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Re:New Comment Features by unalone on Thursday February 05, 2009 @01:46AM (#467267)
That's not the same sort of deep conversation. PG asks a lot about not getting into bickerfests, and that's certainly fair. On the other hand, gravitycop and I got into a discussion about artificial intelligence a day or two ago, which went on for quite a while. Since it's not a big center-of-discussions, all our posts remained at one or two points each.

In the end I don't think it matters much either way - the really fun conversations you do for the sake of talking, not for the karma. But this system still subtly discourages those sorts of exchanges, which is a pity.

Re:New Comment Features by xenophanes on Thursday February 05, 2009 @01:49AM (#467274)
I don't care about the karma, I care about being asked to stop having perfectly interesting discussions.
Re:New Comment Features by unalone on Thursday February 05, 2009 @01:56AM (#467286)
But has he ever asked that in a case where it wasn't a heated argument? I got asked to stop because a guy was swearing and I was calling him pathetic, but that was because we were generating a flamefest. Do people get told off just for talking at length?
Re:New Comment Features by xenophanes on Thursday February 05, 2009 @02:30AM (#467337)
"Would you please stop filling up comment threads with this kind of thing?" -- pg

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=138275

What he was replying to is deleted. But it doesn't matter what it was. pg objected to "filling up comment threads". I didn't know they could get full...

Re:New Comment Features by unalone on Thursday February 05, 2009 @02:56AM (#467360)
It looks to me like DarrenStuart was being overtly melodramatic and got asked to stop. "Filling up" refers to visual space as well; people looking for conversation would get diverted by nonsense like that. You're not making the best case: I'd rather PG try and stop stuff like that and encourage more rational discourse.
Re:New Comment Features by xenophanes on Thursday February 05, 2009 @03:00AM (#467364)
If you think he should do it, fine, but he still did it...

You can't maintain he's fully supportive of long threads, and also wants to avoid noise and clutter.

Re:New Comment Features by pg on Thursday February 05, 2009 @01:54AM (#467282)
Re:New Comment Features by unalone on Thursday February 05, 2009 @02:01AM (#467298)
Aww, but they were going someplace good with that!

Out of curiosity, have you ever stopped a conversation just because it was getting exceptionally long? At a certain point does that mess up the table layout?

Re:New Comment Features by xenophanes on Thursday February 05, 2009 @02:08AM (#467306)
Here is what happens to the UI:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=117118

Re:New Comment Features by pg on Thursday February 05, 2009 @02:37AM (#467345)
No, of course not. I sometimes ask people to stop when they reach the yes-i-did-no-you-didn't stage, but because it's wasting everyone's time, not because it's messing up the page.
Re:New Comment Features by xenophanes on Thursday February 05, 2009 @02:49AM (#467353)
So, you believe you should judge the quality of comments, and put a stop to the ones you deem to have low quality, even if the participants disagree with you. And further, you think it is your role to protect people from "wasting time" by voluntarily reading comments of their choosing.

You further ridicule the comments you disapprove of as "yes-i-did-no-you-didn't" style comments, knowing that isn't literally true in some cases.

Re:New Comment Features by unalone on Thursday February 05, 2009 @02:58AM (#467361)
You still haven't shown a good counterexample. Until then, I'm inclined to take him at his word, since I've never seen anything of the sort myself.
Re:New Comment Features by xenophanes on Thursday February 05, 2009 @03:01AM (#467367)
What about the parenting thread I linked?

PS YC and searchyc are both very slow for me. It's hard to find anything. If I could just search for posts by pg with certain keywords then I would give you better links, but I can't.

Re:New Comment Features by SwellJoe on Thursday February 05, 2009 @03:45AM (#467409)
Anyone else see the irony in this thread becoming a "yes-i-did-no-you-didn't" thread?
Re:New Comment Features by xenophanes on Thursday February 05, 2009 @03:55AM (#467419)
What makes you think it is one? I think you are illustrating why that is a bad criterion.
Re:New Comment Features by SwellJoe on Thursday February 05, 2009 @04:05AM (#467431)
Because your response makes me want to respond in kind...tit for tat. And, it's apparent that you're in that mode, as well, having to have the last word with every reply from pg and others. Neither one of us is saying anything, at this point, except, "It is" or "No, it isn't".

That's the kind of thing that pg is talking about.

Re:New Comment Features by xenophanes on Thursday February 05, 2009 @04:12AM (#467439)
I agree with you that you are saying things without any serious content, and that you are in troll mode.

Please note that your accusations against me are covered under this, so can be safely disregarded.

No doubt you will complain that I am arguing pointlessly. But I think this is fun, and that my comment is true. It is logical that if you admit to posting badly, then your claims in that very post shouldn't be accepted.

Re:New Comment Features by xenophanes on Thursday February 05, 2009 @01:58AM (#467289)
No, not that one :)

So, anyway, why did you ban xlnt and qqq, but not this account?

Re:New Comment Features by pg on Thursday February 05, 2009 @03:16AM (#467385)
Optimism.
Re:New Comment Features by xenophanes on Thursday February 05, 2009 @03:33AM (#467398)
Funny, but still a very opaque policy. As far as I could tell, qqq was for criticizing your comments related to Israel, and xlnt was either for what qqq did or for having a new account. Is that right?
Re:New Comment Features by pg on Thursday February 05, 2009 @03:44AM (#467407)
It would have been because you used the same ip address as both curi and one or both of them.

Edit: Usually that's how the software catches multiple accounts belonging to the same person, but I went back and looked, and in this case you (as qqq) outed yourself as curi.

Re:New Comment Features by xenophanes on Thursday February 05, 2009 @03:54AM (#467417)
I'm a little confused. I did not reset my modem or anything when making this account. I don't see why it wouldn't have triggered the same thing. And also, wouldn't the accounts get banned right away, not at a random time later? Did my ISP one day just happen to give me the same IP I had months ago?

edit: Oh. I've outed myself lots of times...