Ask HN: Why can't we comment on [dead] posts?
Did this behavior change recently? I recall being able to reply to existing comments on [dead] posts recently, but now that capability seems to have been removed.
These actions seem anti-user. If the post is already dead, no new comments can be made on the post, which is bad enough, but could be justified for moderation purposes. However, why can’t we reply to [live] comments, simply because the post they are attached to is [dead]? It’s bad enough that old [live] posts get locked, basically freezing them in carbonite, a state indistinguishable from death only in that it wasn’t triggered by user behavior.
A related issue is that downvoted replies with upvoted children may be collapsed or [dead] even if the downthread discussion is of higher quality than other top level comments.
Maybe make it so that user flags have to select a checkbox/radio button reason for the flag or fill in a text box? Would probably not help the issue in title, but slashdot’s vote reasons and meta-moderation system captured a lot of user interaction intent that few platforms have revisited. Emoji reactions would maybe be the closest thing I’ve seen lately.
Thoughts, suggestions for more thoughtful interactions on HN?
Maybe send this question to hn@ycombinator.com with examples of the posts you can't comment on?
Here’s an example:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44065795
I often email, but this time I opted to have the conversation in public, so that both mods and users could participate and discuss on equal footing.
That's a flagged dead post? Those have been closed to new comments as far back as I can remember.
I’m not talking about new top level comments on a [dead] post. Those have always been closed. I’m talking about new replies to live comments on a [dead] post. Those were possible until relatively recently. I don’t remember any notice of this change, or reasoning/justification for such change, which has now clearly occurred.
I haven't noticed this but maybe you can find out by emailing the mods.
I’m sure that I could, and I could faithfully transcribe their reply, and you’d just have to take my word for it. Why would I want to insert myself as an intermediary between the moderators and the community that they moderate?
It’s you who’s asking, not the community? Like, insertion already happened - most meta posts aren’t interesting to most people which is why the convention is to address them to the people who can answer them.
I’m asking because I noticed the change and was curious if anyone else on HN had noticed. I’m sure that the mods would notice in such a case, so that confirmation or denial would only provide authoritativeness to the answer, and such a valid answer would yet bring us no closer to the truth we seek, which is the awareness and impact of such knowledge on the community. By posing the question as I have, we get the confirmation for free, but by posing it your way, we could bring more heat than light to the discussion through the indirection.
Right but there's no 'we' here. You made up the 'we'. The person interested in this is you. It's not even clear the thing you think is happening is happening. You can just ask and if something did happen and you think it's important, you could try telling everyone maybe? Pretty much the premise behind 'mail the mods', no?
> Right but there's no 'we' here. You made up the 'we'. The person interested in this is you. It's not even clear the thing you think is happening is happening. You can just ask and if something did happen and you think it's important, you could try telling everyone maybe? Pretty much the premise behind 'mail the mods', no?
We're all interested in this by virtue of discussing it. It's clear the thing that happened did happen independently of my beliefs about it. Your comments verge on gaslighting mixed with solipsism and are definitely not steelmanning my points here. I think it's important, or I wouldn't have made my post. Considering your long history on the site, and obvious familiarity with the guidelines, I would consider your argumentative style in this thread to be in bad faith.
We're all interested in this by virtue of discussing it.
No, I don't think that's true at all. It's the whole premise of a crowdsourced/curated forum, that there is some 'we' that is not, in fact, interested in 'everything' - hence the curation, the votes, the rules, the moderation, the non-infinite-scrolling front page.
It's clear the thing that happened did happen independently of my beliefs about it
You should find out how clear that is by asking the people who can clarify it. That's all.
>> We're all interested in this by virtue of discussing it.
> No, I don't think that's true at all. It's the whole premise of crowdsourced/curated forum, that there is some 'we' that is not, in fact, interested in 'everything' - hence the curation, the votes, the rules, the moderation, the non-infinite-scrolling front page.
Yes, I was speaking inclusively of those people who have affirmatively expressed interest, whether it be via upvoting or commenting. Disagreement about the post or other engagement counts as expressing interest for the purposes of this discussion. We, as in you (pvg) and I (aspenmayer), specifically are interested in this post by dint and by virtue of discussing it, because it hasn't been dismissed out of hand.
>> It's clear the thing that happened did happen independently of my beliefs about it
> You should find out how clear that is by asking the people who can clarify it. That's all.
I am asking the people who can clarify it (HN moderators) on the site they moderate (Hacker News). HN mods are HN users also.
If you're not interested in my comments, you aren't obligated to reply if you can't be constructive and curious. I can't speak to your intent, but the effect you are having on me is anything but that. In polite conversation like HN, your intent matters, but the effects of your communication matter, also. It feels to me like you're concern trolling, ostensibly on behalf of HN, but that's not really consistent with the guidelines' admonition to encourage posts that increase in curiosity as they progress. This is not meant as a personal jab at you, as I do think of you positively on this site, and yet, to not mention how I feel you're coming across would be unfair to you.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troll_(slang)#Concern_troll
> [Concern trolls] profess a commitment to social change for ideals of justice, equality, and opportunity, and then abstain from and discourage all effective action for change. They are known by their brand, 'I agree with your ends but not your means'.
