I see what you're saying… but don't confuse depth of a thread for quality. I think the first comment was down-modded for language and then typical troll-baited discussion took over. The second one is definitely a better example because the tone is better.
Actually, now that I think about it, I once got down-modded for a comment that I felt was reasonable in tone and content. A little snarky maybe: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=713004 It was political though and I think political topics encourage this kind of behavior. Makes you feel like giving up when you know that there are other users who just want to censor other opinions. That is probably why people rail against the political topic stories here on hacker news. It's less about not being interested in political discussions as much as they don't like topics that encourage division.
It's really crazy what attaching some magic reputation "points" to an activity can do to it. People go absolutely nuts over points. I would have to agree with a point made earlier on this one that it is time to consider hiding the scores, or at least de-emphasizing them. Mob behavior will be fueled by them.
The same happens with the 'momentum', if something is on the way down it seems like everybody has to add their stone to the castigation, and if it is on the way up and listed first then it will pick up more points than later but better reasoned out replies at the same level. There is definitely some kind of feedback going on there.
Comments
I see what you're saying… but don't confuse depth of a thread for quality. I think the first comment was down-modded for language and then typical troll-baited discussion took over. The second one is definitely a better example because the tone is better.
Actually, now that I think about it, I once got down-modded for a comment that I felt was reasonable in tone and content. A little snarky maybe: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=713004 It was political though and I think political topics encourage this kind of behavior. Makes you feel like giving up when you know that there are other users who just want to censor other opinions. That is probably why people rail against the political topic stories here on hacker news. It's less about not being interested in political discussions as much as they don't like topics that encourage division.
It's really crazy what attaching some magic reputation "points" to an activity can do to it. People go absolutely nuts over points. I would have to agree with a point made earlier on this one that it is time to consider hiding the scores, or at least de-emphasizing them. Mob behavior will be fueled by them.
The same happens with the 'momentum', if something is on the way down it seems like everybody has to add their stone to the castigation, and if it is on the way up and listed first then it will pick up more points than later but better reasoned out replies at the same level. There is definitely some kind of feedback going on there.