Can we discuss "This."?<p>Maybe it's a very silly thing to be bothered by, but I can't be the only one agitated when I read a response to anything that begins simply with "This."<p>It's my personal feeling is that "This." is a sign of the decline of intelligent discourse on HN. I feel like "This." is usually karma fishing, and that their comment more than likely adds nothing to the discourse, and is often a predictor of immaturity.<p>I'd like to know what everyone else thinks.
I like to upvote things that I think add value to HackerNews. However, since upvotes are no longer displayed, it's impossible for my agreement or endorsement to have any visible manifestation unless I add a comment. I'd be tempted to use this emerging new idiom, except I think it looks and sounds stupid.<p>However, pretty much all dialectic and idiomatic shifts look stupid to those entrenched in the existing "standards" and not part of the current "in-crowd." Language changes, and as it does so it leaves behind the previous generation. Perhaps this will flourish briefly and then die out. Perhaps it will return every 10 years or so, possibly even become mundane rather than regarded by some as "cool" and others as, well, juvenile.<p>Personally, I think that saying "This" looks stupid, but it succinctly expresses the sentiment of the one who writes it. I certainly think it's less stupid than saying "I could care less" when one means that one doesn't care at all. Even saying "meh" would be more acceptable than that illogical expletive.<p>But in the end this is unhelpful. The language used here will reflect the norms of the population. You can try a King Canute and stand against the tide, but you can't win.
I think it was popularised on vBulletin/phpBB style forums where people quote another post (using BBCode) and add nothing but "This." below, as if to say "This is what I'd have said if I got here first".<p><pre><code> +------------------------------+
| xXMasterChiefXx |
|------------------------------|
| |
| +----------------------+ |
| | ShadowKiller2K said: | |
| |----------------------| |
| | | |
| | Xbawks > PS3 | |
| | | |
| +----------------------+ |
| |
| This. |
| |
+------------------------------+
</code></pre>
(I'm amused that these made-up usernames have tons of results in Google!)<p>I remember a specific user on a forum I used to participate in that did the quote+this thing constantly, as if they were trying to build up a reputation of being a sage individual without having to do a lick of original thinking.
Are there actually a significant number of posts which consist of just a single "This"? Or are you making a statement against the use of that as an opening line before someone adds their two cents.<p>If the former I might suggest it has something to with the fact that commenting is the only visible form of 'voting' on HN now that comment scores are hidden.<p>If the latter, I am completely ambivalent. Its a popular turn of phrase it successfully and succinctly communicates agreement and endorsement of the parent comment. At the same time I wouldn't mind terribly if it fell into disuse.
Are you bothered if someone starts a post with "I completely agree with you."?<p>If so, I think that's strange. Why would that bother you? They're giving you an idea of what their comment will be like up front to help you understand it more easily.<p>If not, they why does it bother you when they say essentially the same thing with four fewer words?<p>It's totally fine to be annoyed by a comment that doesn't add anything or is immature, but <i>that's</i> what you should be annoyed by, not the fact that they happened to use a particular phrase that concisely states a summary of their opinion.
I don't mind it ... and I do think its a very silly thing to be bothered by.<p>The entirety of your content matters here, so a singular "This" will get downvoted very quickly. But if you say "This" and follow it up with something thoughtful, then what exactly is the problem?<p>The colloquialisms that we'll use over the course of our time on (especially on the internet) will change frequently, new ones will pop up that require some getting used to, but that's just it ... just buckle up and adjust to it.<p>How people choose to communicate should be up to them, not some arbitrary lingo police.
I consider it significantly less pernicious than "fanboy" and all its bastardizations and misspellings. I always feel a little warm and fuzzy inside when someone starts a reply to one of my comments with "This.".<p>I think its use indicates someone who maybe spends more time arguing on the internet than writing code or starting businesses or whatever other incredibly-value-generating things the Platonic Form of Hacker spends his or her time doing. At steady state, most of the content in any online community is going to come from that sort of person. Not much use pretending that ain't what's starting to happen now.
