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HN does not incentivizes "good" behavior, it incentivizes "populist" behavior.

by qazpot 9y ago

verylittlemeat 9y ago
I'm not sure if "populist" is as pejorative as you think it is when describing HN. Is it possible to have a forum on the internet with hundreds of active users that doesn't leverage a populist model (upvotes/favorites/likes)? Even places where the comments aren't ranked by the users they ARE ranked by activity (bumps/views) behind the scenes. It seems like it would be very difficult to decouple "populism" from any large public forum worth reading so I'm skeptical of this criticism of HN. I would argue that it's disingenuous to accuse HN of mere populism without you defining your terms because even academics are skeptical of any one defintion. In many ways your use of "populist" is nothing more than a slur.
- qazpot 9y ago
  I think you are reading too much into my comment. I am simply stating that "good" and "populist" are two different things. IMO, HN incentivize having popular opinions. Saying "HN incentivizes good behavior" comes with an underlying assumption that "populist" is "good" which I was trying to point out via my comment. > I'm not sure if "populist" is as pejorative as you think it is when describing HN. I am not using "populist" in perjorative sense. > Is it possible to have a forum on the internet with hundreds of active users that doesn't leverage a populist model (upvotes/favorites/likes)? Even places where the comments aren't ranked by the users they ARE ranked by activity (bumps/views) behind the scenes. Nearly all internet forums I have used leverage the populist model. However, I think this is more due to the designers of these forums. The designers of these forums want to show the most "relevant content" and their definition of "relevant content" seems to be the content with which most people agree. I believe one could experiment with different definition of "relevant content" to create different forums.

HN does not incentivizes "good" behavior, it incentivizes "populist" behavior.

by qazpot 9y ago

HN does not incentivizes "good" behavior, it incentivizes "populist" behavior.

I'm not sure if "populist" is as pejorative as you think it is when describing HN. Is it possible to have a forum on the internet with hundreds of active users that doesn't leverage a populist model (upvotes/favorites/likes)? Even places where the comments aren't ranked by the users they ARE ranked by activity (bumps/views) behind the scenes. It seems like it would be very difficult to decouple "populism" from any large public forum worth reading so I'm skeptical of this criticism of HN. I would argue that it's disingenuous to accuse HN of mere populism without you defining your terms because even academics are skeptical of any one defintion. In many ways your use of "populist" is nothing more than a slur.

qazpot 9y ago
I think you are reading too much into my comment. I am simply stating that "good" and "populist" are two different things. IMO, HN incentivize having popular opinions. Saying "HN incentivizes good behavior" comes with an underlying assumption that "populist" is "good" which I was trying to point out via my comment. > I'm not sure if "populist" is as pejorative as you think it is when describing HN. I am not using "populist" in perjorative sense. > Is it possible to have a forum on the internet with hundreds of active users that doesn't leverage a populist model (upvotes/favorites/likes)? Even places where the comments aren't ranked by the users they ARE ranked by activity (bumps/views) behind the scenes. Nearly all internet forums I have used leverage the populist model. However, I think this is more due to the designers of these forums. The designers of these forums want to show the most "relevant content" and their definition of "relevant content" seems to be the content with which most people agree. I believe one could experiment with different definition of "relevant content" to create different forums.