complain about the "hive mind".

In a way that's 4chans strength. The comments and threads that get most noticed are the ones with most replies - ie the most controversial ones. Thats why Alexandria Ocasio Cortz is one of the most prominently posted figures on 4chans alt-light/pol/ board

> Wasn’t that the motivating factor to remove displaying comment points on HN in the first place?

lobste.rs shows points (and moderation logs and who invited who).

It still feels much "safer" than HN, but I guess the real reason is because they are much stricter about what topics are accepted.

Which means HN is more interesting to me but I also like lobste.rs a lot.

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