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Comment by NeutronStar | Hacker News Reader

What did that comment actually bring to the conversation?

Occasionally, very occasionally, it’s nice to read somebody just expressing enthusiasm instead of just posting a clever counter argument. It’s like a spice that you only want a little of but that’s still nice

Eh, I can understand both sides of the fence. 'this is why I read HN' is nothing but a slightly more verbal '+1', but as you stated it does humanize HN and makes it feel more social.

In terms of downvotes, what really irks me and what I often see is people posting factually correct information, but still being sent into faded oblivion because some sect of the community's worldview doesn't agree with the facts.

I don't understand this viewpoint. Information being factually correct is a low bar. I have a lot of factually correct information that is irrelevant or misleading, or that I could state in a way that drags down the level of discourse more than it illuminates truth. Factually correct information is usually involved in tu quoque fallacies, or used to goad people into drawing false, non-sequitur conclusions. The Hacker News guidelines lay out a list of expectations for comments that go beyond factual correctness.

If someone uses factually correct information to make a comment thread worse, I can see how downvotes could be justified.

The fact (heh) that people instantly rammed the downvote button to get what I said to -2 ironically proves my point. Oh well.

"this"

Does that spice go bad if it turns gray?

It encourages others to post more these comments.

Since comment scores was removed this is the only way to signal this to others besides the original commenter.

That said it should not be overused. If it annoys someone I guess they should downvote it but I don't think there is a need to reflexively downvote every time someone adds a friendly meta comment.

(And if people start gaming it for karma farming I guess it should be downvoted relentlessly until that stops :-)

It didn't necessarily bring anything to this one conversation. It did, however, communicate that "this is the type of information that that person finds valuable on Hacker News". And knowing what other people in your social group like to hear/discuss is an important part of keeping that group vibrant and wonderful.

So no, it's probably not as useful as the comment it was referring too, but it was useful (to some of us) as it pertains to the community as a whole.

Conversation.

It's arguably even worse than just commenting "This." At least that is small enough you can scan over it and barely even register its existence. But this fedora-tipping "Thank you kind sir this is the type of Internet Content I enjoy!" doesn't even afford you that luxury.

How could it have been reworded to avoid the "fedora-tipping" connotation?

I'm being sincere here since I also appreciate book recommendations and I get probably half my book recommendations from HN.

I think the point is to instead of using the keyboard, use the mouse to click the up arrow, and leave it at that. (I know how tempting it is to reply quickly to something, I have the urge to just post whats going on my mind right away unfiltered. So I am very forgiving, but not everyone is)

That only tells the person who owns the comment that you appreciate it, with comment scores you're correct that almost all "I like this" comments are wrong, without comment scores then they become useful again.

Worth considering that comment scores were hidden for a reason. Exposing that information to everyone, as opposed to just the comment author, does not necessarily improve the discussion.

I really dislike the downvote function because it reinforces self-censoring. And I completely loathe the implementation of it, you need xxxx upvotes to downvote posts....I have no words.

Well, in opposing it I especially read the faded comments and upvote any of those that are not completely abhorrent.

Take that, ycombinator.

>I especially read the faded comments and upvote

This seems to happen a lot more frequently here than anywhere else.

I'm not really sure what that says, other than people still read comments that are faded. Also that people shouldn't worry about self-censoring.

I don't have a problem with downvotes or the karma needed to do it, but

I do sometimes wish it were possible to reply to a dead comment, especially if you vouch for it and it's still dead.

Sometimes they're worth defending, or is relevant in a non-obvious way, and sometimes the comment itself is discussion worthy, as it relates to the topic, even if it's wrong or seems trollish.

This sort of comment is why I still read HN!

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