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People incentivised by karma systems seem to create better information sources than when they’re incentivised by money. Think about how often you turn to Stack

by prawn 7y ago

People incentivised by karma systems seem to create better information sources than when they’re incentivised by money. Think about how often you turn to Stack Overflow, Reddit, forums (Whirlpool in Australia) over AdSense/affiliate blogs. The latter are almost always biased and essentially misleading.

tgb 7y ago
Albeit probably only because they aren't yet being exploited by companies to the extent that search engines are. I don't expect it to last. Googling used to find you this level of grassroots enthusiast information but now is mostly content farms.
- prawn 7y ago
  I often append forum, reddit, whirlpool, etc to a search to avoid the content farms. I think it will hold out for a while longer.
girvo 7y ago
Whingepool has its own set of biases of course, they’re just less obvious than those motivated by money. Perhaps better, though.
- prawn 7y ago
  I am usually searching it for Australian-specific house-related info (sealing concrete was a recent search). I don't know many other Australian sources that have a broad range of content. There are some reno forums which have solid subject matter experts too.
roenxi 7y ago
Well; more than anything else the incentives around financial advice are so terrible that it almost can't be paid for. The financial advisers are dealing with people who are so bad with money that they don't see problems with spending more than they earn or taking on debt for things they don't need. The incentives for anyone profit motivated is to take their money and move on. No point offering any useful advice; it just cuts into the margins. Ideally, sell the client complicated financial products. The typical person paying for financial advice is basically putting a sticker on themselves that says "I'll buy anything; try and sell me a bridge!".
dsfyu404ed 7y ago
>People incentivised by karma systems seem to create better information sources than when they’re incentivised by money. People are incentivized by karma to create popular advice. Sometimes this overlaps with good or better advice but not always. Anyone who's got in depth knowledge of any particular field has probably seen this in action when that field comes up. In my observation detail/nuance and ability to accurately handle non-typical situations tend to promptly go out the window when you try to start making advice on anything complex popular.
- Nasrudith 7y ago
  To be fair I think detail and nuance aren't generally well transmitted period. Like the proverbial lie getting halfway around the world before the truth gets its shoes on. Say for a given chemical Y "Y is harmless." and "Y is responsible for all diseases in modern society!" are both way faster than "Y has a biological halflife of two weeks and is safe below certain thresholds. Spray it on crops but wash it off before consuming to avoid problems." regardless of the truth of any of the three statements.
erikbye 7y ago
In the case of Stack Overflow, I would argue its gamification creates a lot of low-quality answers. Many reeks of someone who knew nothing about the question but did some hasty googling to score points. Now they propagate misinformed/wrong, and outdated information.
- Double_a_92 7y ago
  You get quickly muted on SO if most of your answers aren't upvoted. Make it actually kinda frustrating to start helping over there. You basically can't answer a beginner question, because they probably have a new account and can't vote yet, so your (possibly good) answer gets 0 likes... Do that a few times and you get banned from answering.
  - erikbye 7y ago
    The issue is that these bad answers are frequently upvoted.
    - Double_a_92 7y ago
      Are you sure? I was talking about new users having very specific questions that nobody else is likely to have. They can't upvote, and nobody else will probably ever search for that specific thing. So it stays at 0 which harms your "score".
anticodon 7y ago
Many people post answers on StackOverflow in hope they'll get noticed by HR. Usually quality of such answers is very low. Many times they are entirely wrong.
Nasrudith 7y ago
Both are feedback but IIPs (Imaginary Internet Point) are more aligned in incentives even if they usually give less utility to the recipient. This may be a feature and not a bug as the utility can be used to distort incentives to their own favor. IIPs aren't perfect by any means of course.
basch 7y ago
I dont agree that AdSense/affiliate blogs dont have useful information. They have bias, but that doesnt mean they all need to be dismissed. Consumer reports, popular mechanics, wirecutter, nerdwallet, valuepenguin, bankrate (the points guy, credotcards.com) bicycling.com The financial and mattress websites have gotten out of hand, but there still IS good information between the ads. Its probably almost time for an aggregation of the roundup sites, one that sorts and links back to all the best of articles on a given topic. Content ads can still be useful starting points for research - such as https://www.popularmechanics.com/home/food-drink/a28493008/best-cast-iron-skillets/ https://www.popularmechanics.com/home/food-drink/a28493008/b... You do have to read, and the answer isnt always spelled out at the top of articles. For example, the Wells Fargo Propel card is way better than most card comparison sites give it credit for. They admit how good it is, and then suggest what may be a lesser card for some people (like Wirecutter recommeding the Costco card over it.)
- prawn 7y ago
  I was making a general point; I favour outdoorgearlab for example. But far more often, forums seem to provide more "real" and practical advice.

