

Ask HN: Please stop "This." - juiceandjuice

Can we discuss "This."?<p>Maybe it's a very silly thing to be bothered by, but I can't be the only one agitated when I read a response to anything that begins simply with "This."<p>It's my personal feeling is that "This." is a sign of the decline of intelligent discourse on HN.  I feel like "This." is usually karma fishing, and that their comment more than likely adds nothing to the discourse, and is often a predictor of immaturity.<p>I'd like to know what everyone else thinks.
======
ColinWright
I like to upvote things that I think add value to HackerNews. However, since
upvotes are no longer displayed, it's impossible for my agreement or
endorsement to have any visible manifestation unless I add a comment. I'd be
tempted to use this emerging new idiom, except I think it looks and sounds
stupid.

However, pretty much all dialectic and idiomatic shifts look stupid to those
entrenched in the existing "standards" and not part of the current "in-crowd."
Language changes, and as it does so it leaves behind the previous generation.
Perhaps this will flourish briefly and then die out. Perhaps it will return
every 10 years or so, possibly even become mundane rather than regarded by
some as "cool" and others as, well, juvenile.

Personally, I think that saying "This" looks stupid, but it succinctly
expresses the sentiment of the one who writes it. I certainly think it's less
stupid than saying "I could care less" when one means that one doesn't care at
all. Even saying "meh" would be more acceptable than that illogical expletive.

But in the end this is unhelpful. The language used here will reflect the
norms of the population. You can try a King Canute and stand against the tide,
but you can't win.

~~~
philwelch
Have you ever considered the possibility that your or any other person's
agreement with a given comment simply isn't valuable information?

~~~
gm
I think it is. It tells us what HN readers agree with.

------
frou_dh
I think it was popularised on vBulletin/phpBB style forums where people quote
another post (using BBCode) and add nothing but "This." below, as if to say
"This is what I'd have said if I got here first".

    
    
        +------------------------------+
        | xXMasterChiefXx              |
        |------------------------------|
        |                              |
        |   +----------------------+   |
        |   | ShadowKiller2K said: |   |
        |   |----------------------|   |
        |   |                      |   |
        |   | Xbawks > PS3         |   |
        |   |                      |   |
        |   +----------------------+   |
        |                              |
        |   This.                      |
        |                              |
        +------------------------------+ 
    

(I'm amused that these made-up usernames have tons of results in Google!)

I remember a specific user on a forum I used to participate in that did the
quote+this thing constantly, as if they were trying to build up a reputation
of being a sage individual without having to do a lick of original thinking.

------
fr0sty
Are there actually a significant number of posts which consist of just a
single "This"? Or are you making a statement against the use of that as an
opening line before someone adds their two cents.

If the former I might suggest it has something to with the fact that
commenting is the only visible form of 'voting' on HN now that comment scores
are hidden.

If the latter, I am completely ambivalent. Its a popular turn of phrase it
successfully and succinctly communicates agreement and endorsement of the
parent comment. At the same time I wouldn't mind terribly if it fell into
disuse.

~~~
dfc
I had to read a couple comments in this thread before I even understood what
"this" was/is. I think I would have recognized what the "this" phenomenon was
if I had come across it in a number of hn posts.

I can not recall ever seeing it in a thread and I read hn somewhat frequently.
The only thing I can think of is that there is a certain subculture that uses
"this" and that I do not read the stories that this subculture is interested
in. Does anyone have any examples?

~~~
niccl
I saw a 'this' yesterday on HN (can't recall what it was about, unfortunately)
and it had me totally puzzled. I had no idea what it was there for.

I may be curmudgeonly and dumb, but I can't see where 'This' has any real
advantage over 'I agree'. So 'I agree' with the OP.

~~~
lotharbot
Most of the time, neither "this" nor "I agree" are of value on HN. If you have
something unique to add to the conversation, say it, but don't waste space
letting us know that you agree. As philwelch said elsewhere, _your agreement
isn't valuable information_.

There are only a couple of exceptions I can think of:

\- if someone says something about your business, personal life, or recognized
area of expertise, your confirmation is of value. In that case, "I agree" is a
perfectly fine standalone response.

\- if you're responding in disagreement to one part of a post, it can be
helpful to mention that you agree with other parts, in order to stop responses
like "you ignored the rest of what I said". Clarifying the scope of your
response can help keep discussion focused, and is therefore of value.

------
stevelosh
Are you bothered if someone starts a post with "I completely agree with you."?

If so, I think that's strange. Why would that bother you? They're giving you
an idea of what their comment will be like up front to help you understand it
more easily.

If not, they why does it bother you when they say essentially the same thing
with four fewer words?

It's totally fine to be annoyed by a comment that doesn't add anything or is
immature, but _that's_ what you should be annoyed by, not the fact that they
happened to use a particular phrase that concisely states a summary of their
opinion.

~~~
juiceandjuice
"Whatever the cause, stupid comments tend to be short." - pg [1]

I feel like, whatever the cause, comments that tend to start with "This." tend
to be follow this pattern as well. It's not always the case, which is why I'd
urge people to not use "This." when starting a sentence. I also feel like
"This." hangs there to evoke a vote of karma, irrespective of comment content
much more than "I completely agree with you" would, especially with people who
frequent reddit.

