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Comment by karaterobot | Hacker News Reader

To be honest, I usually don't read direct replies to my comments. I don't get notifications from HN that they exist, if such notifications are a feature HN has. I have my comment karma count hidden so that I don't pay attention to it, because I don't want to accidentally start caring about it. I definitely upvote direct replies to other people's comments, when I see good ones.

View on HN

Regarding notifications, try HN Notify[0]. It came up a long time ago and I've been using it ever since.

I love getting replies in emails. If you don't follow up on conversations, no one learns.

[0]: https://hnnotify.xyz/

There’s also hnreplies[0]. Keep in mind, they were hacked once and leaked email addresses[1].

[0]: http://hnreplies.com

[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26968908

But why would you use it when you can just click on Threads and see your comments and replies to them? Though it's sorted by your comments, not by replies to them.

Because then I have to remember to check and I might miss a reply for hours or days. I check my email much more frequently than I check my HN comments.

If everybody followed this mindset though, people start to expect that you'll read their replies. I don't want to be always burdened with that. Reddit and chat messengers already come with that sort of culture. I sort of enjoy the Hacker News style of not receiving notifications, it creates a culture where you can just share comments and perspectives without tying yourself down to a conversation.

I think this promotes a different style of content than you could get on other platforms. For example, I'm more careful about packing all my ideas into a single concise take if I'm not planning on having a long drawn out thread where I continuously clarify my position.

If I'm really curious about replies to my comment, I'll check back. Otherwise I comment and move on with my life

I agree that it is tiresome to continuously clarify your position in comments, but somehow that isn't how conversations go on HN. Although, your mileage will vary.

Unless the topic is around cryptocurrencies, that is. Then the conversation is curiously unintelligent.

I'm going to try this with my ad blocker. HN karma makes this place significantly less pleasant to frequent. I'd like to speak my mind without obsessing over whether or not my comment appeals to someone.

I wish this was a setting on HN. For uBlock origin users, this is what I'm trying right now:

    ! 2022-06-20 https://news.ycombinator.com
    ! Top karma
    news.ycombinator.com###karma
    ! Profile form karma
    news.ycombinator.com##.profileform > table > tbody > tr:nth-of-type(3)
    ! User karma
    news.ycombinator.com##td > table > tbody > tr:nth-of-type(3)
    ! Comment score
    news.ycombinator.com##.comhead > .score

Seems to work fine.

So weird that we have almost the same rules

    news.ycombinator.com###karma
    news.ycombinator.com##.score
    news.ycombinator.com##.profileform tr:nth-of-type(3)
    news.ycombinator.com###me

Especially if a discussion goes on for more than a day, I upvote comments after I replied to them, so that the user might notice the karma change and have a look at the comments and notice my reply.

You can see them easily here in Threads

https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=karaterobot

In addition to other suggestions, if you want notifications of replies, one option is a little Reply-to-RSS thing you could self host, if that's useful:

https://gist.github.com/Q726kbXuN/15e61acc003bb6d46a458001fe...

> I have my comment karma count hidden so that I don't pay attention to it, because I don't want to accidentally start caring about it.

That's an option? Or do you use some sort of user style/extension for to do that?

It’s unlikely he’ll see your reply!

To hide karma on the top bar via uBlock Origin:

  news.ycombinator.com###karma

And scores in general:

  news.ycombinator.com##.score

Suspiciously healthy :)

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