Thanks for the tip off on that, it looks like a decent work around for what I'm looking for. Except that I hate getting a lot of email, but I'll have to live with it.
One of the things I get frustrated by with online conversations is how frequently they just sort of die without making much progress. I'm usually not interested in just scoring points with searing rebuttals followed by a mic-drop. I like hashing things out. That these conversations take place on HN so frequently is put in an entirely different context now that I see how poorly the site facilitates it.
As a side note / issue: culturally this site discourages low quality posts (like this one would be if I just said a quick 'thanks for the link' like I intended to), but sometimes manners dictates an acknowledgment even when you have nothing else to add. Some means of doing that beyond an anonymous upvote could be kind of cool.
> As a side note / issue: culturally this site discourages low quality posts (like this one would be if I just said a quick 'thanks for the link' like I intended to), but sometimes manners dictates an acknowledgment even when you have nothing else to add.
I see what you did there ;). I sometimes too spend a while figuring out something constructive to write when the only real thing I actually wanted to say is "thanks!". I agree it would be good to facilitate this use case better, but I have no idea how to approach it. For now, if I can't for life find anything else of value I could add to my reply, I'll just write "Thanks for the [link/explanation/whatever]!" and hope it won't be treated as comment spam.
(As an aside, I tend to upvote honest "thank you" comments whenever I see them. As a way of encouraging civility, I think one should not only reward the good comments, but also expressions of gratitude.)
One of the things I get frustrated by with online conversations is how frequently they just sort of die without making much progress. I'm usually not interested in just scoring points with searing rebuttals followed by a mic-drop. I like hashing things out. That these conversations take place on HN so frequently is put in an entirely different context now that I see how poorly the site facilitates it.
As a side note / issue: culturally this site discourages low quality posts (like this one would be if I just said a quick 'thanks for the link' like I intended to), but sometimes manners dictates an acknowledgment even when you have nothing else to add. Some means of doing that beyond an anonymous upvote could be kind of cool.