Ask HN: Why are hackernews comments so off topic? - nashequilibrium
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simonblack
The manufacture of bicycles in third-world countries appears to be on the
increase.

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ChrisGranger
I feel like any online discussion forum without active moderation [to force
comments to be on-topic] will inevitably have threads that stray off-topic. If
a particular comment irks you, at least you have the downvote option.

I do think off-topic comments can still contribute valuable information and
insight provided they're not _unreasonably_ off-topic. Tangential
conversations, as krapp mentioned... everyone is going to approach a topic
from their own unique perspective.

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nashequilibrium
I wonder if there is a way to add a penalty to comments off topic, not to
affect a uses karma but just the comment ranking.

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krapp
I think (since this sort of thing is weirdly relevant to my interests) that
the problem isn't the threads going off topic, but that there's no effort
required to see those threads. Because the topics of threads are relevant to
the people participating in that discussion, just not necessarily to people
viewing the topic from the root, penalizing those comments, to me, seems
counterproductive unless the comments are obviously trolling or completely
unrelated to the point.

That said, I think dang has mentioned penalizing off-topic comments before so
it does seem like something they can do.

This may be solved by folding the threads by default. Presumably, the root
comments are addressing the original post directly, so they will be the most
on topic. But requiring users to take the (minimal) effort of opening a
subthread to view it means only people who are interested in reading further
will ever read it. Currently, having to scroll past and ignore threads you're
not interested in appears to be causing a lot of friction.

Since the staff has mentioned wanting to add thread folding anyway, mentioning
this is kind of moot i suppose.

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krapp
Threaded commenting systems encourage tangential conversations, so each
comment becomes in essence the root of its own thread, and the deeper you go,
the more the context deviates from the original topic.

Also, due to /comments, it's entirely possible to start a thread from
somewhere in the middle rather than the top.

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jermo
If you assume they are so off topic what makes you think you'll get answers
here on topic?

Sorry, that was off topic. I think one of the reasons is the points system.
You can still get upvotes/karma for comments off topic. And it is easier to
write something when you're not restricted to a topic.

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mod
Because often the most interesting contribution is something off-topic.

If that were the case, I'd still make the contribution. I don't blame those
that do.

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partisan
Because people don't read the source links before responding.

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minimaxir
Any specific examples?

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anmonteiro90
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8620479](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8620479)

