HN Explorer

Poll: Display points on comments?

423 points by pg ↗ HN
My goal in not showing points on comments was to prevent the sort of contentious exchanges where people (in this case literally) try to score points off one another. I feel like it has done that to some extent, but at a cost in other areas. So which do you prefer?

Here's the earlier thread about it: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2403716

321 comments

[ 0.26 ms ] story [ 257 ms ] thread
anigbrowl
With. [EDIT: oops, deleted half my post] If something stupid only has a couple of points in a busy thread, then I know there's no need to respond with a passionate denunciation of the obvious. Likewise, if something I disagree with has a ton of upvotes, perhaps it's me that's stupid and I should think carefully before starting an argument. Sure, it's flawed, but so's every other approach.

If you want to get real results, I think you need to start doing randomized trials of different users, showing karma to some and not to others to see whether it results in a change of behavior. Of course, you probably need to warn people about this in advance.

BTW, there seems to be a little bug wherein clicking on a comment or poll option no longer updates. I had to refresh to see whether my vote had taken or not, although the ▲ correctly disappears.

pg
Yes, since I wasn't sure I was going to stop displaying points on comments, I just hacked the js for updating scores. Though frankly it never was an indication of whether a vote took.
sosuke
I seem to prefer HN without points because it forces me to actually look closer at the content instead of just skimming for the big numbers.
michaelochurch
Maybe I'm unusual, but I don't pay attention to others' karma scores that much. My own experience on Reddit and HN has shown that karma scores have more to do with early-entrant effects and brevity than the quality of the content.

Many of my best Reddit posts, in my personal opinion, are at 1 or 2 points, just because they got buried in huge threads. Whereas I have one-liners that took me literally 5 seconds to come up with and ended up at 100+.

If I were to make an automated system for judging quality of message board content, it'd be a function of text readability (grammar/punctuation, avoidance of overly-long "text wall" paragraphs), size, and user feedback. A 500-word post with 7 upvotes is probably more awesome and more deserving of prominence than a 10-word one-liner with 125 upvotes.

jerf
I think it's too soon to actually judge, as we're still in the "ick! change!" phase. Ask again in another week or two. Same for any other experiment you run in the future; unless it obviously and immediately fails, give it some simmer time. (IMHO, of course.)
spoiledtechie
Since no one can actually see the points I just gave jerf on his comment. I would like to say ditto. I think its much too soon. Some times there are a need of comments like this one where I would rather just vote up then comment ditto like im doing now.

What about on ASK HN: comments we allow points and on articles, we don't? Just a thought.

spicyj
The entire point of hiding comment scores is to allow people to judge for themselves how much a comment is worth – your expression of agreement is ruining that somewhat.
alex_c
That could be another side effect - more "I upvoted" comments.
jpk
Whether you can see points or not, I would think "I upvoted" comments with little content would still get downvoted.

Although, one side effect might be: When you can see a comment is highly scored, a reader may think, "everybody gets this guy, no need to help him argue the point. upvote" Whereas when you can see a comment is lowly scored, a reader may think, "this is a good argument, I'll help carry it, upvote and comment". But when you can't see scores, making the call to upvote and comment, or just upvote is made only on the content of the comment. Whether that's good or bad, I'm not sure.

duck
I agree. I was lost without the scores at first, but now I think it is useful not having them. However, I would like to see them after so many days/hours when the article is off of the front-page as it would be helpful when referencing older stuff and at that point I don't see any harm including it.
phlux
I have an idea, thinking out loud here - so bear with me:

Traditional point based forum systems provide a way for people to up/down any given post - but its a binary decision.

There are a range of factors that one may want to upvote/downvote a post based on. /. had an interesting moderation model by allowing a context selection along with the score - though this too had its limitations.

With respect to the implementation on HN, not showing the score changes the dynamic that we are used to, which is fine - but we sometimes need a contextual vote/filter to promote answers with links/content.

What would be interesting is if one were to post a link in the comment if we could vote up the individual link. So next to the links there were a score for that link -- this way - while we could vote the post author either way, if multiple posts contain links in an answer to a question, the community can vote on the links themselves -- which will aid in people who are seeking the answer.

Additionally, if we have a contextual label selection for posts, then the community can select the label that applies from a list - and the readers would see which applies.

This removes the numerical karmic judgement from the post, but allows for insightful, helpful, informative, opinion or other classifiers to be used.

Would something along these lines work better for us?

riffraff
sounds like slashdot, without metamoderation?
nkurz
I'm in this camp as well: keep it for a while and see how we adjust.

My initial reaction was negative. I found it harder to scan a long page of comments quickly. And I'm not sure why, but I also found that I'm more resistant to vote, either positively or negatively. Maybe because the site feels more static.

