
Ask HN: Why does HN lower the contrast of downvoted comments? - Siira
This makes it really hard to read the said comment, and makes me have an urge to skip the eye-straining comments. A simple downvote count or a red circle that gets more opaque can convey the same information, without making the comments hard to read.<p>PS: The top level posts in Tell HN and Ask HN have lower contrasts, too. Why&#x27;s that?<p>PPS: HN should really have a way to enlarge the site with wrapping. Not everyone&#x27;s eyes are 20&#x2F;20, and not everyone is using big screens.
======
detaro
> _makes me have an urge to skip the eye-straining comments._

That's the point of it I think.

> _The top level posts in Tell HN and Ask HN have lower contrasts, too. Why 's
> that?_

Similar reasoning as far as I know: HN should be primarily used for link
submissions, so they make text posts less nice to use. (They also get a
ranking penalty applied, and URLs don't get autolinked)

> _HN should really have a way to enlarge the site with wrapping. Not everyone
> 's eyes are 20/20, and not everyone is using big screens._

I personally use the browser zoom at 120 % on some machines. Although I guess
that's not an option on mobile, where browsers somehow don't have that the
same way. But HN is generally not that mobile friendly ...

As always, if you want authoritative answers, email the mods to ask.

~~~
Siira
> That's the point of it I think.

That's kind of censorship. It encourages groupthink. I really don't like it.
Has there not been discussions of it in the past?

~~~
stephenr
Yes it is; yes it does; and yes it has.

AFAIK the official word is that the powers that be believe downvotes on hn
“work as intended”.

------
yesenadam
Use this bookmarklet to see all greyed out comments on a page as black again:

javascript:(function(){var i,x=document.querySelectorAll(".commtext");for
(i=0;i<x.length;i++) x[i].className='commtext c00'})();

p.s. No, I don't think red circles or having to read downvote counts
constantly would be better. I think it's better than silently removing
comments - you can still read them if you really want. But 99.9% of whited out
comments aren't very soul-embiggening.

Re your other comment, there seem to have been many discussions of everything
in the past.

~~~
Siira
Thanks! I get fairly surprised by how handy JS bookmarklets can be, like when
I was not experienced with Unix scripting. :-) Would you mind taking a look at
this [question]([https://stackoverflow.com/questions/61973488/js-
bookmarklets...](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/61973488/js-bookmarklets-
increase-decrease-sites-font-size))?

------
DoreenMichele
FWIW, if you click on the direct link to the comment, it shows up as black
again in its own screen.

