Still, the "single-issue commenter", as exemplified by both of them, can be valuable to a good community. @michaelochurch's writings have definitely shaped my thoughts, so kudos for him, and, if I were in the position to use it, @graycat's bibliographies would be rewarding to mine (unless his knowledge is outdated, as @barrkel suggests). Yet I can't help but get the impression that the single-issue commenter is very prone to overexposing themself, especially if a large proportion of their comments are multi-thousand word diatribes that recycle most of the same themes. Not to mention, people readily pattern-match prolix commenters to complete crackpots, even though both those users seem to be above that level. My impression is that single-issue commenters would be best served by posting a lot for a year or so, followed by some time to lie low -- if their contributions to the discussion around their issue are really valuable, their posts should stay in moderate circulation as other users refer to them in later discussion.
sigmaalgebra's comments are pretty fucking epic, on this post.
Re:An AI First World
by telotortium on Thursday April 28, 2016 @12:13PM
(#11589906)
That's the same guy that posts as @graycat here on HN. Most of his posts espouse the wonders of hardcore applied math, often with a comprehensive bibliography, so he seems to know what he's talking about, although his rambling (and, to be fair, somewhat off-topic) style does him no favors on HN, which is why his posts almost always end up at the bottom of the comments here (see also @michaelochurch).
Michael O. Church got modded off of HN for being critical of certain aspects of YC (according to him).
You can see for yourself why he was banned: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10017538
True, but it's more b/c his criticism of VC and PG specifically has a Captain Ahab level of intensity and persistence, which can get in the way of discussing, well, anything else.
Re:An AI First World
by telotortium on Friday April 29, 2016 @01:32AM
(#11593925)
Exactly, which is why I made the connection.
He displays a lot of knowledge, but also doesn't look fully mentally with it. He has trouble controlling verbosity and keeping things relevant and on-topic. It's also not clear how much up to date knowledge he has; he writes like an old man complaining about the foolish optimism of youth.
(I also wish it said more, but his blog comments tend to have better discussions than even hn, sometimes, so maybe he is just trying to kick that off. I wish it were a better technology for commenting, though.)