Hacker News Reader

Comment by chitowneats | Hacker News Reader

Because the article is usually full of bloaty ads that take all day to load, tracking beacons, and multiple paragraphs of bloviating before getting to the point. This is a DOJ page which is a little bit different but it will still be 90% hot air and 1 sentence of substance. So people just go to the comment thread expecting to get the gist of the article through context, without clicking on it. HN's policy of having to use the original (often clickbait) title also reinforces click resistance. Being able to append a short summary (see r/savedyouaclick) would help.

caveat emptor.

My bet is that for many (most?), they already have their minds made up (or set in a particularly strong direction) on almost any topic you could present.

Since the curiosity and openness to expand or change one's mind is low, you might as well dive into the dialog and show off / set people straight.

At the same time, I also witness people who really add value to the conversation by providing an insightful framing that I hadn't thought of, provide a synthesis between two people who are speaking past each other, etc.

Whether the trend is one way or the other, I do not know.

Some day the author of a long article that makes it to the front page of HN is going to leave a single, short sentence in the middle of the sixth paragraph from the end, that says "If you've read this far, leave a comment with the word 'elephant' in it."

When that happens, watch the thread and wait to see how many comments are posted before somebody notices the elephant in the room.

HN is a not intended to be a place for rehashed discussion where everyone is already familiar with the relevant information. Reading the article should be considered essential criteria for commenting here.

I don't recommend that dang and others attempt to enforce this. Just that there be appropriate room for the chiding of those who comment without reading.

Edit: Apologies, I meant to to reply to the comment below. I agree wholeheartedly with what you've said.

This is not unique to HN.

Social media, reddit, etc. - everyone just comments on whatever they want. Reading TFA is absolutely not a prerequisite for discussion.

It's a prerequisite for relevant discussion. That it happens everywhere is just a sign of how discussion is degrading everywhere.

Sure, you can just come into a thread and start a blog about the awesome breakfast you had, or guess what the article is about based on the title alone and pontificate on whatever triggers you, or just shoot whatever shit is on your mind, but that isn't something to be encouraged in a community whose purpose is supposed to be intellectual curiosity, in a thread with an actual topic at hand. You can't satisfy your own intellectual curiosity by never engaging your intellect with new material, much less anyone else's.

Otherwise, what's the point of having articles to begin with? Let's just have dang turn this place into a generic text forum and be done with it. Let's just make it /b/ without the pictures and any semblance of humor.

IMO, it is why decent titles are critical. Probably Twitter's main source of power. 140 chars is a lot, when it comes to engaging attention.

HN is not intended to be a place for rehashed discussion where everyone is already familiar with the relevant information. Reading the article should be considered essential criteria for commenting here.

I don't recommend that dang and others attempt to enforce this. Just that there be appropriate room for the chiding of those who comment without reading.

Is TFA The Fucking Article? haha

The featured article ;)

Edit: Sorry, the winky face was meant as sarcasm. I'm pretty sure most people mean "the fucking article", but there isn't any definition anywhere I can find. For now this is an acronym with, let's say, "reasonable doubt", about what it means.

etymologically spawned from 'RTFM'

http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/R/RTFM.html

TFA is not featured here.

"RTFM" -> "read TFA" is a fairly simple derivation.

I agree and I commented something similar above. I'd be curious though to see the original derivation. It wasn't immediately clear to me despite a long history with being told to "rtfm".

Oh much nicer than what I guessed. Haha

Reply on news.ycombinator.com