Comment by closedloop129
3 years ago
A feature that I miss about HN is the ability to subscribe to old posts. It would be nice to be informed when those debates continue, e.g. from references like these.
3 years ago
A feature that I miss about HN is the ability to subscribe to old posts. It would be nice to be informed when those debates continue, e.g. from references like these.
I think I read somewhere (possibly from dang) that this was intentional, as subscribing tends to lead to more arguing.
Edit: didn’t like dropping this without a reference, so dug one up:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22937472
Turns out it’s both to prevent flamewars and also foster curiosity more.
OP's comment is:
>Which is a good reason to add a reply-notification system
I share the view that omitting reply notifications is a good tool to prevent flamewars.
What I would like to have are notifications for entire debates. Right now it is useless to add comments to old submissions because nobody is going to read them. If there were subscribers to debates, the audience could return.
To prevent flamewars, subscribers should only be notified when e.g. 20 comments are added to a debate. That leaves time for everybody to cool off and hopefully creates enough substance that it's worth returning to a debate.