In the absence of any clear guideline on the protocol for asking HN users (including mods, who are users first) about their experience of using HN, I know of no better venue for my question.
Like, just assume that I emailed them also, or instead, and that I'm sharing it after the fact, if it helps you to relate to my post in good faith on the merits any post which is on-topic and within guidelines, like mine, deserves.
In the absence of any clear guideline on the protocol
'Send meta questions to the mods' is all over the guidelines and countless mod comments over the years.
>> In the absence of any clear guideline on the protocol
> 'Send meta questions to the mods' is all over the guidelines and countless mod comments over the years.
I am sending my meta question to the mods and users via the submit post text box. If I sent an email, it wouldn't work, because then only the mods would get my email. I don't understand if you're intentionally misunderstanding my aims and goals with my post, but I've made every effort to help you understand why I posted instead of emailed, as my goal was to have a conversation with the entire HN community, not just one subsection of it. There was simply no other way to structure my post so that it would satisfy you, I guess. I don't mean to be dismissive, I really don't know what you expect me to do with your replies in this thread. I can only assume you don't like people questioning things around here.
I am sending my meta question to the mods and users via the submit post text box.
The site rules and conventions ask you not to do that, very straightforwardly and have for years. It's a trivial thing and you've written walls of text calling me names, making weird assumptions about my motives, etc, etc. It simply isn't true that there is 'an absence of protocol'. Perhaps you were unaware of it. Now you are, and you're right, this is a great place to wrap up.
fairly sure you never could comment on [dead] posts. [flagged] is a separate state from [flagged][dead] though, and then you can still comment.
I'm referring specifically to replying to live comments on [dead] posts, which was possible until quite recently. So recently, that when I tried to do it yesterday, I noticed the change.
If you email hn@ycombinator.com with a thoughtful discussion that is below a dead comment, dang can detach it so the discussion can be better seen. (If you have showdead on, you can expand dead collapsed comments, and get to the discussion below, but most people don't and won't.)
As far as dead posts... I don't remember whether we used to be able to comment on them or not.
Detaching posts is also used as a moderation tactic to bury posts, which is also anti-user, and it also breaks context and parent-child relationships. It’s not really a workable solution to the problems it purports to solve, in my opinion.
> As far as dead posts... I don't remember whether we used to be able to comment on them or not.
We did, and I have done so often. If I had to guess, this change occurred in the last month or two.
If it changed, maybe the reason is because it was deemed an attractive nuisance.
Sometimes community is the high bit, not the user.
If we’re the high bit, why are changes affecting the entire community shoved through on the down-low? A moderation log and changelog announcing changes to how the site works would improve transparency and increase trust and accountability in HN. This speculation is entirely avoidable, but somehow the opaque structure of moderation on HN seems intentional. Most mod actions on HN probably fall under anti-abuse measures, and perhaps only bad actors were bothering to reply to live comments on dead posts. But seeing how hard it is to even find dead posts if you weren’t already aware of them, I’m not sure this was a problem for users, as they probably weren’t seeing them in the first place, but it could easily be a problem for HN.
I think your explanation is most likely because it assumes the least, but considering the way the guidelines have evolved, I’m willing to believe that this was being actively used by bad actors, and not simply a change that was easily justified once you saw fit to do so.
once you saw fit to do so
I have no access to the code base. My supposition is based on some professional exposure to “broken window policy”, the nature of the comments in this thread, and what a rational actor might do if similar remarks were likely to under dead comments if that rational actor was motivated to create an environment fostering intellectually interesting comments.
To put it another way, I assume in the long run Hobbes is usually accurate. The sovereign’s sole responsibility is to keep the peace, and a Platonic philosopher king is the best outcome we are likely to get…which is to say that peace is kept by means most conducive to making each social contract a win-win.
But it is still a social contract. If a person doesn’t find its execution acceptable, a philosopher king allows them to leave with their health intact.
Again, I did not change the codebase.
I never said you did change the codebase. I think you misinterpreted me as referring to you personally, when I meant you exclusively, because it was eminently clear from context what each of us meant, but I'm happy to clarify that.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clusivity
I agree with you about the pragmatic nature of moderation under discussion, to your point.
FWIW, dang has commented on why HN doesn't use a public moderation log: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
A moderation log is an example of how transparency into mod actions could work. In many ways, we already have the moderation log in the form of comment replies from mods. If you used a text box wrong, mods on HN seem pretty good about replying to you if they made a mod action. Maybe not in every case, but it seems intentional and probably an effort to make their impact visible and accountable to users.
However, we don’t have any logs of moderator interventions in the functioning of the site in other ways. I’ve heard Dang say that one of my posts was downranked because it was basically a bad look for the #1 post on HN to be a post about n, where the post about n happened to be my post, and was on-topic for HN.
Edit for clarity: the interaction was over email or on HN but I don’t recall which; that is, not in literal earshot, and was direct communication to me, not indirect etc.
Like dark mode, it's probably never going to happen.