> Some of my favorite HN articles are the ones that have no comments on them.
Others have said this too. It may be that more substantive stories demand reflection before comments arise. Conversely, shallower posts often trigger a flood of comments in a few minutes. That's usually bad because such reactions are more reflexive than reflective, typically served from cache with little attention to whatever is specific about this story.
The difference in reaction times is noticeable, like a timing attack on the brain. Hmm... we could measure this.
One can sum up everything we're striving for on HN as s/reflexive/reflective/.
You also might want to sum it up in the same way Paul Romer sums it up in the title of his third post, "Stigler Conviction vs. Feynman Integrity", or as he puts it in his first post:
"This evidence strengthens my belief that the fundamental divide here is between the norms of political discourse and the norms of scientific discourse. Lawyers and politicians both engage in a version of the adversarial method"
In law there is a case to be made for the adversarial method (Though the disparities in what each side can afford in legal counsel undermine it almost entirely), but I question whether it is good for politics. We are so polarized and reflexive in all debates. Libertarians refuse to concede any flaws in their model of how things work, and the same is true for those who want the government and laws to take over.
The question is, has social progress mostly come about through political war, where each side employs any means necessary to win, including dishonest ones, or through honest discourse, where we arrive at truth not through attrition but through reason? I want it to be the latter but most of the world acts like it's the former. And quite often the appalling injustices and suffering that continue in the world cause me wonder whether I should give up idealism and grab a musket.
It would be interesting to explore the idea of reaction delay as a ranking signal. Perhaps by blind testing it against some of your other established signals of quality, and by seeing how well reaction delay can predict these and possibly other ( say, subjective ) signals of quality.
Others have said this too. It may be that more substantive stories demand reflection before comments arise. Conversely, shallower posts often trigger a flood of comments in a few minutes. That's usually bad because such reactions are more reflexive than reflective, typically served from cache with little attention to whatever is specific about this story.
The difference in reaction times is noticeable, like a timing attack on the brain. Hmm... we could measure this.
One can sum up everything we're striving for on HN as s/reflexive/reflective/.