Hacker News Guidelines

The only one I subtly disagree with is "comments should be substantive". What it discourages I think is comments like "thanks" or other really 'unsubstantive' comments. It's true that maybe it adds noise, and in many cases are maybe supposed to be inferred without explicitly saying. But I think discouraging this slightly leans behaviour towards snark vs not. (If you see comments like "thanks" you're less likely to be snarky than if you see 'substantive' but maybe too harsh critiques in the comments that appear because "cool project!" isn't allowed.)

Personally I like to make it a point to break this rule from time to time to reduce this pattern.

Same. I think it's especially important to thank someone when they might otherwise assume you'll want to pick apart with their response to you, after you've asked them to write it.

One feature I've thought of would be for someone in a conversation thread to know if the other participant upvoted their last comment. Giving someone an upvote and not replying would send a strong positive signal without taking up more space.

That suggestion about upvoting might work. It has less of a human element than a typed/written reply though (instead of someone typing text to express positive intent, it's someone incrementing a number to express positive intent), and it does sound more desolate/lonely from that perspective. Although I don't know how much it matters.

Here's an exchange from a book I thought of while typing this comment, to illustrate my meaning.

`But he could not resist the temptation to speak and to awaken a little human warmth around him. “A pity for the car,” he said. “Foreign cars cost quite a bit of gold, and after half a year on our roads they are finished.” “There you are quite right. Our roads are very backward,” said the old official. By his tone Rubashov realized that he had understood his helplessness. He felt like a dog to whom one had just thrown a bone; he decided not to speak again.`

A lone "thanks" doesn't seem to contain very much human element in it either, though; that just feels like somebody wanted to make a comment but couldn't be bothered to provide detail. What specifically are they thanking? Does the link make their life a little better (and if yes, how, so that others could emulate making more people's lives better)? If it was in reply to a comment, did they just read it or actually try whatever it was?

I think I dislike it because it reminds me of the busy exec replying with a single word, and that is definitely lacking in humanity.