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Rank at HN: Stop saying "This."

58 points by jgrahamc ↗ HN
Please stop saying "This." in reply to things you agree with. It's lame.

If you want to agree with a commentator then you can upvote, or reply with additional insightful commentary, but there's no need to even say you agree, let alone use the stupid "This." It serves no purpose beyond a vacuous "Me too" type response.

36 comments

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davidw
I reflexively downvote people who do that. It's an extremely jarring abuse of the English language, and furthermore, serves absolutely no purpose, as jgrahamc points out, on a site with the possibility to either simply upvote, or comment in a more meaningful way.

As an alternative, try something creative like "I completely concur with the spirit of this comment, and would like to add ...." or "The sentiments expressed within the above comment could not be more clearly or intelligently stated. Furthermore ...", or, say, "Quite right, ..." or... well, pretty much anything that's not just the regurgitation of a boring meme.

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johnyzee
> "The sentiments expressed within the above comment could not be more clearly or intelligently stated. Furthermore ..."

Best said wearing a fake monocle and top hat. Honestly, college kids trying to sound educated is almost as annoying as 'this'. Just speak plain English, please.

davidw
1) I'm not a college kid.

2) That is plain English.

johnyzee
I didn't mean you, sorry if it came across that way. I am referring to a tendency of over-embellishing that I see a lot on HN and which frankly just adds noise. </curmudgeon>
davidw
I don't like the contrived 'good sir' type of stuff (from reddit as well), but a demonstration of the full power of this language, from time to time, can be fun and creative, if it doesn't distract from the point.
pbhjpbhj
>serves absolutely no purpose, as jgrahamc points out, on a site with the possibility to either simply upvote, or comment in a more meaningful way. //

He must have said this before he stripped comment scores off the site.

The only current way to indicate assent to anyone other than the commenter you're agreeing with is to make a short comment. "Yes" or "this" fits, is easily parsed and easily input. Until comment scores return I hope more people use this technique. It adds information that is not otherwise available.

chc
Mere agreement is information, but it is not information that's important enough to merit cluttering up the discussion. If you're going to encourage that kind of logorrhea, expect a lot of comments along the lines of "I just farted" and "'Assent' is a really cool-sounding word. You ever think about it? Say it to yourself — 'assent, assent'. LOL"

Some information is just not that essential.

pbhjpbhj
>but it is not information that's important enough to merit cluttering up the discussion //

I beg to differ. The voting is actually one of the most important pieces of information. Certainly far more important than the time the comment was made or who made it. The assent [! you're so right] of the population here means [or at least has meant] a lot; as does their dissent.

Apparently informed comments that are misguided or mistaken used to be quickly downvoted. Comments that furthered the discussion added interesting information or new angles, confirmed hypotheses and such were upvoted. One could skim a comment thread and quickly ascertain the readerships view of a topic and see which comments merited a proper reading.

Now one has to chew the chaff and spit it out rather than being able to simply feed on the grain as before.

chc
Up to this point, this conversation has been about comments, which can quickly drown a discussion in noise. But here you are talking about votes, which take up no space whether there are one or a thousand of them. That's a completely different topic. They aren't interchangeable.

I agree that vote counts convey valuable information, but that information is not infinitely valuable, so we have to weigh the cost of conveying it. The cost of doing so through comments is way too high, so in the absence of visible counts, a comment's position on the page is the substitute we have.

noja
This. It's a generational thing. It's short for "this guy's got it, this guy has articulated what we are all/I am thinking". or sometimes "this is the point that must be addressed".

I don't even use "This.", but your suggestion to write "I completely concur with the spirit of.." had me falling asleep before I'd even got to the end of the sentence.

Consider this: lots of people are using the word, why not adjust to them, rather than have them adjust to you?

davidw
> had me falling asleep before I'd even got to the end of the sentence.

Apologies, but I'm not interested in dumbed down conversations, and will continue to employ, and advocate the use of English from beyond a 6th grade level, as it makes for richer, more nuanced discussions.

noja
Making a sentence longer for the sake of it doesn't increase the value of a conversation.
ehsanu1
While I agree with your sentiment, I don't believe davidw wants longer sentences for the sake of length. He simply wants people to use fully formed sentences, with variety in their structure and sophistication. If you ever see some Reddit threads, you may be inclined to agree.
willpower101
^that^ ;)

Concision is the currency of well formed thoughts on the web.

Also, I agree that it's a generational thing. People who have a problem with it are usually older. (Or maybe just too sensitive.)

davidw
I give up. Off to watch reruns of "Ow my balls" and drink some Brawndo.
albahk
Agreed with the parent and I would also like to add please consider not using periods to Make. Your. Statement. Seem. Profound.
atomicdog
This! Every. Fucking. Time. That is all.
pbhjpbhj
>Agreed with the parent //

You're being ironic right? He said not to write indicating mere assent. You should _only_ have upvoted him.

achompas
I think you were downvoted because parent made an additional, valid point. The whole single-word-as-sentence cliche ("It. Just. Works.") is equally annoying and stopped suggesting a quirky/unique author years ago.
willpower101
This is turning into a buzzfeed article about annoying net language. It's all just opinion. No one writes like that at work.
pbhjpbhj
It adds information that is not otherwise available.

'This', 'Yes' or something similar works for showing what an 'upvote' would show on an other system.

jgrahamc
We still have upvotes.
calpaterson
But they are hidden from users (except for when a post is greyed out).
pbhjpbhj
Yes but as a sibling comment notes they're hidden from everyone except the commenter. I can not tell if your comment is felt to be a worthy response by the HN crowd unless people note their assent or dissent in some way, "yes", "no".

I've harped on at this for a while. But I really want my HN back. It takes more time and provides less utility now.

pbhjpbhj
You didn't used to get severely downvoted for opinions either.
wavephorm
More importantly it is poor grammar.
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fooie
Was excited to come across this thread. Would like to read more about this. Great stuff here. Must visit more often.
Joeboy
I've never "this'ed", but I've felt the urge to do so occasionally since HN started hiding votes.