
Ask HN: Why can’t HN commenters stay on topic, on any given post? - webwanderings
The pattern has been consistent for a while. At any given time, and at any given topic. A post’s topic would be ‘A’ but the crowd here would never have a straight up comment stream on that exact topic. Why must comments diverge all the time from the topic at hand when staying on topic is exactly what one can do online in concise manner?  Doesn’t this render the value of comments useless?  If any given post&#x2F;article can stay on specific topic (which it most certainly does almost all the time) then why can’t the collective group of people do the same, particularly when the technology is specifically designed to achieve that goal?<p>I don’t mean to start a flame war over the so called pathetic nature of commenting in general on the web, but HN is the last place one should expect to see such a behavior (but we do).  What can be done to bring the focus back on quality so everyone’s time can be spent on reading comments on topics on any given post?
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skh
I think this is a product of how humans think in general. A topic may remind
someone of a related topic and then that gets brought up. Someone may say
something that isn’t quite right and it gets pointed out that’s wrong. But
then there will be some nuance to that point and now you’re discussing the
nuance.

A great example of this is the fact that when I read your post I was reminded
of my biggest complaint about HN and was about to write what that is. It’s
very hard to stay on point. Here’s an example of a type of interaction that
illustrates this.

There are a number of times that I’ve responded to someone to point out what I
think is an error. People will then assume what my opinion on the topic is and
comment. My comment, logically speaking, didn’t imply any beliefs on my part.
I just pointed out something that is wrong. But we sometimes tend to make
assumptions on what someone says about that person based on past interactions
or media influence. And then things start to deviate.

I don’t think anything can be done about this. I think it would make HN too
sterile if something were done about it. This phenomenon is part of us being
social beings.

~~~
webwanderings
> I think this is a product of how humans think in general.

Yes, that's exactly what I am questioning. Why does it have to be exactly the
same when we are online, as opposed to being in person?

A submitted article, opinion piece (or news, etc, anywhere) is almost always
on a particular topic or main idea. Who would consistently and daily read an
author who goes all over in his/her thinking on any given article? There is
almost always a "point" of any given article and the submitted story. Why then
the comment stream goes all over?

> I don’t think anything can be done about this.

Well I don't know if I agree entirely. If nothing else, people can stay silent
if they don't necessarily have anything in particular to say about the topic
at hand (expert or somewhat expert opinion or additional info). Staying silent
wouldn't necessarily lead things to 'too sterile'. This can possibly be
achieved by being cognizant and conscious.

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mindcrime
_Doesn’t this render the value of comments useless?_

I don't find it so.

 _If any given post /article can stay on specific topic (which it most
certainly does almost all the time) then why can’t the collective group of
people do the same, particularly when the technology is specifically designed
to achieve that goal?_

I reject the premise that _" the technology is specifically designed to
achieve that goal"_. I believe a good conversation _does_ branch out and lead
one into a myriad to topics, where those topics relate back to the primary
topic.

If conversations here were routinely jumping to something _completely_
unrelated, then I could see your point. But I don't feel like I see that, at
least not in the conversations I participate in.

~~~
webwanderings
My point is that a thread (topic) + comment mechanism provides a feature for
humans to stay consistent at any given time. You have a submission box and you
have a comment box. That's what I specifically mean by 'technology is designed
to achieve that goal'.

> I believe a good conversation does branch out and lead one into a myriad to
> topics

If you look at this from your personal/individual perspective, then yes,
that's no issue. But look at it from the perspective of the platform and the
audience as a collective whole. The "branching out" leads to reduction in
quality for everyone (may not necessarily so for one or two people who are
engaged on the branched out topic). People who are not engaged, may not
necessarily achieve anything if there are tons of branches under one topic.

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krapp
You have to consider that the purpose of a forum is to have a discussion, not
to post articles, dissertations and theses at each other. That most comments
carry low relative intellectual gravity is a feature, not a bug. Comments
don't exist to provide "value", they exist to facilitate communication between
posters.

And it's a fundamental aspect of the threaded nature of the forum that
comments deviate from the central topic and become more narrowly focused and
relevant to fewer posters as a branch diverges. I supposed if they switched to
a purely linear format, where every comment was explicitly to the OP, then
that might focus threads more, but they would also be less interesting.

~~~
webwanderings
All good points.

But why 'less interesting' when comments are meant to be explicit to the OP?

Wouldn't the fact that there are ample opportunities to post diverse topics
through multiple individual posts, provides even more ample opportunities to
comment in-context on each one of them individually?

Contrast this to an offline world scenario, where let's say, you are in a
setting with limited time on your hand. Your conversation (on any given
topics) will start and end at some point because you are not going to be
around together for long. In such offline contexts, you naturally may have
various continuous topics to discuss and it is fine if things diverge.

But online, you technically do not have such time restrictions. Plus, you have
a platform which facilitates contextual discussions which can stay neat and
tidy. My argument here is, that we tend to not take advantage of the real
value of the online forums (by being all over, as if we are not going to get
the second opportunity).

I tend to think that the concise comments online, on an exact topic at hand,
provide collective value, as opposed to diverged sentences or two. This does
not mean that 100 people would write counter-article and/or dissertation on
the OP (that would really be boring for sure). But instead of 100 short and
diverged comments, 5 focused comments (counter, etc) are better overall in
providing better value for the time.

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yesenadam
>What can be done to bring the focus back on quality so everyone’s time can be
spent on reading comments on topics on any given post?

I don't at all share your assumption that quality=strictly on topic.

>Doesn’t this render the value of comments useless?

Do you think it does? Well..I guess you're in a very small minority there.

Maybe start a new site where there's a penalty for commenting off-topic? You
can be the judge of that - I suppose someone will have to be.

If someone comments more generally, philosophically, 'a level up', is that
off-topic? If someone comments on one tiny part of the topic, is that off-
topic? I suspect one person's off-topic is another's insightful comment.

