HN Explorer

Ask HN: When and why did HN comment scores go away? I found value in them.

37 points by domador ↗ HN
I recently noticed that comment scores on HN discussions are no longer visible. When and why did that happen? I found a certain level of value in knowing how popular an opinion was or how much it had seemingly been engaged with, and now miss that feature.

I can understand the existence of certain problematic dynamics that arise from paying too much attention to upvotes on social media, but I would have hoped that wasn't a problem on HN, at least not enough to remove an otherwise helpful feature.

15 comments

[ 3.9 ms ] story [ 51.8 ms ] thread
theli0nheart
Are you sure that was ever a feature? I can’t remember comment scores ever being visible for anyone’s comments except your own, and those are still visible.
mindcrime
It was a feature at one time for sure. The change happened quite a long time ago.
theli0nheart
I joined in 2009 and I can't recall it at all. In any case, if it was removed, it certainly didn't happen recently (within the last five years).
minimaxir
Since around 2014? It's not a recent change.
detaro
as far as I know they were removed in early 2011, to try if they reduce flamewars based on people trying to out-score others.
0xbadcafebee
So, you're telling us that you like having reinforcement of whether an idea is popular or not, and you know that that's problematic in social media, but you don't think it would be a problem here.

Why would you want a reinforcement of bias? And why would human social dynamics be different on HN compared to anywhere else?

[dead] theknocker
Because the alternative is just let Dan pick the winners, and he's the kind of asshole who decides, in advance and for everyone, what the "popular" ideas are via deindexing and shadow bans.
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hobofan
I don't know what you are talking about. At least for me, I've never seen comment scores on HN discussions. The only ones I see are my own, and the fading effect of downvoted comments.
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rahimnathwani
If you want to know the # points for a specific comment, the easiest way is to find it on hn.algolia.com
mindcrime
It was a pretty long time ago. On the order of years for sure. My "first blush" subjective guess would be that it was around eight or nine years ago.

Edit:

Based on this old post, it looks like it was at least ten years ago now.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2710225

Further edit:

Here's what appears to be the original thread (from 2009) where pg announced the change.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=844979

And another long thread of discussion on this topic from back in the day:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2485029

cpach
Imho it was a wise decision and I believe it made HN better.
uyt
I think you can still see scores in search? Or is that only for old comments?