HN Explorer

Ask HN: What can the Point/Comment ratio tell you about the type of story it is?

11 points by filiwickers ↗ HN
I did a quick search and found nothing, anyone?

Basically I am wondering what information can be gathered from the number of points/comments, and the relationship between the two. It would really awesome if it was a function of time too.

2 comments

[ 29.2 ms ] story [ 606 ms ] thread
JoachimSchipper
Unscientifically, posts with (almost) no comments are typically very technical (you need lots of background to comment intelligently); posts with tons of comments are typically very political or rant-y (because everyone is an expert on the US national debt.)

If this is not the answer you were looking for, clarify your question or do some analysis yourself.

_delirium
Especially posts that are both technical and lack a particular "angle", I think. Technical posts that reach a strong conclusion still often end up with discussion, even if they're very detailed, but technical posts that are just a broad overview of a subject tend not to, because it's not clear where the discussion should jump off from. E.g. a detailed technical argument claiming that the actor-concurrency model is broken (or superior to an alternative) will garner a lot more discussion than just a detailed overview of the actor-concurrency model that reaches no specific conclusions about it.