Do we really need to waste our time discussing "This."? That's what down-voting is for.<p>Ok, my $0.02 - Agreeing with someone isn't contributing to the conversation and if you can't take the time to think of something original to say, don't say it (or face the down-vote). It would be nice to have this added to the "comments" section of the Guidelines.
It's better to use grammatically correct and conventionally accepted statements.<p>Beginning a response with "I agree" or "Good point" reads pleasantly, without the nails-on-chalkboard effect of the internet-nerd-herd-mind irritating-and-head-scratching-to-regular-people nerd-convention of "This".<p>Stupid nerds. They seem to like to demonstrate how "non-conforming" they are, but reading sites like this, or worse, reddit, shows how readily they imitate one big nerd group.
Can we also stop "fail" as a one-word sentence? I'd appreciate it.<p>I've stopped participating in any site where the usage of internet memes is anything above negligible. Reading that crap actually makes <i>me</i> feel stupider.
I hate it when people say "and what not". Oh, and "cool beans" makes me cringe.<p>I'm just saying, this is something that really shouldn't be bothering you. It's a convention of online conversation. It means that someone thinks you've hit the nail on the head with your point.<p>Example:<p>This. And now I'm going to say why I think your idea is cool beans and what not.
The problems are that upvotes are invisible and anonymous. The website has no built-in mechanism to tell other people that they should pay attention to a given post.
It's a very silly thing to be bothered by. It's just that once you noticed it, you saw it everywhere, even though it wasn't happening any more or less than before. And now that you've posted this, it will bother you even more when you see it, because "they ignored my post dammmit."<p>In my experience, when I start getting annoyed by anonymous users on web sites, that's more a reflection on my current state than anything else.
I wonder if this is a generational divide, I assume that it's something that gets under my skin because I'm an old guy (35! Gasp!) and I frown on people using <i>my</i> language in a way that diverges from how I've always used it.<p>It feels like a sort of Internet-speak affectation (something I know a thing or two about) that wouldn't show up in spoken language or other forms of written language. I can see how that would bug people.
In my opinion it's just a commonly used term in which I subconsciously process as something else. Whenever I read a reply that begins with "This." I instead hear "I couldn't agree with you more." Typically, the comment doesn't stop there and the author would elaborate as to why he or she agrees.<p>Do you just stop reading the comment at the point of "This."? Oftentimes, the reason justifies use of the word.
Thank you for bringing this up! Like you, I vehemently recoil when I spot a "This." in the wild.<p>To me, "This." == "I am incapable of formulating my own thoughts and therefore choose to fully agree with whatever that guy above me just said."
I don't like it but am more accepting of it when it is followed by a paragraph or so of useful content that the parent post did not include (for example, another argument supporting the same conclusion).
It's a shorter way to write "I completely agree with you, and I want people to know it, but I have nothing left to add". Language and expression changes, especially in the world of Twitter and social media. People want to be part of a group and express agreement.
It's nothing more than a nod, expressed verbally. I'm not annoyed by people who nod in agreement.
Mixed feelings when it is the precursor to a cogent, interesting comment. Agree completely to stopping it when it forms the entire content of a comment.<p>Not displaying points was a careful, considered decision. Live with it.<p>As an aside, if pg decides he doesn't like comments that consist of (or begin with) "This.", they would be pretty easy to penalize. ;-)
Provided that it is used as a preamble to signify agreement, and that then this agreement is expanded upon by the author, I do not see any problem with it.<p>It's kind of like explicitly using the "this->" or "this." formation in C++ or Java or what have you: sure, it may seem needlessly verbose, but it usually doesn't present a major issue when parsing code and can often help make sure you are in the right area when thinking about things.<p>"This." is useful, provided that it isn't all that's said.
Nobody should be replying to a thread simply to say they agree/disagree with it without adding to the discussion - that's what the upvote/downvote buttons are for. Perhaps a community rule should be added and mods can enforce it.
This was already mentioned a couple of weeks ago: <a href="http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3153377" rel="nofollow">http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3153377</a>
Maybe it's shorthand for "{this()}" ?<p>Sorry couldn't resist.<p>I'm not really bothered by it in the comments, I guess it's kind of a substitue for "agreed" or "totally".