[all-fakes]

> This presupposes some kind of universal value function.

Sorry, I did not mean to suggest that some comments are intrinsically more valuable. But we do want to sort comments so that, on average, the distance between the "ideal" order for any given reader and the actual order is minimized, don't we?

> This is like perfect is the enemy of good counterargument.

I'm not trying to argue anything here, I just wanted your thoughts on how this could be implemented effectively.

> I have never browsed a journal or arxiv by the number of citations or the hindex or whatever.

I don't know if arXiv is a very good comparison — the posts are much fewer, the range of interests is much narrower, and the site itself is very heavily moderated.

[throwlaplace]

>But we do want to sort comments so that, on average, the distance between the "ideal" order for any given reader and the actual order is minimized, don't we?

why? who cares? do you not know how to skim and skip irrelevant text?

>I just wanted your thoughts on how this could be implemented effectively

you could think of any number of ways to vet comments. we live in the future after all; you could require a minimum length, you could classify comments according to sentiment and reject those that have unwanted overtones, you could use topic modeling to see whether in fact the comment was on topic, etc etc etc. ranking algorithms have had thousands of labor hours invested in them across all social media sites - apply the same fervor to this problem and there will be an adequate solution.

>the posts are much fewer, the range of interests is much narrower, and the site itself is very heavily moderated.

you're wrong that there are fewer submissions to arxiv

https://arxiv.org/help/stats/2018_by_area

you're also wrong that it's moderated - the only thing that you're required to have to submit is endorsement. but i also don't understand how heavy moderation is a counterpoint? yc is one of the most successful vcs in the world - they can't afford moderators? i also don't know what the relevance of arxiv's narrow range of topics is.

[all-fakes]

> why? who cares? do you not know how to skim and skip irrelevant text?

Ignoring inflammatory content can be more taxing to people than you pretend, and moderators and flagging are too slow to act. It's not the end of the world, but it's annoying enough that I would consider alternative services.

A forum is nothing without its users, and a forum that puts its users first shouldn't irritate its users with off-putting content without good reason.

> you could think of any number of ways to vet comments.

Alright, I was just checking whether you had any new ideas, and it seems that you do not.

> you're wrong that there are fewer submissions to arxiv

HN receives at least twice as many submissions per month, and an order of magnitude more comments. This makes the arXiv a very poor analogy for HN.

> you're also wrong that it's moderated

From [0] (see also, [1]):

> All submissions are subject to a moderation process that verifies material is appropriate and topical. Material that contains offensive language, non-scientific content, or is plagiarized may be removed.

Looks a lot like they have moderation to me.

> i also don't understand how heavy moderation is a counterpoint

If you already heavily filter by quality, then the order in which posts are presented obviously becomes much less important.

> yc is one of the most successful vcs in the world - they can't afford moderators?

HN does have an excellent moderation team. They just aren't anywhere near as stringent as the arXiv, on quality, on politeness, or on any number of other characteristics.

If HN was as heavily moderated as the arXiv, then they wouldn't need a voting system either. It'd be a much colder place, though, which is probably why they don't do that.

[0]: https://arxiv.org/help/submit

[1]: https://arxiv.org/help/moderation