Ask HN: Why can't we comment on [dead] posts?

4 aspenmayer 14 5/22/2025, 8:23:05 PM

Did this behavior change recently? I recall being able to reply to existing comments on [dead] posts recently, but now that capability seems to have been removed.

These actions seem anti-user. If the post is already dead, no new comments can be made on the post, which is bad enough, but could be justified for moderation purposes. However, why can’t we reply to [live] comments, simply because the post they are attached to is [dead]? It’s bad enough that old [live] posts get locked, basically freezing them in carbonite, a state indistinguishable from death only in that it wasn’t triggered by user behavior.

A related issue is that downvoted replies with upvoted children may be collapsed or [dead] even if the downthread discussion is of higher quality than other top level comments.

Maybe make it so that user flags have to select a checkbox/radio button reason for the flag or fill in a text box? Would probably not help the issue in title, but slashdot’s vote reasons and meta-moderation system captured a lot of user interaction intent that few platforms have revisited. Emoji reactions would maybe be the closest thing I’ve seen lately.

Thoughts, suggestions for more thoughtful interactions on HN?

Comments (14)

detaro · 59m ago

fairly sure you never could comment on [dead] posts. [flagged] is a separate state from [flagged][dead] though, and then you can still comment.

pvg · 3h ago

Maybe send this question to hn@ycombinator.com with examples of the posts you can't comment on?

aspenmayer · 2h ago

Here’s an example:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44065795

I often email, but this time I opted to have the conversation in public, so that both mods and users could participate and discuss on equal footing.

pvg · 2h ago

That's a flagged dead post? Those have been closed to new comments as far back as I can remember.

aspenmayer · 2h ago

I’m not talking about new top level comments on a [dead] post. Those have always been closed. I’m talking about new replies to live comments on a [dead] post. Those were possible until relatively recently. I don’t remember any notice of this change, or reasoning/justification for such change, which has now clearly occurred.

pvg · 1h ago

I haven't noticed this but maybe you can find out by emailing the mods.

aspenmayer · 1h ago

I’m sure that I could, and I could faithfully transcribe their reply, and you’d just have to take my word for it. Why would I want to insert myself as an intermediary between the moderators and the community that they moderate?

pvg · 37m ago

It’s you who’s asking, not the community? Like, insertion already happened - most meta posts aren’t interesting to most people which is why the convention is to address them to the people who can answer them.

AnimalMuppet · 3h ago

If you email hn@ycombinator.com with a thoughtful discussion that is below a dead comment, dang can detach it so the discussion can be better seen. (If you have showdead on, you can expand dead collapsed comments, and get to the discussion below, but most people don't and won't.)

As far as dead posts... I don't remember whether we used to be able to comment on them or not.

aspenmayer · 2h ago

Detaching posts is also used as a moderation tactic to bury posts, which is also anti-user, and it also breaks context and parent-child relationships. It’s not really a workable solution to the problems it purports to solve, in my opinion.

> As far as dead posts... I don't remember whether we used to be able to comment on them or not.

We did, and I have done so often. If I had to guess, this change occurred in the last month or two.

brudgers · 2h ago

If it changed, maybe the reason is because it was deemed an attractive nuisance.

Sometimes community is the high bit, not the user.

aspenmayer · 2h ago

If we’re the high bit, why are changes affecting the entire community shoved through on the down-low? A moderation log and changelog announcing changes to how the site works would improve transparency and increase trust and accountability in HN. This speculation is entirely avoidable, but somehow the opaque structure of moderation on HN seems intentional. Most mod actions on HN probably fall under anti-abuse measures, and perhaps only bad actors were bothering to reply to live comments on dead posts. But seeing how hard it is to even find dead posts if you weren’t already aware of them, I’m not sure this was a problem for users, as they probably weren’t seeing them in the first place, but it could easily be a problem for HN.

I think your explanation is most likely because it assumes the least, but considering the way the guidelines have evolved, I’m willing to believe that this was being actively used by bad actors, and not simply a change that was easily justified once you saw fit to do so.

krapp · 1h ago

FWIW, dang has commented on why HN doesn't use a public moderation log: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...

aspenmayer · 1h ago

A moderation log is an example of how transparency into mod actions could work. In many ways, we already have the moderation log in the form of comment replies from mods. If you used a text box wrong, mods on HN seem pretty good about replying to you if they made a mod action. Maybe not in every case, but it seems intentional and probably an effort to make their impact visible and accountable to users.

However, we don’t have any logs of moderator interventions in the functioning of the site in other ways. I’ve heard Dang say that one of my posts was downranked because it was basically a bad look for the #1 post on HN to be a post about n, where the post about n happened to be my post, and was on-topic for HN.

Edit for clarity: the interaction was over email or on HN but I don’t recall which; that is, not in literal earshot, and was direct communication to me, not indirect etc.

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Ask HN: Why can't we comment on [dead] posts?

Comments (14)