Ask HN: Seeing points again?
I can see the points again. I take it that I'm not alone (or seeing things due to lack of sleep :) ) ?
At least one good thing came of this experiment, though. There's now a new function for ranking comments, with a faster time decay. I should have done that before, but taking away points made the need for it more obvious.
Has anyone suggested having it work like the down-arrow, where you can't see scores until you're above a threshold?
But I also disagree with downvoting for disagreeing, so I modded you up.
Also, the new comment ranking algorithm seems to demote highly ranked comments a bit fast. I can't click the comments link for an article and then read a few good comments immediately. I think there's more value in time tested, highly ranked comments than in new blind ones. Are you tweaking it at all?
That's very true. I remember adding the possibility to 'enlarge' the video on ww.com simply by clicking a button and scaling the image, lots of flak from users for something they simply shouldn't click on if they don't want it.
Since then I've made a point of testing the waters with a small group of people, letting them get used to it for a bit, then if they decide it's good stuff open up the feature to the rest of the people. You'll still get flak but you'll feel more convinced that you're on the right track because a number of core people have already given it the green light.
Seriously, I don't mind either way but I think with this sort of thing it's best to let it bed in for a week.
(The new ranking algorithm has been increasingly irritating though.)
Seriously though, I am confused why everyone calls the dot red... I felt pretty strongly that it is orange, but now that dcurtis backs it up... I don't know what to do.
A few people have mentioned simply adding the feature as a greasemonkey script, but I would like to point out that the only way something like this works is if everyone does it, not just as an opt in. It may help that user a little bit, but it makes the problem worse over all.
From my brief experience with the hidden points it looks like it will cause massive karma inflation. I know it was mentioned that a lot of people set a certain value that they thought a post was worth, and voted to try and help it attain that point. It seems (looking at my karma gain over the weekend, compared to the week before) that far more people vote that way, than were voting with points hidden.
As far as point/no points, I vote to put it back. I know its rather anecdotal, but looking at my recent comments I can definitely see which ones were actually worth posting, and which were rather pointless, due to the points that I received for them. In the past, it was hit or miss. Generally, you can expect points for an early comment, no matter what it says, and the total incoming karma would be heavily related to the time of posting. With points hidden, that didn't happen.
Figure out what you want to attain, and give it a chance. One day isn't nearly enough.
Interesting! Would it perhaps be worthwhile testing a "score this post", or perhaps even "score this comment", on a fixed scale (say, -5 to 10 points)? Karma could still be calculated the old way, but a post/comment will now have two metrics associated with it, the (new) score and the (old) karma gain/loss?
For example, I have a fairly reasonable idea of a 1 (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=848274), 5 (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=848482), and 10 (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=848201) point posts (note, these were just chosen fairly quickly off of the front page items, not trying to call anyone out for anything). Generally, I won't down vote people unless they are approaching the next group up when I don't think they deserve it, and will upvote if they are lower than I feel the post deserves. I know several other people mentioned feeling the same way, and it seems like there are far more people who felt that way and refrained from voting on most comments precisely because of that (at least if the jump in comment scores on my posts are indicative of the scoring in general).
Are there any interesting statistics that came out of this experiment ?
EDIT: Maybe there could be a toggle in the profile settings for those that prefer the reading style of the '5 plus red dot'?
(= comment-gravity* .8)
(def comment-rank (s (o scorefn realscore) (o gravity comment-gravity*))
(/ (let base (+ (scorefn s) 1)
(if (> base 0) (expt base .8) base))
(expt (/ (+ (item-age s) 1) 60) gravity)))It makes the site feel like digg! Previously stories and comments always had to be pulled up from the bottom. Now new shit is always plopped at the top of the pile, from whence it can roll down (time) or be pushed (moderation). Please explain your reasoning behind its implementation, as I don't see anything good in it.
It's not quite as bad since you've turned point-showing back on — At least now I won't accidentally downvote comments to zero that are at the top just for their recency.
I don't understand why you assume new = shit.
I don't like scores. A high score means that a comment was posted early, that it was good or agreeable (which is not the same as being good), and that there was groupthink. A low score means the comment is new, or not useful, or not read.
Instead, scores should be there to tell us what to skip. A high score (0) would mean that I need to give the comment attention - whether it's new or a must-read is irrelevant. (This also means that we wouldn't need a score/time ordering system.) A low score (-30) would mean that the comment adds nothing new, or is otherwise less worth reading. Upvotes reserved for those who are seldom downvoted. Perhaps this is too hostile and negative, but then perhaps it's more honest, and better able to filter out those seeking points and those who cannot stomach criticism (which I've always found has helped me improve much more than praise has - and improving the quality of new-contributor comments is the only way we'll be able to grow).
I also think it's a loss that we can't remove names from comments (though leaving links to profiles). Removing them would emphasize that the score is about the comment, and not about the name.
I understand that developing a large user base is important, and that trying eccentric solutions might aggravate our core group into forever abandoning hn for more predictable and friendly sites... but I really do wish that pg would mess with the site more often and for longer periods of time, and not worry about the community's response. Our system is not so perfect that messing with it is guaranteed to reduce its effectiveness.
The ultimate user experience is the one that gives a user what they want. If that is stuff ranked in a different way than someone else then by giving them that they'll feel more at home.
I think that sort of thing (extreme customizability) is analogous to what drove the PC revolution, power to the user.
The web is an exercise in bringing back the centralization of data and code, no need to also centralize the kinds of user experiences.
If you take extreme customizability to it's logical end then everybody just ends up writing their own web-app front ends on top of public apis. I don't know that that's better. There are certain best practices that probably should be enforced. I guess you might argue that a sensible default would satisfy that need, while allowing for deviations for those who care.
The last thing I'll say then is that perhaps a community wants to enforce (or at least encourage) some cultural features. If people can customize out certain cultural features then you lose that ability. For instance, maybe HN wants itself to be a place where comments are ranked in a certain way so that new comments aren't completely buried and everybody is at least forced to scan over them. If you can customize that out, it possibly hurts the culture.
This is kind of rambly and the thread is already old but it could be a very interesting discussion. feel free to contact me directly (gmail: andrewmbenton).
On the other hand, something felt off without them. Maybe just habit.
for example (bad examples- all i could search, but you 'meet' a lot of opinions of the one liner kind which in the recent times have got decent karma): http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=847571
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=847008
and at a odd time like this:
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=842627 (i can't speak fo if fact vs otherwise in this particular post, but sometimes a 'slightly' upvoted comment from a regular gets pushed up and it rides the karma wave)
For those who didn't like - I suggest keep the new version for few days - they will love it. thx.
Solution 1: Remove scores on comments.
Solution 2, 3, 4, n: ?
I know I prefer to process information looking at a grid instead of a single column.. but maybe that's just me =)
At any rate, why allow a comment to get negative points pg? Just delete the comment or let it sit at 1. It definitely feels a little vindictive and childish in here at times.
EDIT: For context - My original comment was at the coveted dead last -1 position but has since been up'd. Thanks ;) I still say we do away with negative numbers. If someone is flaming another or using excessive language, let the mods do their job and delete the comment.
//begin include('~/jquery/jquery.js'); b=new Button('hide comment heads', function() { $('.comhead').hide(); }); insert(after('add comment button'), b)); //end
click the new button injected to hide comments. can be automatically triggered whenever ff opens http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=*
you can make it fancy like toggling instead of hiding, or showing only points or authors, but it's sufficient for me (actually i use auto-hide-trigger-with-no-button which is simpler)
Also an orange dot for comments with more than +2 vote difference from the previous comment, might be useful.