[thewebcount]

OK, slightly off-topic rant: I have to say that timestamp is the weirdest UI element I've run across in a long time. Nothing about it gives any indication that it does anything useful. Want to link to just the thread started by a given comment? Click the timestamp. What? Why? Oh well. Want to favorite a comment? Click the timestamp. Um, OK. That's weird.

I would never think to do that and on mobile have accidentally hit it while trying to do other things and been thoroughly confused how I got there or what led me there. It seems like it would be reasonable to make each of its function into a specific link above each comment. I don't think it would make the UI too much more cluttered, personally.

OK, rant over.

[DoreenMichele]

As someone who originally joined more than 11 years ago, my general impression is "old timers" tend to like the arcane interface. It's part of what makes this forum brilliant.

[toast0]

This is a common pattern, many sites use timestamp as an anchor to the individual post. I'm guessing someone realized there wasn't anything interesting to make a timestamp link to, so you could have it do that, and save space on separate text to explicitly link to the post.

[TeMPOraL]

Timestamp has been the standard place to put a permalink to a post/comment on the Internet since before social media was a thing. Mainstream social media platforms like Twitter or Facebook use this technique too.

[eyelidlessness]

I agree completely and this is one thing HN does like most other sites with user contributions and it’s TERRIBLE.

[srtjstjsj]

You learn it once and it works forever everywhere.