by prawn 7y ago

tgb 7y ago

Albeit probably only because they aren't yet being exploited by companies to the extent that search engines are. I don't expect it to last. Googling used to find you this level of grassroots enthusiast information but now is mostly content farms.

prawn 7y ago
I often append forum, reddit, whirlpool, etc to a search to avoid the content farms. I think it will hold out for a while longer.

girvo 7y ago

Whingepool has its own set of biases of course, they’re just less obvious than those motivated by money. Perhaps better, though.

prawn 7y ago
I am usually searching it for Australian-specific house-related info (sealing concrete was a recent search). I don't know many other Australian sources that have a broad range of content. There are some reno forums which have solid subject matter experts too.

roenxi 7y ago

Well; more than anything else the incentives around financial advice are so terrible that it almost can't be paid for. The financial advisers are dealing with people who are so bad with money that they don't see problems with spending more than they earn or taking on debt for things they don't need. The incentives for anyone profit motivated is to take their money and move on. No point offering any useful advice; it just cuts into the margins. Ideally, sell the client complicated financial products. The typical person paying for financial advice is basically putting a sticker on themselves that says "I'll buy anything; try and sell me a bridge!".

dsfyu404ed 7y ago

>People incentivised by karma systems seem to create better information sources than when they’re incentivised by money. People are incentivized by karma to create popular advice. Sometimes this overlaps with good or better advice but not always. Anyone who's got in depth knowledge of any particular field has probably seen this in action when that field comes up. In my observation detail/nuance and ability to accurately handle non-typical situations tend to promptly go out the window when you try to start making advice on anything complex popular.

Nasrudith 7y ago
To be fair I think detail and nuance aren't generally well transmitted period. Like the proverbial lie getting halfway around the world before the truth gets its shoes on. Say for a given chemical Y "Y is harmless." and "Y is responsible for all diseases in modern society!" are both way faster than "Y has a biological halflife of two weeks and is safe below certain thresholds. Spray it on crops but wash it off before consuming to avoid problems." regardless of the truth of any of the three statements.

erikbye 7y ago

In the case of Stack Overflow, I would argue its gamification creates a lot of low-quality answers. Many reeks of someone who knew nothing about the question but did some hasty googling to score points. Now they propagate misinformed/wrong, and outdated information.

Double_a_92 7y ago
You get quickly muted on SO if most of your answers aren't upvoted. Make it actually kinda frustrating to start helping over there. You basically can't answer a beginner question, because they probably have a new account and can't vote yet, so your (possibly good) answer gets 0 likes... Do that a few times and you get banned from answering.
- erikbye 7y ago
  The issue is that these bad answers are frequently upvoted.
  - Double_a_92 7y ago
    Are you sure? I was talking about new users having very specific questions that nobody else is likely to have. They can't upvote, and nobody else will probably ever search for that specific thing. So it stays at 0 which harms your "score".

anticodon 7y ago

Many people post answers on StackOverflow in hope they'll get noticed by HR. Usually quality of such answers is very low. Many times they are entirely wrong.

Nasrudith 7y ago

Both are feedback but IIPs (Imaginary Internet Point) are more aligned in incentives even if they usually give less utility to the recipient. This may be a feature and not a bug as the utility can be used to distort incentives to their own favor. IIPs aren't perfect by any means of course.

basch 7y ago

I dont agree that AdSense/affiliate blogs dont have useful information. They have bias, but that doesnt mean they all need to be dismissed. Consumer reports, popular mechanics, wirecutter, nerdwallet, valuepenguin, bankrate (the points guy, credotcards.com) bicycling.com The financial and mattress websites have gotten out of hand, but there still IS good information between the ads. Its probably almost time for an aggregation of the roundup sites, one that sorts and links back to all the best of articles on a given topic. Content ads can still be useful starting points for research - such as https://www.popularmechanics.com/home/food-drink/a28493008/best-cast-iron-skillets/ https://www.popularmechanics.com/home/food-drink/a28493008/b... You do have to read, and the answer isnt always spelled out at the top of articles. For example, the Wells Fargo Propel card is way better than most card comparison sites give it credit for. They admit how good it is, and then suggest what may be a lesser card for some people (like Wirecutter recommeding the Costco card over it.)

prawn 7y ago
I was making a general point; I favour outdoorgearlab for example. But far more often, forums seem to provide more "real" and practical advice.