If you auto merged the comments from the last time, in theory they would quickly fall to the bottom because their time based value would be so much lower than the new stuff.
Maybe also disable replies to old comments and make them a different color?
To be fair, we could never figure out how to get this right on reddit either, but HN has a better comment sorting algorithm than reddit so it might actually work here.
what about automerging all comments +1 layer deeper with the bot comment (in the same form dang does it now) as the universal parent? it prevents the feature creep\bloat of adding a notification system, and maybe be backwards compatible with the web and mobile versions, and if people dont want it they can collapse the whole thread (or maybe it starts collapsed anyway)
I definitely wouldn't want old comments merged in, even at the bottom—it would get confusing! A story about pandemics, for instance, might have a very different meaning in 2019 vs 2020, and comments should be clearly split to reflect that.
Sorry for the delay - just seeing this now (ironically?)
HN threads are closed to new comments after 2 weeks, mostly as a way of preserving history. A forum discussion is most meaningful as a snapshot in time.
It would be weird if people could go back later to ancient threads and add comments based on information that wasn't available at the time. Actually, you can go back and look at very early threads, before this restriction was put in place, and it was already weird. Imagine what the original Dropbox Show HN would look like by now if we didn't restrict this.
All that said, I think you guys are on to something interesting with thoughts about how the software could provide better access to the history, beyond just posting links to past discussions.
i take it by your edit you are concerned i was interpreting your "past posts" as some implication the OP should not have submitted - this is not the case.
honestly, i just feel bad for you. what appears to me to be a repetitive google + copy + paste on your part is anathema to me, and i was trying to help stamp out such work.
i think this has value, but im worried the amount of work involved
grows (at a minimum) greater-than-linearly as HN grows.
If you auto merged the comments from the last time, in theory they would quickly fall to the bottom because their time based value would be so much lower than the new stuff.
Maybe also disable replies to old comments and make them a different color?
To be fair, we could never figure out how to get this right on reddit either, but HN has a better comment sorting algorithm than reddit so it might actually work here.
what about automerging all comments +1 layer deeper with the bot comment (in the same form dang does it now) as the universal parent? it prevents the feature creep\bloat of adding a notification system, and maybe be backwards compatible with the web and mobile versions, and if people dont want it they can collapse the whole thread (or maybe it starts collapsed anyway)
That's actually a pretty fantastic idea. I like it!
Or just have a bot account post a link to the previous discussions. Even that would work, just so that dang doesn't have to do it manually.
I definitely wouldn't want old comments merged in, even at the bottom—it would get confusing! A story about pandemics, for instance, might have a very different meaning in 2019 vs 2020, and comments should be clearly split to reflect that.
Why do you want to discourage replies to old comments?
Sorry for the delay - just seeing this now (ironically?)
HN threads are closed to new comments after 2 weeks, mostly as a way of preserving history. A forum discussion is most meaningful as a snapshot in time.
It would be weird if people could go back later to ancient threads and add comments based on information that wasn't available at the time. Actually, you can go back and look at very early threads, before this restriction was put in place, and it was already weird. Imagine what the original Dropbox Show HN would look like by now if we didn't restrict this.
All that said, I think you guys are on to something interesting with thoughts about how the software could provide better access to the history, beyond just posting links to past discussions.
Because the people who made the comments won't know that someone replied since HN doesn't have a notification system.
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i take it by your edit you are concerned i was interpreting your "past posts" as some implication the OP should not have submitted - this is not the case.
honestly, i just feel bad for you. what appears to me to be a repetitive google + copy + paste on your part is anathema to me, and i was trying to help stamp out such work.
i think this has value, but im worried the amount of work involved grows (at a minimum) greater-than-linearly as HN grows.
A guy on Imgur made a bot named [1] "RepostStatistics" that would comment the last time a photo was posted, something similar might work
[1] https://imgur.com/user/RepostStatistics