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Comment by wodenokoto | Hacker News Reader

I think we are many who read hacker news for the comments.

The downside is, it’s not so much the article that becomes relevant, but the topic. HN felt like talking about yak shaving and all we needed to get started (you included!) was a headline.

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It also creates a vicious cycle where people who do care about article quality are more likely to disengage with the site -- and these are most likely the people who write the highest value comments.

I don't think a culture of 'only reading the comments' is at all a good thing.

Sounds like the path reddit took. Doubt HN will turn into it in perpetuity but I could already see some of that* leaking in the last 2-3 years, although thankfully it is harshly reigned in by moderation and fellow posters alike.

*by that I refer to comment chains just making bland puns, joining in threads for no reason other than saying something, even if it adds nothing and at times is straight up incorrect, etc.

To me, more important issue is allowing users to read, but not comment. Obviously everyone doesn’t have something meaningful to add to every topic, but if someone has read 100 articles and did add anything meaningful, something is wrong with HN.

Agreed - it's like watching the emergent complex behavior that an AI spits out after you give it something unique. You're curious - what on earth could the HN crowd have to say Yak Shaving? The input doesn't matter at that point to a degree, it's the unique/novel thing that was outputted.

You could search Algolia for the last time it was discussed, but it's much for fun to bring up the topic again. Who knows maybe the emergent behaviour is different than the last time it was discussed.

Do you get different emergent behaviour depending on the time of day/week? Have demographics of the site altered such that the prevailing opinions are vastly different? What is the mean time to only tangentially related items being discussed?

I have written comments on articles that were posted before. In many cases the discussions and participants are quite different. And they complement the comments of the original post.

HN completely random, yes there are patterns, but if you looked at 1000 articles that have been posted 5 or more times on HN you would see it’s completely random to if a topic get attention or not. Same with an emerging new story, multiple users will post it and frequently only after it’s posted a few times over hours or days does it get traction; and even then, there’s obviously a lot of posts that never get attention, but do elsewhere, but were within the scope of what’s on topic on HN.

Agree, though HN also clearly has the “Ask/Tell HN” if someone feels like taking about something and they’re by default down weighted vote wise, which to me says the posts linking to content should have substance.

For the people that read HN but don’t comment, please load/scan a link before upvoting. Not doing so will have a net negative impact on HN if enough people are not checking the links.

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