The one fix I would suggest is that having the arrows disappear after voting does not feel fulfilling. It feels like my vote has been lost. Switching to displaying the darkened arrow that I chose would feel better.

Or, if more voting was thought to be a good thing, you could display the vote count only afterward. I think I'd be more inclined to vote if there was some sort of 'reward' for the action. The previous reward was seeing the number change in whatever direction I wanted to move it, but receiving information about others would probably work too.

mooism2
I worry that if people could see vote counts after voting, they would start voting purely to see vote counts, upvoting (or downvoting) a comment not because it deserved it, but to see how many votes it had attracted.
mechanical_fish
It is going to take time for the second-order effects to develop.

The optimum writing style may change. When threads require more skimming it pays to write more skimmable content. The reading style will also change. None of these changes will happen overnight; it takes time, the way that learning emacs takes time.

So I agree: Let the experiment run longer. What is the worst that can happen? HN becomes an order of magnitude less popular? I liked HN when it was an order of magnitude less popular. ;)

pbhjpbhj
>What is the worst that can happen?

Personally I feel I've lost a great news source as the work required to use HN is now much greater (for me). Obviously, as a community, losing my comments isn't going to be noticed. But this appears to be the way of things, first Slashdot, then Digg, then Reddit, then HN, where next ...?

I see that the average comment score has been fiddled with too - mine was only 2.6 or so (but rising). I can't tell from it whether it's rising or not now.

Confusion
There are at least three problems with the current situation, that don't go away by 'getting used to' them:

- You don't know whether you clicked the right arrow

- You are forced to skim/read many comments to determine which ones are of value, where previously you may have chosen to skim a particular discussion for the best comments.

- You can't judge the quality of comments on a topic you know absolutely nothing about

jerf
If "the comments with the highest points" was isomorphic to "the best comments", we wouldn't be having this discussion at all.
Confusion
I didn't get the impression that the upvoting of lesser comments, to the level of 'the best comments' is a primary concern? The mere existence of the comments is the major problem, even when they aren't upvoted?

In any case, I do think the set of 'the best comments' is usually a subset of 'the comments with the highest points' and especially in submissions with many comments/threads, the amounts can be helpful.

pg
Ok, I agree. The poll voting is close enough that I think the best course is to wait a bit before deciding.
weaksauce
Have you considered showing the points on comment threads after a few days to facilitate search later?
kmfrk
You sound like you subscribe to the notion that the majority is right? Does this mean that the poll might decide the fate of the karma display?

This is of course an entire debate by itself - are the users right, or should they largely be ignored (cf. Zuckerberg and Facebook "controversial" redesigns).

It's always important to remember that the two choices are governed by factors that could be targeted individually and might change the experiences with either completely.

mcav
Maybe making it a coarser indicator would give the best of both worlds... maybe a colored indicator (or grey dot) with color/darkness indicating how many upvotes.
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[dead] frsandstone
I think this is almost identical to actually having a number because all it does is draws more attention to those comments.
cmelbye
Yeah, I like Hacker News without numerical indications of karma, but some sort of idea of how popular a comment is could be nice.
user24
Doesn't the ordering of the comments on the page fulfill that requirement?
cmelbye
Ehh, sometimes, but I've noticed that sometimes the system orders new comments with not a lot of karma near the top.
lotusleaf1987
I am pretty sure that's based on the user's average karma.
genbattle
This is my school of thought; it would be nice to know which are the hot comments. Previously you could skim through only the higher rated ones if you were in a hurry, but now you sort of have to trawl through masses of text to find the gems.

One idea i thought might help the whole points vs. no points situation is changing karma from being the total points over all posts to just being the average points over all posts, so then people will be motivated to create fewer high-quality posts to boost their karma, rather than just trying to saturate HN with lots of posts that nab a point or two each. (somewhat hypocritical maybe)

Wilduck
With just this, it would be fairly easy to learn how many votes translate to what color, and you're back at square one. Maybe color as some function of upvotes on the comment and proportion of all upvotes (maybe only those comments at the same level in that thread)?
T-R
Particularly if it was relative to other posts in the thread, and maybe only after a certain threshold, so it doesn't serve as disincentive to posters who are just late to the party, but still allows users to quickly see the best posts.
notJim
One thing I don't understand (I'm relatively new, I guess): are comments in a thread sorted according to upvotes?

If they are, my vote is for without points, because then I can still skim, but I won't have these numbers to focus on.

die_sekte
Ordering depends on age and votes. I.e. new comments and top comments are sort of interleaved.
guelo
That doesn't help for long nested threads.
joshhart
Maybe you could have a color range indicating roughly how good the comment was? I like the feedback a lot the numbers gave but I think hiding the actual numbers would be a good thing so people don't play the numbers game too much.
viggity
Agreed. that way you can tell what is regarded as important without having the actual number influence you as much
mrjbq7
I'd recommend adding an "Undecided: let the experiment continue" option.
philfreo
"With", simply because I'm often too busy or lazy to read entire threads and just want to see the "best" comments.

