4 ms·
(I am the OP.) The cynic in me says it's just gamification to maximize site owner's net worth. But maybe it's like "teaching to the test", where if you're tea
by AuthorizedCust 6y ago
(I am the OP.)
The cynic in me says it's just gamification to maximize site owner's net worth.
But maybe it's like "teaching to the test", where if you're teaching to a well regarded test, you're actually doing a good class.
Extending the analogy, if the site's value is well aligned with your self-value (quality of the test), then playing the site's score game (teaching to the test) may be beneficial to you?
Here's an example: I invested some time a few years ago to improve the quality of a few Wikipedia articles. I later found very similar reasoning to what I got into these articles in legislative debates. I think I had a hand in influencing something important to me by updating Wikipedia.
- aeturnum 6y agoI totally agree that many sites put the scores in to maximize revenue. I'm just trying to consider scoring systems in the wider context of user <-> website interaction techniques. If score systems were just to generate revenue, I'd imagine that users would have a roundly negative view of them like dark patterns that help revenue (spam, tracking, sponcon). I think you're absolutely correct about scoring systems reflecting your position in the ontology of the sites' creator, and so if you want what the site wants you want your score to go up. I suspect that the popularity of scoring systems comes from users understanding they could be bad or good and being drawn in to the enjoyable play of discovering what their score reflects based on their own experience.