Good point. I come from the old age of Usenet signatures, where proper etiquette said 4 lines was appropriate. Except they were displayed at the bottom of people's screens, not inline like threads nowdays (do I sound old enough now :-) I'm really not).
I do have an opinion on signing (using at least one line at the end), because I believe it helps the conversation to know who said what. If all you read were anonymous comments, it would hurt the conversation. When I see the same name again and again in a thread, my brain automatically connects the dots and I follow the conversation better knowing that the same person is responding again, or a new person chimed in, etc.
You could argue that the name of the writer is already mentioned at the top, but somehow I always seem to skip that part and rely on the bottom of a post to know who wrote it. Maybe it's because if I read a message til the end, it means I found it interesting. Only then do I want to see who wrote it. That would explain why I skip names in the header and expect it in the footer... Anyone has read good research on that topic?
Please don't sign comments, especially with your url. They're already signed with your username. If other users want to learn more about you, they can click on it to see your profile.
You're just not in the habit of looking back up at the name when you finish a comment that you like. It's not hard to train yourself to do that.
Not that anybody usually cares about meta-conversations around here, but I like the idea of one-line custom tags at the bottom of each comment. Especially since this is a startup board. People should be proud of what they are doing and should be wanting to plug it.
Noise is in the eye of the beholder. It seems a little self-serving and belittling to humanity to care about the message more than the messenger.
If I point something out and you comment, it's simple common politeness to allow you to drift off topic for a sentence or so. To care more about noise-to-signal ratio than a simple plug is to take humans out of the mix and turn boards into simple data.
I exaggerate my point for effect, but it still doesn't sit right with me. We're more that data machines for discussion boards.
I see it as noise because it's redundant. All posts have a name and a profile associated with them.
Personally, I think you have to earn a reference to your personal or business site. And you can do that by saying interesting things, which makes me curious to find out who you are by clicking your name. Which, again, I often do here.
Thanks for the pointer to the FAQ, I had never noticed there was one (there is no link to the FAQ from the threads themselves). So you're correct, it is policy of HN. Now I know.
I do have an opinion on signing (using at least one line at the end), because I believe it helps the conversation to know who said what. If all you read were anonymous comments, it would hurt the conversation. When I see the same name again and again in a thread, my brain automatically connects the dots and I follow the conversation better knowing that the same person is responding again, or a new person chimed in, etc.
You could argue that the name of the writer is already mentioned at the top, but somehow I always seem to skip that part and rely on the bottom of a post to know who wrote it. Maybe it's because if I read a message til the end, it means I found it interesting. Only then do I want to see who wrote it. That would explain why I skip names in the header and expect it in the footer... Anyone has read good research on that topic?