

Ask PG:Let us know when someone has replied to a comment? - 10dpd

I've noticed a lot of hanging threads on HN, where the thread just seems to stop mid-conversation. This occurs not so much on front page, popular threads, but on the vast long tail of posts. Providing a mechanism to let me know that someone has replied to a comment I've made would probably raise engagement.
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nickbarnwell
This functionality used to be provided by notifio, a YC company that went out
of business. There is now HNNotify [1] for this.

[1] <http://hnnotify.com/>

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brudgers
The "threads" link lets a person review their posts and see if anyone has
responded. However, in my experience, there's rarely any continuation of the
conversation following my delayed responses, i.e. if I respond to a response
that's two hours old, odds are that the person to whom I responded will not
respond back.

In addition, a mechanism which notifies people when they haven't had the last
word probably would be detrimental to the overall tenor of HN.

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ColinWright
For replies to your comments or submissions there is HN_Notify:
<http://hnnotify.com/>

_Edit: I see nickbarnwell beat me to it, but I'll upvote his reply and let
mine stand anyway._

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chrislomax
Drives me mental this, I dislike having to go over conversations to find if
someone has replied or if someone replies to a previous comment than my last
ones I end up going through them all. I don't really want an email whenever
someone replies but rather some type of notification when I visit the site.

Emails are intrusive in my eyes and clutter my inbox, I just want to be told
when someone has replied when I visit the site.

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semicolondev
I will not strongly favor a notification mechanism, I like hn because I
consume this website and not the opposite. Notifications kind of create an
urge to respond quickly which may not be necessary in most cases. However,
adding optional setting in profile page would respect both who want to be
notified and those who don't.

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mnicole
I go to HN because it isn't just a random news site with laypeople commenting
on tech they don't understand; it's an aggregated news site with commentary
from the exact people I want that commentary from. I've found myself not
bothering to ask questions I want to ask because no one will see it after a
certain amount of time despite the fact that threads that are over a year old
end up on the front page.

Additionally, it sucks having to click two times (User > Comments) just to see
if someone's responded every few minutes/hours. I've got better things to do.
Notifications are a passive feature; you can choose to ignore them or turn
them off, but I think they are vital to sites that tout their userbase and the
intelligence therein. You could almost say Reddit's success can be hinged on
the orangereds.