~~~
webwanderings
As an OP, I'm engaged in this topic (you can look at my other comments on the
primary thread).

I'd provide a comment back to your comment here but two of your first
sentences fall into the category of ... not providing any direct value to my
original comment. In your first comment you disagree with me. Fine. In your
second comment, you are asking a question to a question, and then you judge me
back. There's nothing I can say about this.

WRT to your third sentence/paragraph, about ..

> If someone comments more generally, philosophically, 'a level up', is that
> off-topic? If someone comments on one tiny part of the topic, is that off-
> topic? I suspect one person's off-topic is another's insightful comment.

I agree with you above. It is a subjective matter for sure. But you probably
missed my point about this question asked as collective whole. If you look at
things individually, then yes, it makes sense what you're saying. But I am
asking this question from the collective-whole perspective. It isn't about one
or two person. It is about everyone, looking at things from the platform's
perspective. I tend to think, all comments (short form or long form) if they
are on topic, provide value to the post at hand.

~~~
yesenadam
>In your first comment you disagree with me

Well, I was saying "You are making an assumption here that I don't think is
justified. Anecdata: I for one don't believe it." The way you were writing,
you didn't seem to realize you were making that assumption, but that it was
the plain truth, so I was letting you know.

>In your second comment, you are asking a question to a question

Your question seemed to be rhetorical, i.e. you were assuming that being off-
topic renders comments valueless. If it wasn't rhetorical - No, I really don't
think "off-topic" comments are valueless. (Besides that being not a clear-cut
category, value on one side of the line, valueless on the other)

>all comments (short form or long form) if they are on topic, provide value to
the post at hand.

Well, that's doesn't seem tru either - quite a few are downvoted and flagged
for being abhorrent, or devoid of value etc. Maybe you get value from each and
every on-topic comment. But that's different from what you were saying
earlier, which is assuming that quality=on-topic and off-topic=valueless, and
asking what to do about that problem. I was questioning your assumptions,
because they don't sound right to me. (e.g. The only good response to "What do
we do about the aliens making crop circles?" is to question the assumptions
made.)

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luckylion
Tbh, I don't see most articles staying on topic. They'd be much shorter if
they did not add the human angle, some backstory, and that time somebody did
something that hilariously failed but led to whatever somebody is writing
about today.

And how do you even decide what's on topic and what's not? Is pointing out
some flaw of some pattern on topic for an article that says "this pattern has
this great advantage", or is only that advantage and its greatness on topic?
I'm pretty sure the perceived width of any topic varies between readers, so
others might not consider that same things off topic that you do.

~~~
webwanderings
There is almost always a main idea to any given topic (it starts and ends by
saying something specific).

> And how do you even decide what's on topic and what's not?

Good point. But in general, one can sense an overall picture emerge out of a
comment stream. As you scroll and read comments, you can tell when the stream
provides value or not. My point here is, that when people do not stay
consistent to the original topic, the value of the comment stream goes down.
And here, I'm not talking about comments being totally out of context of any
given original topic. Even a slight divergence leads to unnecessary path down
the road.

~~~
luckylion
You are right about there being a main idea. And then there's all the off
topic-stuff that surrounds that main idea and makes the article long enough to
be considered an article ;)

The value of comments are very subjective. To you, they might not be valuable,
to me they might be (depending on my mood, maybe).

When talking about things, especially with people you don't know and without
all the non-verbal side-info, you'll often have to agree on what you actually
mean with some term you're using, and off you go from an article about any
topic to a discussion of not-really-related things.

I don't have the impression that people just jump to very off topic things,
but then again, you might be reading totally different submissions on HN based
on your interests vs what I click on. Maybe if you gave some examples of low-
value off-topic-discussions, it'd be clearer.

~~~
webwanderings
How about an example of say, someone shows something new on HN, and the number
of commenters providing alternate services, line up? I guess the 'shameless-
plug' types are fine (because they provide value) but my point still would be,
why not just discuss the pros and cons of what is being shared?

Or, another example may be. It has been consistent, that whenever a thread
starts up about any given password managers, the discussion right away diverge
to myriad of other password generators. Back in the days, it used to be about
bookmarks managers.

I agree that this is a subjective topic in itself. My main concern is that as
the number of people commenting gets large, the value being derived out of any
post, gets challenging. My argument here is, that this should have been
potentially managed better online.

~~~
luckylion
It sounds like you're weighing depth vs width in comment sections. By depth I
mean "more detail on this single thing", by width I mean "more over an
overview of things like this single thing". Maybe you can tag users
accordingly, and ignore comments based on the "this user tends to go wide, not
deep"-score. Would be something to show (and get annoyed with endless possible
alternatives mentioned in the comments ;).

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arcticwombat
Did you know that that the average cruising airspeed velocity of an unladen
European Swallow is roughly 11 meters per second, or 24 miles an hour?

------
zzzcpan
/newcomments is probably contributing to this behavior. As comments there are
out of context and people jump to respond within the context each specific
comment brings, not the story.