[1] <http://www.paulgraham.com/hackernews.html>

~~~
MaysonL
"Whatever the cause, stupid comments tend to be short." does not imply "Short
comments are stupid".

------
trustfundbaby
I don't mind it ... and I do think its a very silly thing to be bothered by.

The entirety of your content matters here, so a singular "This" will get
downvoted very quickly. But if you say "This" and follow it up with something
thoughtful, then what exactly is the problem?

The colloquialisms that we'll use over the course of our time on (especially
on the internet) will change frequently, new ones will pop up that require
some getting used to, but that's just it ... just buckle up and adjust to it.

How people choose to communicate should be up to them, not some arbitrary
lingo police.

------
neutronicus
I consider it significantly less pernicious than "fanboy" and all its
bastardizations and misspellings. I always feel a little warm and fuzzy inside
when someone starts a reply to one of my comments with "This.".

I think its use indicates someone who maybe spends more time arguing on the
internet than writing code or starting businesses or whatever other
incredibly-value-generating things the Platonic Form of Hacker spends his or
her time doing. At steady state, most of the content in any online community
is going to come from that sort of person. Not much use pretending that ain't
what's starting to happen now.

------
dholowiski
Do we really need to waste our time discussing "This."? That's what down-
voting is for.

Ok, my $0.02 - Agreeing with someone isn't contributing to the conversation
and if you can't take the time to think of something original to say, don't
say it (or face the down-vote). It would be nice to have this added to the
"comments" section of the Guidelines.

------
rubikscube
It's better to use grammatically correct and conventionally accepted
statements.

Beginning a response with "I agree" or "Good point" reads pleasantly, without
the nails-on-chalkboard effect of the internet-nerd-herd-mind irritating-and-
head-scratching-to-regular-people nerd-convention of "This".

Stupid nerds. They seem to like to demonstrate how "non-conforming" they are,
but reading sites like this, or worse, reddit, shows how readily they imitate
one big nerd group.

~~~
rubikscube
And the user "mindcrime", commenting elsewhere in this thread, is a fine
specimen for my above points:

    
    
      ... I'm the kind of person who likes doing things 
      differently, just to irk people like you. I don't see
      much value in blind adherence to tradition for
      tradition's sake. I like killing sacred cows, stirring
      the pot...
    
      ... I'm a radically individualistic anarcho-capitalist /
      libertarian / atheist type, so I'm just a touch outside 
      of what you might call mainstream...
    

Oh yes, so "radically individualistic." More like his internet-Dawkins atheism
is keeping him in a perpetual mental state of rebellion, so that he feels the
need to "kill sacred cows" towards people he doesn't even know, by "stirring
the pot." The attitude and nerd-rebellion with grammar is comical.

------
TillE
Can we also stop "fail" as a one-word sentence? I'd appreciate it.

I've stopped participating in any site where the usage of internet memes is
anything above negligible. Reading that crap actually makes _me_ feel
stupider.

~~~
jrockway
That's a shame.

------
dpcan
I hate it when people say "and what not". Oh, and "cool beans" makes me
cringe.

I'm just saying, this is something that really shouldn't be bothering you.
It's a convention of online conversation. It means that someone thinks you've
hit the nail on the head with your point.

Example:

This. And now I'm going to say why I think your idea is cool beans and what
not.

------
sp332
The problems are that upvotes are invisible and anonymous. The website has no
built-in mechanism to tell other people that they should pay attention to a
given post.

~~~
veyron
IIRC the individual posts are sorted by votes so upvoting should be sufficient

~~~
sp332
They're sorted by a weird combo of recentness, upvotes, and lack of downvotes.

There's no way to tell if a 1-hour-old comment has more upvotes than a
30-second-old comment positioned above it on the page.

There's no way to tell if a single comment in a subthread has 0 upvotes or
100. This is the biggest problem, IMHO. Factual statements have no visible
score for correctness.

There's no way to tell if a comment was upvoted for being interesting, or
factually correct.

There's no way to tell if the person who upvoted your comment is the same
person you replied to.

~~~
wickedchicken
Why are you relying on a bunch of random people from the internet to vet
factual accuracy? I'm cool with them finding me interesting things, but that's
about all I'd trust them for.

For example: I use yelp to see when stores are open/closed and if a coffee
shop has wifi. I could care less about the reviews, unless one of them happens
to position a specific deal I'd be interested in.

~~~
mpd
Others' opinions are a litmus test that saves me a lot of time in the long
run. I simply don't have the bandwidth to go deep on everything that hits my
radar.

