Ask HN: What's with the low-quality comments?

9 points by g4zj 1 year ago | 6 comments

I'm a long-time Reddit user, trying to find better alternatives for things like news and communities related to my interests.

Among the long list of reasons to leave Reddit behind is the comment quality. It's often difficult to find thoughtful and informative comments amongst all the jokes, sarcasm, memes, "Reddit-isms" (e.g. "take my upvote!"), and so on.

I don't expect much more out of Reddit, especially considering a significant portion of the comments are left by bots, but it seems as though comments like these are becoming increasingly common here on HN. Are comment bots common here as well? I don't understand what's happening, but it seems a bit concerning.

Just putting my thoughts out there, I guess.

sksxihve 1 year ago |

I've been a long time lurker on HN, since probably 2008, and this has been a common complaint so much so that it's in the site guidelines.

> Please don't post comments saying that HN is turning into Reddit. It's a semi-noob illusion, as old as the hills.

dang 1 year ago | |

> a semi-noob illusion, as old as the hills

Nine words, nine links! (from https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html):

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13852 (April 2007)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=60767 (Sept 2007)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=66057 (Oct 2007)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=253657 (July 2008)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=289254 (Aug 2008)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=582513 (April 2009)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=633099 (May 2009)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=926703 (Nov 2009)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1524184 (July 2010)

That last comment (from July 2010) has links to a bunch more, including this edw519 classic:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=926644 (Nov 2009)

solardev 1 year ago |

Purely anecdotal, but to me there was a pretty noticeable downturn in comment quality over the last 1.5 - 2 years, when the post-covid-bubble layoffs and RTO stuff started.

Maybe commenters who were previously able to waste time on their jobs posting here no longer could?

JohnFen 1 year ago |

HN readers are pretty good about downvoting low-quality comments (including ones that I've made). You can help by doing the same.

ThrowawayR2 1 year ago |

I personally agree that there seem more low quality comments and also submissions but, as a sibling poster points out, we aren't permitted to discuss it because of the guidelines. There's nothing really to be done about it other than downvoting or flagging until the site moderators decide otherwise.

pavel_lishin 1 year ago |

> it seems as though comments like these are becoming increasingly common here on HN.

My guess is Reddit refugees coming here. Just another day in the Eternal September of the internet.