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I think karma mechanisms have had a net negative effect on online discussion. I don't want to have preconceived notion on how I should feel about a post - I wan

I think karma mechanisms have had a net negative effect on online discussion. I don't want to have preconceived notion on how I should feel about a post - I want to make my own decisions. There's no escaping it now though, which is sad.

bcherny 10y ago
Given how much content is generated on online forums, it is natural to have a mechanism to surface better/relevant content (different forums define relevance differently). Otherwise you have to wade through a sea of memes and low quality content to get to something that is worth consuming.
- krapp 10y ago
  >Otherwise you have to wade through a sea of memes and low quality content to get to something that is worth consuming. Except now you have to deal with two definitions of quality - what you want to read and what gets voted up, and those don't always correlate.
- lacampbell 10y ago
  Given how much content is generated on online forums, it is natural to have a mechanism to surface better/relevant content (different forums define relevance differently). My key objection is that what the majority of users think is "better/relevant" should have no influence on what I think is better and relevant. I can decide for myself, I don't need the 'hivemind'. What's wrong with just a "deleting memes" policy?
  - stil 10y ago
    bcherny is saying that karma's primary function is content curation. sure, you might like a few downvoted submissions from time to time, but for most content karma scores will be saving you time sifting through a sea of content. removing content by hand requires an active and vigilant moderation team, user votes help mitigate that burden. Also, the power to 'delete' is most likely a slippery slope...
    - lacampbell 10y ago
      I see a lot of great content here greyed out. Including some of my own! At the end of the day, I'm not happy to follow the collective judgment of other users.
      - Sacho 10y ago
        With your suggestion, you wouldn't be able to see the content at all. It would have been deleted.
      - marklgr 10y ago
        Rarely happens here, in my experience. Significantly downvoted content almost always has severe issues, either in form, tone, or quality. We sometimes might happen to agree with some controversial opinion that has been downvoted a good bit, but more often than not the tone was just not conducive to a good discussion. There's probably a few exceptions I guess, but overall the false positive rate is low enough for me.
      - krapp 10y ago
        The greying out of downvoted comments seems to me to be a separate issue to karma - and particularly egregious given that (thanks to pg) there are no standards at all for voting. It would be nice if HN would allow sorting of threads by various filters, such as time of last reply, and/or decide whether or not low-sorted comments get greyed out.
      - sametmax 10y ago
        But I'm very glad they grey out comments, including some of your own. So what do we do now ?
        lacampbell 10y ago
        There's already a mechanism in HN for not seeing comments you don't want to see. You can collapse them.
      - _qwerty_ 10y ago
- vivekd 10y ago
  True but the incentive system which gives people points for content tends to create an environment where people try and say what is popular or will get high karma instead of what is insightful and avoid what is unpopular or will get downvotes even when it is true and insightful. Tying a system for surfacing high quality content to individual points seems like a recipe for disaster. I like facebooks system, where points and algorithms work together to try and surface content that users will like, but there is no actual running point system to try and game.
Tanegashima 10y ago
And I just upvoted your vote because I do agree... or it was because your post was top-voted?
bike4beer 10y ago
Of Course, look no farther than this forum, where 'hive' like groups gang up on any individual they choose and down vote them, which is just censorship by 'gang'. The Karma notion was just an easy ALGO at the time, but we know the AI ( machine learning ) algo's will even be worse at selective control of the topic and sentiment. All that exists today is 'intellectual ghettos' where like minded people can 'circle jerk' ( excuse the explicit truth ), anyone outside the 'circle' simply moves on to a 'ghetto' where he/she are accepted. The problem of course is everyone becomes isolated, and then just gets their favorite 'ideal' repeated, and that my dear friends here is not the definition of an education. An open mind, an open heart, and to consider everybody's idea, and you choose what to read or not read, but simply shadow banning or sliding somebody because of non political-correct position's is inane.
a1studmuffin 10y ago
I'd love to see an automated karma system that scored posts on correct grammar, spelling and readability. I guess that would discourage non-native speakers of a language from participating though.
- lacampbell 10y ago
  My personal threshold for "how good should I be at a language before I start arguing online in it" is very, very low.
- slau 10y ago
  I don't think we should be overly PC. If someone doesn't understand the English language well enough to not write all of their thoughts in a single, unpunctuated wall of text, and doesn't rely on the red squiggly lines to indicate that something was misspelt... How exactly will they contribute to the discussion in a way that will be constructive and positive? I'm not saying that their ideas aren't worthwhile, but simply that the medium won't allow for those ideas to be presented in an engaging manner. There's a huge difference between the wall-of-text full of typos and misspellings (which seem to become the weapon of choice of native speakers as well), and the misuse of pronouns, or forgetting which word is an irregular preterit. I, for one, would be in favour of seeing the former ranked lower.
- jononor 10y ago
  Better to have feedback to the writer in the editor, so they are given a chance to learn and improve!
- skocznymroczny 10y ago
  you mean automated censorship system.
edmccard 10y ago
>I don't want to have preconceived notion on how I should feel about a post... Then don't! Or, if you mean you don't want to know how anyone else felt about a post, and you use the Stylish browser extension, you can use this style I made which makes all comment text the same vivid #000000 -- https://userstyles.org/styles/141705/that-s-just-like-your-opinion-man https://userstyles.org/styles/141705/that-s-just-like-your-o...
igk 10y ago
I never look at the karma (consciously at least). However, I like the filtering effect that it has for the most part, if coupled with good moderation (r/askscience,r/askhistorians)
LambdaComplex 10y ago
Well, there's always 4chan.
- lacampbell 10y ago
  That get rids of user names as well.

