5 ms·

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 di

by 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
      The logical solution isn't to ignore or remove the karma system, but to use it better. For example, with sufficient data to analyse, it shouldn't be tremendously difficult to find relationships between users who tend to agree or disagree, and provide each user with a customised view, taking these preferences into account. (Of course, slashdot took a slant at making it cleverer - by allowing upvoting for different reasons - e.g. funny vs. insightful.)
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.

by bcherny 10y ago

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
    The logical solution isn't to ignore or remove the karma system, but to use it better. For example, with sufficient data to analyse, it shouldn't be tremendously difficult to find relationships between users who tend to agree or disagree, and provide each user with a customised view, taking these preferences into account. (Of course, slashdot took a slant at making it cleverer - by allowing upvoting for different reasons - e.g. funny vs. insightful.)

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.