

New: Initial text in discussions - pg

Now when you post a question for discussion, you can supply some additional explanation that will show up here at the top of the discussion page.  I'm not 100% sure this is a feature.  The previous version at least forced people to be brief.  We'll see how things go.
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waleedka
Before this people usually submitted a comment to explain their question, and
that comment ends up pushed down the list and new users lose the context of
the discussion. So, I think it's a feature.

Another way it can be implemented is by pinning the very first comment to the
top if it was submitted by the same user. That way you keep the form simple
with two text fields only.

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pg
Hmm, interesting idea. The trouble with that plan, though, is that it would be
unclear whether to reply to that comment, or to the question. So you'd end up
with a weird ragged discussion.

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Jd
If one is pinning the comment to the top already, one could easily remove the
reply link to that comment.

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pg
Yes, true. But do I also remove the vote link? Presumably. Then I have to
remove it wherever it occurs, meaning I have to add a field to the obj saying
that it's a special top-comment. And what about deletion? Lots o code.

Whereas all I'm doing here is exposing the text field that was in submissions
already, since underneath they're the same kind of obj as comments.

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Keios
PG, I think this is useful for your current setup.

But I think this whole 'bubble popular stuff up' is a tad off. Its too binary,
IMO humans aren't all that binary - not all of us anyway. How about you use
sliders so people can rate stuff more subjectively and you can also use
relative font sizes to size up stuff which is more popular and reduce the font
size on stuff that isn't. This does not mean that the text becomes too big or
too small - its just a subtle change.

This will allow you to disable this whole bubbling scheme and keep things in a
natural chronological order while making it easy to spot popular stuff without
adding any cognitive load.

Finally, a discussion board must really have a feature that shows all 'unread'
or 'updates since your last post' threads in bold or some sort of
highlighting. While news.ycombinator implements the unread piece it would be
helpful if it highlighted updated threads also.

How can I be sure you read this comment?

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maxklein
Binary is good. Do I rate your comment above a 6 or a 7? What does 7 mean to
the next guy, and is it the same as it means to me? Up down is good because I
only vote when I feel strongly about it.

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Keios
maxklien,

1.My own perspective is that it does not matter whether it is a 6 or a 7 and
who interprets it how. That is the whole point of a subjective system it is
not objective.

2\. I believe subjective systems should not use numbers or other notations and
therefore I suggest a slider not 10 radio buttons or a rating system.

3\. I do not imply that the binary/objective system is no good. It is good for
some applications, I would just prefer a more subjective measure around things
which incorporate human opinion.

:)

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Jd
Actually from a standpoint of diagramming human intellectual output, both
reddit and YC do poorly. Even so, I can't think of any simple mathematical
processes that would be better. Systems dealing with human beings must take
into account intangibles and not attempt to reduce human beings to machines.
This is the fundamental flaw of the Turing project.

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chmike
Is it possible to add clickable URL links in this comment ? Beeing able to add
an clickable image would be great too. Just a small image not higher than this
edit box.

You know the saying an image is worth a thousand words. ,-)

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henning
this is something I've wished reddit had from the very beginning.

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dfranke
Reddit didn't even have comments from the very beginning :-). Ah, the
nostalgia...

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steve
I like it.

