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Comment by ShawnBird | Hacker News Reader

If you click the triangle next to the username it will 'upvote' the comment and help get it to the top.

Replies have no effect on rank so there is really no reason to reply unless you have something to add.

Hi,

Welcome to Hacker News. If you get a chance, check out the welcome letter (http://ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html) which explicitly states that empty comments are okay as long as they're positive.

thanks!

Upvoting a comment is an anonymous and nearly invisible action. The only way to show visible support for a comment is to reply to it.

At that point you're not adding anything to the conversation though, it's just noise. If you want to add vocal support to a comment you should at least expand on the points they brought up or provide some of your own reasoning.

It's ironic you would make this post while at the same time participating in the addition of a bunch of noise to an otherwise pretty great thread.

What you call "visible support" is really only "polluting the comments". "Me too" posts just fill up the comments with text without substance.

See also:

* Feb 1983 First "Me too" post (http://www.google.com/googlegroups/archive_announce_20.html)

I read everything leading to this.

On Disqus, Google+, Facebook, and most other sites supporting "likes", you can see who upvoted your comment. But this site is missing that built-in functionality.

You also can't see the scores of comments you didn't write. What's your point?

The way people interact with HN has a way of influencing the comment stream in nuanced ways. Not releasing all of the information about scoring publicly (or even the score) is an experiment about how such things affect the conversation.

One may not like it, but the general consensus is that "me too" comments just clutter the conversation and don't add anything. If you agree (or disagree, but appreciate the argument) then up vote.

You also can't see the scores of comments you didn't write. What's your point?

That is my point. I understand that this site is an experiment, my point is that it doesn't suit every use case. Not everyone agrees with the general consensus all the time.

I think all the replies to that comment are actually making more noise that the comment itself.

If you click triangle pointing downwards next to the username it will 'downvote' the comment and help make it "invisible". Replies have no effect on rank so there is really no reason to reply unless you have something to add.

can someone make this into a meme already, reading is so tiresome.

mmmm I think you're thinking of StackOverflow. No down triangles here

You need to have certain karma (or how is it called here) to be able to downvote.

Hahah touche, -4 on that post. My bad. HN is so mysterious

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