3 ms·

By that theory you can also ignore the lowest-scoring karma (if negative karmas are being added), as some might have had bad day or unlucky thrashing.

fhars 16y ago
If you continue along that line, you end up using the median comment score... which might incidentally be an interresting experiment.
- tel 16y ago
  Some thoughts, assuming most of everyone's comments are ignored (success being a stronger function of practice instead of inborn genius) and that commenters with high means are probably being pulled up by a number of outliers. 1. Median obviously is less suspect to a small number of very popular comments which probably describes many users pretty well. It's the "betting value" for a game where loss is linear with error. 2. I'm not sure whether median would be higher or lower for most. Poisson distribution suggests higher medians, but many probably have a bunch of 1-karma comments to weight the origin. 3. A HUGE psychological difference is that median would be discreteness. Instead of seeming to be a smooth value related (probably naively) to community engagement and improvement it'll look more like a set of clubs. 0-medkarma could be a rabble-rouser, 3-medkarma is consistently meaningful. 10-medkarma means maybe you should run for office.
  - mediaman 16y ago
    Your third point is compelling. Psychologically, it diverts attention away from a specific number, and toward a general concept of "goodness", segregated by club. Then, rather then concentrating on getting the next karma point, users try to enter certain club, and each club has a general identity to it (with the top being those who provide thoughtful, intelligent responses, and typically only speak when they have something to say). Creating different clubs (creating classes of users) isn't arguably bad so long as there is easy mobility between classes based on merit. The natural question is how and whether to indicate the "class" or "club" a user is in. Make it public? Indicate it in comments? PG tried a red dot next to high-karma users some time ago, then scrapped it; maybe there's some other way to reward users based on club achieved.
    - tel 16y ago
      This is exactly how I feel, but am not sure that's a developed enough thought yet. I think discrete 'club' separation is a powerful force for social organization, especially if there is a tangible benefit for inclusion. I also think that median comment score probably isn't completely tracking the kind of behavior that should earn entrance into such clubs. Both thoughts depend on figuring out more completely what club membership means; it's something I can't flesh out well despite having a feeling it might be beneficial.
jackowayed 16y ago
Back when he capped downvoting to -4, I would definitely disagree with you, because that prevented serious negative outliners. What if the average rounds everything under some threshold (say -10) up to that threshold? So your total karma can get totally trashed by one heavily-downvoted comment, but there's a limit to how badly your average gets hit. But really, I'd guess that 99% of comments that go below -10 are clearly intentionally trolling, so it's probably not an issue.
- shasta 16y ago
  That's not true - bad jokes also get you a bunch of downvotes. Downvoting is how you emote a groan on here.

fhars 16y ago

If you continue along that line, you end up using the median comment score... which might incidentally be an interresting experiment.

tel 16y ago
Some thoughts, assuming most of everyone's comments are ignored (success being a stronger function of practice instead of inborn genius) and that commenters with high means are probably being pulled up by a number of outliers. 1. Median obviously is less suspect to a small number of very popular comments which probably describes many users pretty well. It's the "betting value" for a game where loss is linear with error. 2. I'm not sure whether median would be higher or lower for most. Poisson distribution suggests higher medians, but many probably have a bunch of 1-karma comments to weight the origin. 3. A HUGE psychological difference is that median would be discreteness. Instead of seeming to be a smooth value related (probably naively) to community engagement and improvement it'll look more like a set of clubs. 0-medkarma could be a rabble-rouser, 3-medkarma is consistently meaningful. 10-medkarma means maybe you should run for office.
- mediaman 16y ago
  Your third point is compelling. Psychologically, it diverts attention away from a specific number, and toward a general concept of "goodness", segregated by club. Then, rather then concentrating on getting the next karma point, users try to enter certain club, and each club has a general identity to it (with the top being those who provide thoughtful, intelligent responses, and typically only speak when they have something to say). Creating different clubs (creating classes of users) isn't arguably bad so long as there is easy mobility between classes based on merit. The natural question is how and whether to indicate the "class" or "club" a user is in. Make it public? Indicate it in comments? PG tried a red dot next to high-karma users some time ago, then scrapped it; maybe there's some other way to reward users based on club achieved.
  - tel 16y ago
    This is exactly how I feel, but am not sure that's a developed enough thought yet. I think discrete 'club' separation is a powerful force for social organization, especially if there is a tangible benefit for inclusion. I also think that median comment score probably isn't completely tracking the kind of behavior that should earn entrance into such clubs. Both thoughts depend on figuring out more completely what club membership means; it's something I can't flesh out well despite having a feeling it might be beneficial.

jackowayed 16y ago

Back when he capped downvoting to -4, I would definitely disagree with you, because that prevented serious negative outliners. What if the average rounds everything under some threshold (say -10) up to that threshold? So your total karma can get totally trashed by one heavily-downvoted comment, but there's a limit to how badly your average gets hit. But really, I'd guess that 99% of comments that go below -10 are clearly intentionally trolling, so it's probably not an issue.

shasta 16y ago
That's not true - bad jokes also get you a bunch of downvotes. Downvoting is how you emote a groan on here.