3 ms·

The ordering is influenced by other factors, I guess either the post length or the average karma of the poster... I've had several comments both older and with

by pygy_ 16y ago

The ordering is influenced by other factors, I guess either the post length or the average karma of the poster... I've had several comments both older and with less points than others at the same level, but that were still above the rest.

Mz 16y ago
The ordering is influenced by other factors, I guess either the post length or the average karma of the poster... My understanding is that average karma of the poster influences it. I used to be more impressed but my average karma score has been as high as about 6 but most of the time sits somewhere around 2, give or take. One good debate where multiple comments of mine got substantially upvoted raised it that high and then it steadily slid (ie regularly changed if you checked it) until it was back down to around 2. Maybe other people have high averages that are more stable than mine but this experience has changed my view of average karma and made me somewhat less impressed. From what I gather, it's a moving, weighted average. It isn't the average across all comments for all of your history. I can understand the logic of that -- if average for all comments were used and you have been here forever and your comment quality has gone up, a million old comments that were never voted up could prevent you from ever seeing any substantial improvements in that area. But, like all such things, it's a bit of a game in some sense.
- 6ren 16y ago
  Yes, it's the average of recent comments, with the top and bottom discarded (pg said this somewhere or other). The averages of the top 100 (by abs karma) is interesting: http://news.ycombinator.com/leaders http://news.ycombinator.com/leaders (accessible via "lists", frontpage bottom). BTW: edw regularly has amazing averages - all the avgs are much higher than usual now, I suspect because of karma inflation due to not seeing scores (this happened last time pg experimented with it). And yes, it influences the ordering of ones comments. When I said "approximates", I really meant it. ;-)

by pygy_ 16y ago

Mz 16y ago

The ordering is influenced by other factors, I guess either the post length or the average karma of the poster... My understanding is that average karma of the poster influences it. I used to be more impressed but my average karma score has been as high as about 6 but most of the time sits somewhere around 2, give or take. One good debate where multiple comments of mine got substantially upvoted raised it that high and then it steadily slid (ie regularly changed if you checked it) until it was back down to around 2. Maybe other people have high averages that are more stable than mine but this experience has changed my view of average karma and made me somewhat less impressed. From what I gather, it's a moving, weighted average. It isn't the average across all comments for all of your history. I can understand the logic of that -- if average for all comments were used and you have been here forever and your comment quality has gone up, a million old comments that were never voted up could prevent you from ever seeing any substantial improvements in that area. But, like all such things, it's a bit of a game in some sense.

6ren 16y ago
Yes, it's the average of recent comments, with the top and bottom discarded (pg said this somewhere or other). The averages of the top 100 (by abs karma) is interesting: http://news.ycombinator.com/leaders http://news.ycombinator.com/leaders (accessible via "lists", frontpage bottom). BTW: edw regularly has amazing averages - all the avgs are much higher than usual now, I suspect because of karma inflation due to not seeing scores (this happened last time pg experimented with it). And yes, it influences the ordering of ones comments. When I said "approximates", I really meant it. ;-)