bcherny 10y ago

Given how much content is generated on online forums, it is natural to have a mechanism to surface better/relevant content (different forums define relevance differently). Otherwise you have to wade through a sea of memes and low quality content to get to something that is worth consuming.

krapp 10y ago
>Otherwise you have to wade through a sea of memes and low quality content to get to something that is worth consuming. Except now you have to deal with two definitions of quality - what you want to read and what gets voted up, and those don't always correlate.
lacampbell 10y ago
Given how much content is generated on online forums, it is natural to have a mechanism to surface better/relevant content (different forums define relevance differently). My key objection is that what the majority of users think is "better/relevant" should have no influence on what I think is better and relevant. I can decide for myself, I don't need the 'hivemind'. What's wrong with just a "deleting memes" policy?
- stil 10y ago
  bcherny is saying that karma's primary function is content curation. sure, you might like a few downvoted submissions from time to time, but for most content karma scores will be saving you time sifting through a sea of content. removing content by hand requires an active and vigilant moderation team, user votes help mitigate that burden. Also, the power to 'delete' is most likely a slippery slope...
  - lacampbell 10y ago
    I see a lot of great content here greyed out. Including some of my own! At the end of the day, I'm not happy to follow the collective judgment of other users.
    - Sacho 10y ago
      With your suggestion, you wouldn't be able to see the content at all. It would have been deleted.
    - marklgr 10y ago
      Rarely happens here, in my experience. Significantly downvoted content almost always has severe issues, either in form, tone, or quality. We sometimes might happen to agree with some controversial opinion that has been downvoted a good bit, but more often than not the tone was just not conducive to a good discussion. There's probably a few exceptions I guess, but overall the false positive rate is low enough for me.
    - krapp 10y ago
      The greying out of downvoted comments seems to me to be a separate issue to karma - and particularly egregious given that (thanks to pg) there are no standards at all for voting. It would be nice if HN would allow sorting of threads by various filters, such as time of last reply, and/or decide whether or not low-sorted comments get greyed out.
    - sametmax 10y ago
      But I'm very glad they grey out comments, including some of your own. So what do we do now ?
      - lacampbell 10y ago
        There's already a mechanism in HN for not seeing comments you don't want to see. You can collapse them.
    - _qwerty_ 10y ago
vivekd 10y ago
True but the incentive system which gives people points for content tends to create an environment where people try and say what is popular or will get high karma instead of what is insightful and avoid what is unpopular or will get downvotes even when it is true and insightful. Tying a system for surfacing high quality content to individual points seems like a recipe for disaster. I like facebooks system, where points and algorithms work together to try and surface content that users will like, but there is no actual running point system to try and game.

Tanegashima 10y ago

And I just upvoted your vote because I do agree... or it was because your post was top-voted?

bike4beer 10y ago

Of Course, look no farther than this forum, where 'hive' like groups gang up on any individual they choose and down vote them, which is just censorship by 'gang'. The Karma notion was just an easy ALGO at the time, but we know the AI ( machine learning ) algo's will even be worse at selective control of the topic and sentiment. All that exists today is 'intellectual ghettos' where like minded people can 'circle jerk' ( excuse the explicit truth ), anyone outside the 'circle' simply moves on to a 'ghetto' where he/she are accepted. The problem of course is everyone becomes isolated, and then just gets their favorite 'ideal' repeated, and that my dear friends here is not the definition of an education. An open mind, an open heart, and to consider everybody's idea, and you choose what to read or not read, but simply shadow banning or sliding somebody because of non political-correct position's is inane.

a1studmuffin 10y ago

I'd love to see an automated karma system that scored posts on correct grammar, spelling and readability. I guess that would discourage non-native speakers of a language from participating though.

lacampbell 10y ago
My personal threshold for "how good should I be at a language before I start arguing online in it" is very, very low.
slau 10y ago
I don't think we should be overly PC. If someone doesn't understand the English language well enough to not write all of their thoughts in a single, unpunctuated wall of text, and doesn't rely on the red squiggly lines to indicate that something was misspelt... How exactly will they contribute to the discussion in a way that will be constructive and positive? I'm not saying that their ideas aren't worthwhile, but simply that the medium won't allow for those ideas to be presented in an engaging manner. There's a huge difference between the wall-of-text full of typos and misspellings (which seem to become the weapon of choice of native speakers as well), and the misuse of pronouns, or forgetting which word is an irregular preterit. I, for one, would be in favour of seeing the former ranked lower.
jononor 10y ago
Better to have feedback to the writer in the editor, so they are given a chance to learn and improve!
skocznymroczny 10y ago
you mean automated censorship system.

edmccard 10y ago

>I don't want to have preconceived notion on how I should feel about a post... Then don't! Or, if you mean you don't want to know how anyone else felt about a post, and you use the Stylish browser extension, you can use this style I made which makes all comment text the same vivid #000000 -- https://userstyles.org/styles/141705/that-s-just-like-your-opinion-man https://userstyles.org/styles/141705/that-s-just-like-your-o...

igk 10y ago

I never look at the karma (consciously at least). However, I like the filtering effect that it has for the most part, if coupled with good moderation (r/askscience,r/askhistorians)

LambdaComplex 10y ago

Well, there's always 4chan.

lacampbell 10y ago
That get rids of user names as well.