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Comment by geoka9 | Hacker News Reader

> Instead, they treat commenting as writing notes about the topic at hand.

But for what purpose? Or is it just a way of tricking oneself as a coping mechanism?

To me, this is not really a conversational arena. An effort to post a comment floats somewhere between editing a wiki page and adding margin comments while reviewing a manuscript. The tree of comments provides hook points for tangential observations or counterpoints. I am more often thinking of the silent readers than the parent comment author when I post a reply.

If I notice a reply to my comments, I don't feel compelled to respond by conversational norms. I am more likely to reply if I see evidence that my original comment has failed to communicate my thoughts, and less likely to reply if I think I was understood but merely have disagreement.

As a reader, I also get more out of the interesting alternate viewpoints that I see from people using the site in a similar manner. I don't tend to want to read comment chains that look like a transcribed conversation between only a few people.

The purpose is to think better and understand more. Putting your thoughts into writing is probably the best way to organize your thinking, determine what you actually know, and further develop your thoughts on the subject.

True, but why bother doing it in public? Unless you want someone else to read your notes, and maybe upvote and/or reply to them?

"Writing doesn't just communicate ideas; it generates them. If you're bad at writing and don't like to do it, you'll miss out on most of the ideas writing would have generated."

Full source: http://www.paulgraham.com/writing44.html

The value of writing is pretty clear imo. What doesn't make much sense to me is posting your margin notes on a public internet forum.

The "margin notes" are usually ten times more interesting to read than "discussion threads" where few people try to convey their points back and forth.

That sort of argumentation is generally just boring to read, lacks value, and happens between the two or three people involved. As such, it doesn't really contribute much value on a public internet forum and I usually skip all that stuff myself.

You can sense if a comment is written for no one in particular. It washes away all the need to argue, and it humbly gives to each reader what they're willing to accept from it. This can be a lot or nothing but it all depends on the reader, too.

I write comments with a similar idea in mind. I feel that if what I've written might give one person an idea, point of validation, sense of similarity, or a moment to seriously think about something for a while, it's worth posting. I of course do not know beforehand whether this happens or which year it might happen if it does. I rarely write as a direct response to the parent, and if I do I tend to eventually diverge from the "reply mode" to "writing mode".

Notes are a unit of learning. But notes aren't always accurate, or may have left out something. Posting notes lets people criticize it and improve it.

Arguably, HN is just a website where people request for others to share their notes on a topic they're interested in.

In the short time I've been applying this technique I've found my comments are either an attempt to add my own notes of clarification to the subject at hand or as a tool to help concrete a concept related to the subject; a sort of a repetitive reinforcement of the concept.

For me, at least, it's less a coping mechanism and more a mindset I've found to be more constructive both online and off.

For the sake of knowledge itself. If something is wrong, I feel urged to set it right..

You know, progress of humankind etc. ...

I am constantly learning from my own internal dialogue. Maybe the note taker is trying to arrive at a better understanding of something on their own.

well since there isnt another mechanism to take a mental note of a topic or comment here, posting a comment acts like a bookmark.

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