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>I would welcome new developments in page rank like algos PageRank-like algorithms are not the solution, they are the problem. They reward popularity with more
by gambler 8y ago
>I would welcome new developments in page rank like algos
PageRank-like algorithms are not the solution, they are the problem. They reward popularity with more popularity, enabling viral content, encouraging stuff like link spam and outrage click-bait. Worst of all, they normalized the idea that what you see in search results (and later - timelines, feeds) shouldn't be based on your query and author's page content, but rather on what everyone else wants to see.
- ryandrake 8y agothere are lots of current day Internet-scale problems where, in order to solve them, someone is going to have to figure out how to overcome people’s natural tendency to mistake popularity for quality. This falsehood compromises all kinds of rankings, from search results to Yelp and Amazon reviews to tweets. Even here on HN, “number of upvotes” (popularity) unsatisfactorily attempts to declare something about a comment’s quality.
- harimau777 8y agoI think part of the problem is that in many circumstances, such as Yelp and Amazon reviews, popularity is the best proxy for quality that is currently available. Perhaps if other ways for people to quickly distinguish quality were developed then people would start making better decisions.