Re:
by TechBro8615 on Wednesday February 08, 2023 @04:19PM
(#34715347)
> community is not the same as commenters because most readers don't comment
Do you have stats on what percent of regular HN readers have ever commented on any story? Or are stats more like, for every 100 readers of a story, 1 will comment on that story? To put another way: if I read 100 stories and comment on 1, would I be counted as lurking 99 times and posting 1?
Basically, I'm curious if engagement is lopsided toward lurking because some users never comment, or because most users never comment on every story they read.
Yes, I looked it up a couple times over the years and it was astonishing close to whoever's law that says 1% of users produce 90% of UGC.
I think it was something like 1% of total readers and 5% of logged-in readers but I'd have to check again to be sure.
It's a matter of striking a balance: holding space for what the community finds interesting* while also allowing for a certain amount of idiosyncracy and unpredictability—but not too much. Without that, things would be more humdrum and therefore less interesting. There are tradeoffs along every conceivable axis with this thing.
* (note: community is not the same as commenters because most readers don't comment)