
Propose HN: 'Countless' experiment – hiding all karmic integers - floatingatoll
I&#x27;d like HN to experiment with a &quot;countless&quot; view of the site for a week. As in: all
vote, karma, and comment counts are removed from all pages sitewide.
An example of this idea is here: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;i.imgur.com&#x2F;OzE8qgq.png" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;i.imgur.com&#x2F;OzE8qgq.png</a><p>I suggest this as a mandatory-for-all sitewide test, as otherwise the
compulsion to see integer counts (such as karma) will fork HN into two
distinct communities operating within the same shared space. I believe
that this experiment is valuable only if everyone participates, and
since the data will remain present on the back end, no harm is done to
anyone&#x27;s preferred integers of choice while the experiment is underway.<p>I believe this would be a good experiment for HN as I worry that HN is
unintentionally causing addictive feedback loops with its pervasive
use of counts.
Counts are already today hidden in scenarios where the admins
seem to have determined that people behave more appropriately when
they are unable to see a precise integer ranking of other&#x27;s approval.
I&#x27;d like to give the HN community a chance to experience the value of
HN without the pressure of integer-ranking altogether.<p>The voting algorithms need not be modified for this experiment, as we
already are able to flag comments and posts effectively without being
able to see how many flags are present. The front-page links that say
whether comments are present or not would simply be replaced with the
word &#x27;discuss&#x27; to remove the pressure to &#x27;be seen&#x27; participating in
posts, permitting one&#x27;s interest in the post and&#x2F;or topic to become
the sole determining factor for participation.<p>I hope that HN is willing to entertain and implement this experiment and am curious to hear how the community feels about the idea.
======
DoreenMichele
_permitting one 's interest in the post and/or topic to become the sole
determining factor for participation._

An awful lot of people here are more interested in the comments than the
articles per se. Plenty of people read the comments first and then decide if
they want to read the article. Many people participate in discussion without
ever reading the article. (There are both good ways and bad ways to do that.)

If you are relating to the site in a particular manner and not happy with it,
I suggest you do a private experiment to try to find some new way to interact
with the site.

If you want to "offer" people the chance to experience this, I suggest you
code up something that lets people try this.

------
johnmaguire2013
When browsing the titles of Hacker News, I look at the vote and comment count
to determine whether an article is high quality or not. I am not sure how I
would filter the signal from the noise without this.

~~~
localhostdotdev
you could use
[https://news.ycombinator.com/over?points=200](https://news.ycombinator.com/over?points=200)
or maybe the experiment could allow opt-out

~~~
heavenlyblue
But you can use that one to then brute-force the points for every story.

~~~
localhostdotdev
not so easy for lower scores :)

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JoshTriplett
> The front-page links that say whether comments are present or not would
> simply be replaced with the word 'discuss'

Please do not do this. This makes HN far less convenient to browse.

I regularly use the "N comments" information to find discussions worth
reading. This has nothing to do with "being seen", it has to do with quickly
finding interesting comments. The front-page screenshot you show completely
removes that signal.

For a similar example, consider how many email clients show you, without
opening the mail, when it was sent and whether it has an attachment. This
information helps with prioritization and processing, particularly when you
have many emails. Comment counts, and to some degree story scores, serve a
similar function, for people who are never going to read every story on even
one viewing of the front page.

I go to HN, I open a few stories and comment sections in tabs based on a
combination of title, comments, and score, then close the front page and start
reading.

This isn't similar to the removal of scores from comments. For those, users
were already on a page full of comments, comments themselves are relatively
short and shown inline, and even without scores they're still reasonably
sorted by some HN-internal metric of interestingness, making it possible to
just read downwards and stop when your expected value of further comments
doesn't seem worth the time of continuing.

Removing comment counts and scores from stories, on the other hand, makes the
front page _far_ less usable.

To look at this from another perspective: consider the myriad stories and
discussions here on HN, about Facebook and Twitter and similar trying
desperately to get their users to read content they _don 't want to read_.
"Let's stop sorting timelines reverse-chronological. Let's show random things
from people you don't follow. Let's make it impossible to figure out where you
left off. Let's make it so when you refresh (or click-then-go-back) you get
completely different content and can't find the tweet you just saw a moment
ago." No, stop, don't.

