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Ask HN: Why does a request get sent to HN every-time I collapse/expand a comment?

3 points by oolongCat ↗ HN
Just noticed whenever I collapse or expand a comment here on HN a request gets sent to a server. Any idea why this is happening ? And something like this just overload the servers with so many requests?

2 comments

[ 3.0 ms ] story [ 18.4 ms ] thread
gus_massa
I'm not sure, but I think that the collapse/normal state is saved in the server. If you reopen the story from another window/browser/computer, I think you'll get that comment in the same state collapse/normal. I think that this is saved for a week to keep the total save space small.

For an authoritative answer, you can ask the mods: hn@ycombinator.com

unimpressive
Because it remembers your preference about the page, which is presumably too big to fit into a cookie for abritrary N pages.

(Also keeping it in a cookie would introduce other issues like it not working if you change computers/browsers.)