:-) I've shortened my average comment significantly over the years, mostly because of time and attention constraints. I suspect that the comment ranking algorithm actually penalizes posts > ~5 paragraphs in length now; that'd explain why eg. edw519's posts rarely rank highly now.
While the rating for an entirely identical comment seems about as scientific a test as one could hope for, perhaps at least some of the fall-off in points is a penalty for literally copying old comments?
(Also, any one comment could fall through the cracks; the best comments can sometimes, by pure chance, fail to catch initial attention and fall out of view, without it necessarily reflecting anything but who was awake and browsing then—there's definitely a "rich get richer" effect in any system that promotes highly ranked content. For example, it would be interesting to know what times of day these two comments were posted.)
The comments were not identical. He starts the repost with:
"Aaah, feels like a good time for me to recycle an oldie but goodie from #245 here: ...."
If I was listening to the radio and I heard Milli Vanilli say something about dusting off a blast from the past my reaction would probably be to change the channel, not turn up the volume.
> If I was listening to the radio and I heard Milli Vanilli say something about dusting off a blast from the past my reaction would probably be to change the channel, not turn up the volume.
Indeed, what I take you to be saying is was what I meant; not necessarily that HN now has less taste for long-form comments, but rather that people are less likely to read, and therefore to upvote, a comment that is prefaced with a statement that it is a duplicate.
(I agree that what you have highlighted is an important sense in which the comments are not identical.)
Got it. The whole complaint was intellectually bankrupt. Even if the comments were identical I don't understand why they would be expected to score the same way.
Well, I've also noticed the effect where when I write a short (2-3 paragraph) comment, it's instantly ranked at the top of the comments for the article with 1 point, while when I write a long (8-10 paragraph) comment, it's instantly ranked at the bottom of the comments for the article with 1 point.
That's interesting, although, if it is more than just chance, it seems like it would say more about pg's attitudes towards desireable comments than about those of the broader community.