~~~
intended
But that would be part of the point - a barrier to interrupt the ‘addictive’
aspect of a website.

~~~
JoshTriplett
If you make HN less usable, people will certainly spend less time on it.

That argues for an _option_ , similar to the noprocrast options, not a site-
wide change.

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jeethsuresh
I took 5 minutes and wrote this as a userscript:

// ==UserScript==

// @name Remove HN Scores

// @version 1

// @grant none

// ==/UserScript==

nodes = document.querySelectorAll(".score"); for (x = 0; x < nodes.length;
x++) { nodes[x].remove()}

~~~
localhostdotdev
css version tested with stylus:

    
    
        .score { display: none } /* stories and own comments */
        .pagetop { color: transparent !important; } /* hide karma top right (also hides username and logout) */
        #me, #logout { color: black } /* show username and logout */
        #hnmain > tbody > tr:nth-child(3) > td > form > table > tbody > tr:nth-child(3):not(.athing) { display: none } /* own profile */
        #hnmain > tbody > tr:nth-child(3) > td > table > tbody > tr:nth-child(3):not(.athing) { display: none } /* other user profile */
    

I don't think it could easily be truly hidden but a css experiment might be
interesting.

~~~
jeethsuresh
Nice! I don't use stylus, but it's definitely good to have options for those
who do

------
rossenberg79
If this really is what you want then I propose eliminating usernames entirely.
Just enter a password to log in if you want some continuity.

People rarely refer to each other by name here. It’s not important. Only
content is important. Besides, a username in no way verifies your identity,
you can say you are whoever you want to be.

~~~
ansible
There are some consistently good commenters whose usernames I recognize. I
will give anything they say slightly more weight than a random stranger.

So usernames are useful to me.

~~~
eps
And that's the real problem with HN discussions!

HN already boosts comments from high-karma users. Then people like yourself
come in, see them and boost them further because of the poster rather than the
content, so the top of every discussion is perpetually filled with the same
names.

If anything, a good experiment would be to obscure the usernames and then see
if "good commenters" still get the same share of votes - this time based on
the actual contents rather than their glorious posting history. It this
happens to be true, bring back the usernames. If not, then see how to remedy
this.

~~~
dang
> HN already boosts comments from high-karma users

That's not true. That is, if you're talking about the HN software, it does
nothing like that. Ranking algorithms don't look at karma. Karma is used for
things like spam filter exemptions and turning on flagging (at > 30) and
downvoting (at > 500).

------
_bxg1
I definitely find myself having an addictive experience here; the dopamine
rush from having an opinion validated is similar to what others may feel on
Instagram or the like. Sometimes I refresh compulsively, hoping to see an
integer go up.

I don't really see a point to include the number of comments in this omission
though; I don't see how that would create a dopamine loop for anyone, and it
seems to be the main thing that commenters in this thread are averse to
losing.

------
brudgers
Writing a browser extension hiding 'karma' might be a way to explore your
theory without a dependency on anyone else working. A blog post or maybe a
'Show HN' could be used to share your experiences with the larger community.
The dynamics would be opt-in. Such an experiment would clarify the problem of
page position as a proxy for karma, i.e. the role of karma moving items up and
down the page.

~~~
bichiliad
Perhaps, but I think a lot of the power of an experiment like this would be to
see what topics get voted up without the visual indication of karma (aside
from the fact that it's on the front page, of course). You can only really get
that with a critical mass of people using the plugin, or with buy-in from the
site implementer.

------
zzo38computer
I can do without the vote and karma numbers, but comment numbers are important
(mainly in order to see whether or not there are any comments, and if there
are a lot of comments; not to determine whether or not the article itself is
worth anything, which is something that the reader must decide for himself).

If some users want those numbers visible and some not, one way to do is to add
<span class="karma"> around those numbers in order that users can hide them if
they want to do.

------
dangrossman
This experiment was run 10 years ago.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=844979](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=844979)

------
mkl
I think this is a terrible idea.

It would drastically reduce the value of the site for me. Titles on HN are
often not very clear, especially with the policy of removing editorialising by
using the site's own title (which is often pretty meaningless out of context).
The vote count is very important for guiding the limited time I can spend on
the site.

------
chuckschemer
you'll have more luck with a chrome extension. this place will never do such a
thing. "they know best", they will never change from an outside suggestion.

in case you haven't noticed the forum culture is not flexible. hn is a very
specifically flawed lens to the world. they're not about to "fix" anything
because "nothing is broken"

they will patiently explain to you why you're wrong, then get on with being
the unchanging same thing they are.

a funny paradox. a non innovating lens onto a "highly innovative" part of the
world.

~~~
dang
We actually suggested to floatingatoll that he post this submission, as part
of an email conversation we were having. I'm not closed to trying experiments
like this.

Would you please stop creating all these accounts and, especially, stop
breaking the site guidelines on a regular basis? That's something we actually
do feel strongly about.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

