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I do have one unanswered question: Why did this particular repost get posted instead of upvoting my post?

by aspenmayer 6y ago

dang 6y ago
Because your post fell below the bar for 'significant attention' as explained in the comments I linked to.
- aspenmayer 6y ago
  Maybe if I had gotten some of the karma from the repost it would have cleared the bar. This argument is circular, and I know you have to make a judgment call, but this feels like the wrong way to go about a fair, transparent system. Perhaps that is not a goal of HN, but from my few interactions with you on this site, I think you probably care a whole lot more about HN than I do, and I care too! Thanks for all you do. Edit: Why not do it like a lottery with more than one winning ticket sold? Share the karma pool among the OP and the reposters. Just an idea. Or, let the reposter keep the karma, but put a byline saying something like 'first posted by user123 on jan 2, 1969' with a link? I care far more about attribution than karma. I care about making good posts, but if someone else gets the credit, why would I bother? If no one will see it, the intrinsic value to me is something I already had. To share is to be seen. If a tree falls in the forest with no one around to hear it and all that.
  - jdub 6y ago
    Maybe it's not that important.
    - aspenmayer 6y ago
      If it’s not important then why karma? I couldn’t agree more, by the way. It isn’t important. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t matter.
      - pvg 6y ago
        The votes help rank the submissions and the comments - finding interesting things for HN users to read and talk about is the purpose of the site. Who found a thing first (especially something that was going to end up on the front page one way or the other) is not really that interesting to most people. If anything, an FP-reaching post's contribution to a user's overall karma should probably be capped at around some small factor of a median comment.
        aspenmayer 6y ago
        I guess I just see breaking news differently. I don’t think news reaching a site when it does is predictable or deterministic. It’s not a foregone conclusion. Many posts which are on-topic or timely or relevant will never make it to FP. That is by nature of the FP. It can only hold so many posts. I agree that it doesn’t matter in aggregate, but this site is niche for a reason. It’s because people care to post quality, timely, relevant content here that the FP can be something to strive to be on. It’s a worthy goal to share content that is deemed worthy to make it to FP. It had an impact. Reposts are just another way to spread the impact around so we all benefit. I hope that makes sense. I don’t disagree about karma caps. Reddit handles aspects of this karma perverse incentives problem differently for text posts earning no karma, while link posts do. If I got that right. In any case it’s a thorny problem and I think that what exists at HN now works pretty well. I’m sure it can be better, and I can’t think of a better team to think about how and why.
        pvg 6y ago
        'breaking news' is pretty much antithetical to HN. It just happens to have 'news' in the name, sort of like the town of Newport News. For the purposes of HN, a deeper, more detailed story three days 'late' is better than a superficial 'breaking' story.
        aspenmayer 6y ago
        Some information only matters to you if you know right now. Timeliness and relevancy are important to the user. The existence of the New page on HN and users who visit it prove that the search for the right content at the right time is one worth it to those to visit New.
  - dang 6y ago
    Yes, we're planning to implement some form of karma sharing. That information was in kick's reply to you upthread (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23342187 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23342187 - see the first link there). The reason for wanting to do that is incentivize finding good stories that haven't been posted yet: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20karma%20incentiv&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
    - aspenmayer 6y ago
      This is the first time I’ve heard the words “karma sharing” from a representative of HN. I didn’t mean to miss what ‘kick was getting at, but I’m glad for the discussion. I also apologize if I came off as aggressive. I am working to be a better person online and offline, and I appreciate the dialogue. I also feel that this thread is a good thing for clarity around these issues on the site. I wish my phrasing and attitude came off better, but we are what we do, and so I’ll try to do better.

I do have one unanswered question: Why did this particular repost get posted instead of upvoting my post?

dang 6y ago

Because your post fell below the bar for 'significant attention' as explained in the comments I linked to.

aspenmayer 6y ago
Maybe if I had gotten some of the karma from the repost it would have cleared the bar. This argument is circular, and I know you have to make a judgment call, but this feels like the wrong way to go about a fair, transparent system. Perhaps that is not a goal of HN, but from my few interactions with you on this site, I think you probably care a whole lot more about HN than I do, and I care too! Thanks for all you do. Edit: Why not do it like a lottery with more than one winning ticket sold? Share the karma pool among the OP and the reposters. Just an idea. Or, let the reposter keep the karma, but put a byline saying something like 'first posted by user123 on jan 2, 1969' with a link? I care far more about attribution than karma. I care about making good posts, but if someone else gets the credit, why would I bother? If no one will see it, the intrinsic value to me is something I already had. To share is to be seen. If a tree falls in the forest with no one around to hear it and all that.
- jdub 6y ago
  Maybe it's not that important.
  - aspenmayer 6y ago
    If it’s not important then why karma? I couldn’t agree more, by the way. It isn’t important. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t matter.
    - pvg 6y ago
      The votes help rank the submissions and the comments - finding interesting things for HN users to read and talk about is the purpose of the site. Who found a thing first (especially something that was going to end up on the front page one way or the other) is not really that interesting to most people. If anything, an FP-reaching post's contribution to a user's overall karma should probably be capped at around some small factor of a median comment.
      - aspenmayer 6y ago
        I guess I just see breaking news differently. I don’t think news reaching a site when it does is predictable or deterministic. It’s not a foregone conclusion. Many posts which are on-topic or timely or relevant will never make it to FP. That is by nature of the FP. It can only hold so many posts. I agree that it doesn’t matter in aggregate, but this site is niche for a reason. It’s because people care to post quality, timely, relevant content here that the FP can be something to strive to be on. It’s a worthy goal to share content that is deemed worthy to make it to FP. It had an impact. Reposts are just another way to spread the impact around so we all benefit. I hope that makes sense. I don’t disagree about karma caps. Reddit handles aspects of this karma perverse incentives problem differently for text posts earning no karma, while link posts do. If I got that right. In any case it’s a thorny problem and I think that what exists at HN now works pretty well. I’m sure it can be better, and I can’t think of a better team to think about how and why.
        pvg 6y ago
        'breaking news' is pretty much antithetical to HN. It just happens to have 'news' in the name, sort of like the town of Newport News. For the purposes of HN, a deeper, more detailed story three days 'late' is better than a superficial 'breaking' story.
        aspenmayer 6y ago
        Some information only matters to you if you know right now. Timeliness and relevancy are important to the user. The existence of the New page on HN and users who visit it prove that the search for the right content at the right time is one worth it to those to visit New.
- dang 6y ago
  Yes, we're planning to implement some form of karma sharing. That information was in kick's reply to you upthread (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23342187 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23342187 - see the first link there). The reason for wanting to do that is incentivize finding good stories that haven't been posted yet: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20karma%20incentiv&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
  - aspenmayer 6y ago
    This is the first time I’ve heard the words “karma sharing” from a representative of HN. I didn’t mean to miss what ‘kick was getting at, but I’m glad for the discussion. I also apologize if I came off as aggressive. I am working to be a better person online and offline, and I appreciate the dialogue. I also feel that this thread is a good thing for clarity around these issues on the site. I wish my phrasing and attitude came off better, but we are what we do, and so I’ll try to do better.