HN Comments

Unless I have something meaningful to say about a topic, I won't leave a comment about it. Posting just for the sake of posting doesn't really make for an interesting conversation.

And given how niche/technical many topics here are, I suspect that's true for most people. They'll discuss things they're interested in, and pass by things they have no interest or knowledge of.

This is also why political topics tend to blow up here as far as comment count goes, since it's much easier to give your two cents about how Musk is destroying Twitter than to talk about the latest in astrophysics from a research paper.

The rules / guidelines actually suggest against leaving comments that do not add substantially to the conversation -- so if the threshold required to make a post is increased, naturally fewer events meet threshold energy than elsewhere. Also suspect most users interact via mobile, which is less accommodating for longform typing of replies.

> why people don't leave more comments

because people don't often visit the pages with new content, they mostly hit the main page

also, is there a place like HN where you can ask questions and get more comments?

Don't forget: "AI" did happen... so get some safe mental distance.