In Defense of Comments

3 points by nklswbr 89 days ago | 5 comments

PaulHoule 89 days ago |

I am not believing that the AT protocol really changes anything. I mean for a lot of people “It lives in the open social graph” sounds about the same as “shouting into a void.”

Mastodon has been growing on me over time, some of it is that I’ve learned to accept the things I don’t like about it, some of it is that I have a good friend graph, but a lot of it is that the complexity scares away a lot of the “muggles” and holds off the Eternal September. That is, it is so bad that it is good; so certain kinds of subcultures really thrive.

Cider9986 89 days ago |

I find WSJ comments to be the nastiest, and you know everyone must be human—or, at least to the extent that burning $48 to $585 per year on an online paper gets you.

Most commenters use attacks and logical fallacies instead of discussing the issues, and when there is one discussing an issue, you can guess how they are replied to.

damnitbuilds 89 days ago |

If you want good comments then you have to prevent the down-voting of factual statements simply because the people who vote disagree with those facts, as happens repeatedly on HN.

-1, Disagree is poison for quality commenting.

PaulHoule 89 days ago | |

I used to be serious about SMO on Reddit and believed that downvoting behavior drove what got the top more than upvoting for links which had a lot of consequences, like if you posted to /progitt anything that let on that you were into coding for the money, even partially, or thought the business side was interesting… oh boy. HN is not like that.

Cider9986 89 days ago |

No silos is important. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23308098