[kelseyfrog]

The difficulty in having conversations reduces the tendency for people to get caught up in the cycle of reactive response. Were to introduce response notification, the engagement metrics would rise, but so would the number of fights. Given that HN isn't incentivized to increase engagement to sell ads, posing such an impediment isn't clearly tied to a dollar valued opportunity cost and therefore easier to swallow.

[krapp]

>The difficulty in having conversations reduces the tendency for people to get caught up in the cycle of reactive response.

The increasingly frequent multi-thousand comment long garbage fire political threads disagree with you.

[kelseyfrog]

Right, I'm comparing the design effects of different social media platforms, while you're looking at HN over time. We're not really talking about the same things.

[krapp]

I think we are talking about the same things. I'm claiming the design being discussed doesn't have the effect you believe it does, with the growth of contentious threads being evidence to the contrary.

[kelseyfrog]

This is like me saying that the cost of living has certain geographical causes and you saying that's not true because housing prices are rising in Miami.

Are living related and housing price changes related? Sure, but that's not how one would dispell a statement about the former.

[mountainriver]

If you want a dumpster fire you can head to Reddit. I greatly prefer what HN does to reduce that

[Kaibeezy]

I’ve had conversations cut off by the site when there’s too much back-and-forth between me and one other person. Is that still in force?

[Wowfunhappy]

When this happens, you can still reply by clicking the timestamp above the post. The reply button will also appear after a while, the system just wants you to slow down.

[mackrevinack]

i wonder if 'slow' notifications might be a good sweet spot. instead of notifying you about a reply instantly it could send a summary of replies once or twice a day

[Wowfunhappy]

I feel like the `threads` page already serves this function though, even if not in quite the same way.

[kelseyfrog]

Anecdotally yes. The increased use of the threads page correlates to my descent into long threaded back-and-forths.

[dibt]

Yes. Happened to me the other day.