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One rule that I have is that if I need to repeat or rephrase a previous comment without adding anything new, I need to stop the conversation.

1. Comment by me.

2. Response by someone else.

If my reaction to 2 is to reiterate 1, that's a sign that the conversation isn't going anywhere and it's better if I don't participate further.

Also, if you're on twitter, facebook or reddit, you need to heavily restrict your input and output and not take part in arguments altogether. Or just not be on those platforms in their current form.




I sometimes comment to show a bit of effort, when I agree with someone, like yours superbcarrot, something more than an easy upvote. Not everything has to be a discussion.


There's a fine line between appreciative agreement and something that just decreases the signal to noise ratio though.


Absolutely, I don’t do this with everything, but it’s more like an appreciation of effort to the commenter.


Can you tell me how to earn karma points on Hacker news please reply me help.


Say something that smart people find edifying.


Wrong!


If you have to repeatedly do this, sure. I guess everyone has a different threshold. People with customer facing jobs have a lot of practice with this.




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