3 ms·

Do HN members read before voting? This Reddit study found their subjects didn't

5 points by Dowwie 9y ago

mehrdadn 9y ago
Back in 2014, NPR did some research on why America doesn't read anymore; it was pretty insightful: https://www.npr.org/2014/04/01/297690717/why-doesnt-america-read-anymore https://www.npr.org/2014/04/01/297690717/why-doesnt-america-...
CM30 9y ago
Not surprised that most Reddit users don't read before voting. Most people in general don't read or watch whatever they're sharing or voting on when on any social media site, whether that's Twitter, Facebook, YouTube or Reddit alike. It's also pretty obvious if you're a webmaster whose work's been linked on one of these sites. Note the visitor stats in Google Analytics or what not, then note how much lower than they are than the stats for the same content on the referring site.
jstanley 9y ago
I generally come here for the headline and the comments, and only occasionally actually read the linked article.
tabeth 9y ago
unsurprising. HN encourages not reading by literally hiding downvoted comments. one could argue that the votes and the ranking should not be tied, e.g. randomize the ranking to encourage voting for more things as people are most likely to read what's closest to the top.
krapp 9y ago
Most comments tend to be replies to other comments, in which case it seems likely the commented never read TFA, since their intent is engaging other users and not the content itself. It also seems likely many, if not most, top level commenters never read TFA, since doing so would require more effort than simply extrapolating from the title. We can assume that to be the case if the article is behind a paywall, or uses javascript, or prompts for ad blockers to be turned off, because we'll get subthreads complaining about paywalls, unnecessary javascript and ad blockers. If the article is long, or takes effort, users will also feel that it wastes their time and ask for a tl;dr. This seems to be a fundamental problem with maintaining quality on forums but I have no idea how one would solve it, since you can't force people to put in more than minimal effort.

5 points by Dowwie 9y ago

Back in 2014, NPR did some research on why America doesn't read anymore; it was pretty insightful: https://www.npr.org/2014/04/01/297690717/why-doesnt-america-read-anymore https://www.npr.org/2014/04/01/297690717/why-doesnt-america-...

CM30 9y ago

Not surprised that most Reddit users don't read before voting. Most people in general don't read or watch whatever they're sharing or voting on when on any social media site, whether that's Twitter, Facebook, YouTube or Reddit alike. It's also pretty obvious if you're a webmaster whose work's been linked on one of these sites. Note the visitor stats in Google Analytics or what not, then note how much lower than they are than the stats for the same content on the referring site.

jstanley 9y ago

I generally come here for the headline and the comments, and only occasionally actually read the linked article.

tabeth 9y ago

unsurprising. HN encourages not reading by literally hiding downvoted comments. one could argue that the votes and the ranking should not be tied, e.g. randomize the ranking to encourage voting for more things as people are most likely to read what's closest to the top.

krapp 9y ago

Most comments tend to be replies to other comments, in which case it seems likely the commented never read TFA, since their intent is engaging other users and not the content itself. It also seems likely many, if not most, top level commenters never read TFA, since doing so would require more effort than simply extrapolating from the title. We can assume that to be the case if the article is behind a paywall, or uses javascript, or prompts for ad blockers to be turned off, because we'll get subthreads complaining about paywalls, unnecessary javascript and ad blockers. If the article is long, or takes effort, users will also feel that it wastes their time and ask for a tl;dr. This seems to be a fundamental problem with maintaining quality on forums but I have no idea how one would solve it, since you can't force people to put in more than minimal effort.