I'd be okay with hiding the numbers but having some other indicator which could accomplish the same goal.

mshron
"Without," because the lack of points on this comment has led me to have to think through my objections to it. Rather than, e.g., noting that it has a smallish number of points and so therefore my opinion is already shared by the community and I don't need to say anything.
skennedy
Without. The lack of points make me look closer at the content rather than group think of a post. Even if briefly, a brand new comment is at the top of a thread. Unless I read it there is no way of knowing the quality in comparison to other comments. Would be interesting to know if the average karma per post is going up/down for those that have been around for a while.
arohner
Anecdotally, my karma per post has gone way up. Either that, or I've had a lucky few days.

My guess is, when people don't see how many points a post has, they have no way to calibrate whether it has "too many" points or "too few".

daeken
I haven't seen much of a bump in my own karma coinciding with this, but I have noticed that I'm voting significantly more than normal.
cosgroveb
I've found that I'm extremely less likely to downvote. And in at least one exchange I've been more civil because it's less of a contest. I think it's a good thing overall but I REALLY miss the ability to skim more efficiently when I want to (I don't always skim but when I don't want to waste too much time it's super helpful).
trustfundbaby
I'm just the opposite ... I'm voting a lot less ... it seems the points do bias me but in a different way ... if something has a lot of point already, I won't bother to vote it up ... but if theres a really strong post and it has few points I'll immediately upvote it ...

I find it harder to read/skim comments now though ... because I'm reading every comment instead of getting the highlights based on the votes.

jarin
I have noticed that my karma per post has gone down quite a bit (something that would normally get 7-8 upvotes is getting maybe 1-2 or none). I think it's an example of people thinking "well, someone else has probably voted that up and that arrow is just so tiny".

I'm of course assuming that my posts are awesome and deserving of upvotes, which they may well not be. :)

akent
Agreed. I find that without the points, I am now reading comments more closely to determine for myself if a comment has merit rather than relying on the points and skimming.

Maybe having it as a configurable option would be best.

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sonnekki
Agreeing here: I must admit that I used the display points as a crutch. My thought process was, "Hey, this has a lot of votes, it must mean that they have something (good|relevant|interesting) to say".

Now, I am forced to read a comment and ask "Do I agree with this? Does this deserve an upvote?" This is a great thing, and it may slow down my karma-giving, but in the long run, the data will be more accurate.

staunch
The problem is I feel no feedback for voting, so I've stopped doing it.

If I could see the points after I vote I would probably vote even more than before.

dasil003
I upvoted you because you were negative and I believe it's a point worthy of consideration.

Is that ironic?

jarin
I think this would be an excellent way to do it, for the same reason that many online polls don't show the votes until after you vote.
teyc
I felt the way you have put the comment in various shades better. The algorithm already sorts out what comments should float to the top. If people feel an answer is incorrectly placed, they can vote on it to fix it.

Point scoring: yes, it is a problem. HN "feels" somewhat nicer.

Further, there may be different reasons a comment may have been voted up:

1. The comment voted up is considered relevant

2. The reader agreed with the sentiment.

3. The comment was irrelevant, but was humorous.

Similarly, a comment may have been voted down because:

1. The comment was irrelevant.

2. The comment was relevant, but the reader disagreed with the point of view.

3. A polarising comment may end up with a net score of 0, but it is actually very relevant.

4. The comment was relevant, but was delivered in a brusque manner.

nitrogen
I think some of my posts have received more upvotes without points than they would have with points displayed. I wonder if in general there has been more total upvoting without points, as people are simply expressing appreciation or agreement rather than trying to move posts toward a "fair" score (something I've done in the past).

It's difficult to say whether that's a good thing. Since the poll numbers look pretty close so far (though it's only been ~15 minutes as of this writing), maybe it should be an option.

m0nastic
Not to try and "King Solomon" it, but couldn't you make it a user profile option to display comment points?

