alt Hacker Newsthe biggest issue with reddit/digg/hackernews style comments is how top comments can be gamed for profit. old forums had the problem of "first" and "bump" comments, but steering the conversation was harder.
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throwaway2037 • today at 1:32 PM
This sounds poetic, but makes no sense to me. I've been here for a few years and I regularly post comments. I still have almost no idea which ones will be up-voted. However, I do know which ones will be down-voted. So tell us, how do you write a comment that can be "gamed for profit"?
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rplnt • today at 5:49 AM
There's another option. Combining both threads and chronological order.
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andrepd • today at 5:45 AM
Exactly. The "tree" part you can argue whether it's good or bad. The "upvote" part is universally bad. The fact that upvotes bump comments while downvotes will completely hide then... It's just terrible for discussion, and the reason reddit consistently devolves into echo chambers with everybody agreeing with everybody and piling on whoever doesn't.