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A comment on Want Hacker News Comment Scores Back? Check out HNPoints.com. Parent comment

Re:Want Hacker News Comment Scores Back? Check out HNPoints.com by guptaneil on Friday May 20, 2011 @03:49PM (#2569172)
I agree that there isn't a proper correlation between score and quality on most comments, but it's comments about specific topics that I don't know a lot about that I would want to see scores. How am I supposed to know if you're talking out of your ass or actually saying something useful if I know nothing about the topic? The scores allowed me to quickly determine the trustworthiness of a comment.
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Re:Want Hacker News Comment Scores Back? Check out HNPoints.com by tptacek on Friday May 20, 2011 @03:51PM (#2569177)
I think you just missed the whole thread of people explaining why scores did not allow you to determine the trustworthiness of a comment.
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Re:Want Hacker News Comment Scores Back? Check out HNPoints.com by guptaneil on Friday May 20, 2011 @04:09PM (#2569266)
There is a subtle difference between quality and trustworthiness. It's possible I missed the thread you're talking about, but as far as I can see, most of the discussions here are discussing quality. Like I said, I agree score does not correlate to quality necessarily. I was simply pointing out that in the case of specialized topics like wheels mentioned, even a score of 5 is a useful signal in telling me that it's trustworthy, versus reading a comment with a score of 1 that could be complete BS and should be taken with a grain of salt.
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Re:Want Hacker News Comment Scores Back? Check out HNPoints.com by jeromec on Saturday May 21, 2011 @10:18AM (#2570901)
even a score of 5 is a useful signal in telling me that it's trustworthy

But that can be a false signal. It's quite possible to have eloquent writers make total crap written in an authoritative style sound believable enough to have 5 people nod and upvote. Having no scores forces people to do their own research and form their own conclusion about trustworthiness, which is more work, but better.

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Re:Want Hacker News Comment Scores Back? Check out HNPoints.com by alain94040 on Friday May 20, 2011 @10:38PM (#2570116)
Agreed. We have been through that argument a hundred times: a high score means the comment is a must-read. Period.

Why anyone wants to hide useful information is beyond me.

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