Personally, I think it's better now that they are not displayed, but if it reverts back to displaying them, I'd be happy to just not have to see them myself, regardless if other's want to.

shykes
I agree. My vote goes to making it configurable, with a default behavior of not displaying points.
jseliger
This sounds desirable to me too; if it were a poll option, I'd vote for it.
aristus
Making an option is a tempting choice, but as always the devil is in the defaults. In the limit case you get things like Linux apps with umpteen million options, and still no one is happy.
m0nastic
Conceptually, I agree with you; but your HN profile isn't like setting up a Wordpress installation. There's a pretty minimal amount of things which can be tweaked.
pavel_lishin
How about only giving the option to view comment scores to users of a certain age, or reputation?
nzadrozny
It sounds diplomatic to let each group choose their preference, but what is much more valuable here is to learn what exactly those preferences are, and why they are held. If there were an option to let each choose according to their preference, then we could all quietly revert to our preferences instead of taking the opportunity to be confronted with a bigger picture.
m0nastic
I'm not so sure there is a bigger picture, just a bunch of people who each get different things out of reading/posting here on the site. Look at any of the comments on the articles about this so far, and you get the what and the why (people's reasons seem to run the gamut).

But let's postulate that we revert back to the previous system where comment points are displayed. I can't think of a reason why it would matter if I personally don't want to see comment points.

javert
I don't like the idea that I'm not seeing the same stuff, and reacting to the same stuff, as other people. I like the feeling of a shared experience.

Honestly, I'd probably rather either have comments, or not have them, than have the possibility of turning them off in the preferences.

barista
Stop groupthink. Please don't show points on comments.
tokenadult
I think, based on the small subset of threads I have sampled by a convenience procedure, that not displaying minute-by-minute comment scores avoids the cognitive illusion human beings suffer from called anchoring bias

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anchoring

http://www.sciencedaily.com/articles/a/anchoring.htm

and helps readers focus on the inherent worth of a comment. That's my general observation from seeing which comments are floating up or down in threads and which comments are graying out.

ecuzzillo
I'd be most interested to see whether hiding the scores changed voting behavior appreciably. Do stupid comments get upvoted more or less? It seems like that's the ultimate test, much more than whether people prefer it after trying it for a few days.
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Vivtek
I'm starting to think I like it better without comments. Although if without, then I'd prefer those dots that showed up for a couple of hours on frequently upvoted comments. I really do like a skim option.
greendestiny
I'm not sure. I definitely prefer to read with points on. I find it hard to skim a comment thread now, and I have no idea what the community thinks of particular points of view.

As for what it does for the community there hasn't really been time to judge. I've seen a lot less of the usual suspects coming in saying the same the things they always say because they know it'll be highly upvoted.

Could there be a keep it for now option?

makmanalp
What is the use case for seeing the points on a comment anyway?

All you need to know is that the comments on the toppish are the best ones, and as you scroll down you can stop reading whenever you feel like it's gotten too bad.

I find that without points I'm definitely more focused on the content and are less likely to consciously / subconsciously groupthink.

jamesteow
Could the same thing be argued for submissions as well?
dangero
Use case for displaying points is that it allows you to get an idea of what percentage of the users on the site agree with the comment. I think that's really valuable. I'm often more interested to know what the masses think because it helps you understand the audience.
_3ex7
I thought people were supposed to vote up/down based on whether the comments adds/detracts value from the convo?
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dangero
Me too, but from years of using this site and similar I find that to be untrue because even assuming everyone votes with this in mind, I don't think you can fully separate perceived value of a comment and agreement with the comment. If you strongly disagree with a comment, then doesn't that imply you don't see value in it? I think that line is ambiguous.
sage_joch
Here's my use case: suppose there's a comment with a longish reply. If I see that reply has 120 points I'm definitely going to read it. But if I just see it as a sole response to a comment, there's a very good chance I won't read it (there being so many comments).
afhof
I think the bigger problem is that highly rated comments below the first comment are pushed out by replies to the first.
smokinn
What I used the scores for most was to know when to stop scrolling down when a story was highly commented. I would figure that if there are 100+ comments chances are any threads that start with an initial post < 10 are safe to skip.

Now though, I have very little info as to where I can "safely" stop. (Though I know I've gone too far if the font starts fading!)

spicyj
Ironically, I'm actually voting much more than before; perhaps because I'm reading more comments in depth, perhaps because I can't feel like a comment already has its "proper" score. Either way, I like the new way. (Perhaps show points after a few days or weeks, though.)
Tiomaidh
My gut reaction is to keep them, but I think that's just because I don't like change.

If you do decide to drop them, it might be nice if something different was done for the time-displaying. I keep thinking the minute count in the comment header (pg 22 minutes ago | link) refers to points (pg 22 points [random text] | link). I still feel like jerf's comment (9 minutes ago) has more points than skennedy's (4 minutes ago), even though I know it's not actually true.

Although I'd probably get used to it within a month--it's just an annoying thing during the transition.

duck
Mini-poll: Has everyone noticed how polls don't get very many upvotes? Many of them tend to get a ton of actual poll "votes", but not upvotes. I have always felt like if you are going to vote for a item you should give the poll a vote as well.