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A comment on The caffeine curse: why coffee shops have always signalled urban change. Parent comment

Re:The caffeine curse: why coffee shops have always signalle... by seer on Friday April 15, 2016 @02:44AM (#11502632)
Can someone please explain (or point out a link to the rules in question) why is this post getting downvoted? I understand the parent comment is not very informative, but this one I found quite helpful as I had forgotten the quote in question and it is relevant to the "wi-fi password discussion" the grandparent has started.

Additionally I would simply love a bot like that going around explaining popular media quotes. I frequent the SpaceX subreddit and they have one explaining space related acronyms whenever any are found in the discussion. Makes reading it a lot more pleasant.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:The caffeine curse: why coffee shops have always signalle... by rfrey on Friday April 15, 2016 @04:30AM (#11502948)
I think there's a HN cultural preference to avoid stream-of-consciousness tangents, so even clever or informative -- but off-topic -- replies to such tangents tend to suffer.

IMO this is the source of some people's impression that humour isn't welcome here. My experience is the opposite - on-topic (and funny) comments do well even if only a joke or quip, but off-topic humour sinks, even if clever and civil.

I'm quite lowbrow and really enjoy the more clever comment chains on Reddit, but I also appreciate the HN alternative, where attempts at pun chains, etc. sink to the bottom and on-topic thoughts rise.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:The caffeine curse: why coffee shops have always signalle... by Ao7bei3s on Friday April 15, 2016 @04:43AM (#11502983)
If you really wanted to find out about the quote, it's just a google search away. For everyone else, it's useless pop culture trivia obscuring real content.

(The right way to do this would be to add a feature to the HN/reddit forum software that allows unobtrusive footnotes to comments. Acronyms could just be auto-hyperlinked (with short definition in the alt text) in the original comment.)

[ Parent | on HN ]