

Ask HN: Hacker News Thread Dynamics - joe_the_user

Have you ever noticed an interesting quality of HN. Once a topic gets a lot of posts, the first post on the page determines the discussion: the replies to this posts go before even the second highest rated post and any comment on the raw body goes far, far to the bottom. Is this good? Is this the intended effect?<p>I don't know any easy solution but I think its something to keep in mind.
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CalmQuiet
To me it looks _almost_ like that. I would say that the first "catchy" post
(or maybe first catchy reply) tends (TENDS) to set the tone. No, I doubt that
the effect is intended, but it seems inevitable: a snowballing effect can
occur only around a sufficiently potent idea that gets injected.

Of course, this phenomenon _can_ have the the effect of derailing the central
idea (perhaps your initial concern?), but may we conclude, "There are no
perfect discussion, only great ones?"

Related thought: I've often wondered whether a pop-up summary of the essence
of the originally posted article that is linked would help focus discussion +
(for new news) help visitors know whether the linked material is worth their
visiting. [ For me, often the discussion on YHN is worth 10x what the linked
article was. ]

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alabut
Unfortunately I find it's not quite as simple as the first snappy or good idea
snowballing into the top comment - I've often noticed a good long chain of
replies and discussion get bumped down simply because of the high karma points
of the poster of a top level comment.

The upside of that is that people with higher karma get their voice heard more
easily, which (hopefully) encourages people to slowly build up karma by
contributing good links or comments. Yes there's snowballing but also trolls
get drowned out quicker.