~~~
wickedchicken
Which is why an 'ambiguous' vote is a good system. It provides you just the
right amount of information: "a lot of people think this is worth your time to
investigate." Nothing more, nothing less.

~~~
mpd
This is only true if 'ambiguous' is synonymous with 'exactly matching my own
criteria'. Usually, it isn't.

------
smackfu
It's a very silly thing to be bothered by. It's just that once you noticed it,
you saw it everywhere, even though it wasn't happening any more or less than
before. And now that you've posted this, it will bother you even more when you
see it, because "they ignored my post dammmit."

In my experience, when I start getting annoyed by anonymous users on web
sites, that's more a reflection on my current state than anything else.

------
justin
I agree, it is extremely irritating. Generally it's the last resort of someone
unable to explain a coherent statement of agreement.

------
lhnz
Agreed but I think your whole post is a karma fishing redditesque 'Does anyone
else' self-post.

------
MartinCron
I wonder if this is a generational divide, I assume that it's something that
gets under my skin because I'm an old guy (35! Gasp!) and I frown on people
using _my_ language in a way that diverges from how I've always used it.

It feels like a sort of Internet-speak affectation (something I know a thing
or two about) that wouldn't show up in spoken language or other forms of
written language. I can see how that would bug people.

~~~
mindcrime
_I wonder if this is a generational divide, I assume that it's something that
gets under my skin because I'm an old guy (35! Gasp!)_

I doubt age has anything to do with it. I'm 38, but I don't dislike the "this"
thing much at all. In fact, I do it myself sometimes.

 _and I frown on people using my language in a way that diverges from how I've
always used it._

See, I'm the kind of person who likes doing things differently, just to irk
people like you. I don't see much value in blind adherence to tradition for
tradition's sake. I like killing sacred cows, stirring the pot, ruffling
feathers, and reminding people that "We've always done it this way" is not a
valid justification (in and of itself) for doing things a certain way.

Then again, I'm a radically individualistic anarcho-capitalist / libertarian /
atheist type, so I'm just a _touch_ outside of what you might call
mainstream...

~~~
MartinCron
"We've always done it this way" is a terrible justification for the status
quo. Absolutely.

To me, it's more like "if you use words in a way that diverges from what
people can reasonably expect, nobody can understand what the fuck you're
saying"

------
kin
In my opinion it's just a commonly used term in which I subconsciously process
as something else. Whenever I read a reply that begins with "This." I instead
hear "I couldn't agree with you more." Typically, the comment doesn't stop
there and the author would elaborate as to why he or she agrees.

Do you just stop reading the comment at the point of "This."? Oftentimes, the
reason justifies use of the word.

------
veyron
What exactly does "This." signify? In terms of magnitude, is it similar to "I
agree" or to "I strongly agree" or to "I vehemently agree"?

~~~
ralmeida
I usually interpret it as "I couldn't agree more."

~~~
sp332
Right, you only use it when the person has completely captured your ideas or
feelings on the subject, and you have nothing left to add.

~~~
philwelch
Then add nothing. Your agreement isn't valuable information.

~~~
ralmeida
That's the OP's point, yes, but parent comment asked for a definition.

------
ccollins
Thank you for bringing this up! Like you, I vehemently recoil when I spot a
"This." in the wild.

To me, "This." == "I am incapable of formulating my own thoughts and therefore
choose to fully agree with whatever that guy above me just said."

------
koenigdavidmj
I don't like it but am more accepting of it when it is followed by a paragraph
or so of useful content that the parent post did not include (for example,
another argument supporting the same conclusion).

------
nikki9696
It's a shorter way to write "I completely agree with you, and I want people to
know it, but I have nothing left to add". Language and expression changes,
especially in the world of Twitter and social media. People want to be part of
a group and express agreement. It's nothing more than a nod, expressed
verbally. I'm not annoyed by people who nod in agreement.

------
pasbesoin
Mixed feelings when it is the precursor to a cogent, interesting comment.
Agree completely to stopping it when it forms the entire content of a comment.

Not displaying points was a careful, considered decision. Live with it.

As an aside, if pg decides he doesn't like comments that consist of (or begin
with) "This.", they would be pretty easy to penalize. ;-)

~~~
Semiapies
How often do you see posts of just "This." that aren't downvoted to gray?

------
angersock
Provided that it is used as a preamble to signify agreement, and that then
this agreement is expanded upon by the author, I do not see any problem with
it.

It's kind of like explicitly using the "this->" or "this." formation in C++ or
Java or what have you: sure, it may seem needlessly verbose, but it usually
doesn't present a major issue when parsing code and can often help make sure
you are in the right area when thinking about things.

"This." is useful, provided that it isn't all that's said.

------
peterwwillis
Nobody should be replying to a thread simply to say they agree/disagree with
it without adding to the discussion - that's what the upvote/downvote buttons
are for. Perhaps a community rule should be added and mods can enforce it.

------
DanBC
This? Again? What happened to the last thread?

------
profitbaron
This was already mentioned a couple of weeks ago:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3153377>

------
spwmoni
This.

~~~
bdesimone
That.

~~~
nikki9696
The other thing.

------
startupcto
What's the point of "This."?

------
mraybman
Maybe it's shorthand for "{this()}" ?

Sorry couldn't resist.

I'm not really bothered by it in the comments, I guess it's kind of a
substitue for "agreed" or "totally".

