4 ms·
When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure.[0] Refer also the law of unintended consequences. [1] Conveniently we have a natural experime
by Jedd 6y ago
When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure.[0] Refer also the law of unintended consequences. [1]
Conveniently we have a natural experiment from a year or two ago we can refer to.
Stellar Lumens offered some free cryptocurrency to existing users, via Keybase accounts that leveraged external auth-equivalence (such as HN). It backfired spectacularly for all involved. [2]
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodhart%27s_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodhart%27s_law
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unintended_consequences https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unintended_consequences
[2] I think this is it - keybase.io's original blog post (referenced at [3] ) is 404'ing.
https://web.archive.org/web/20191212230611/https://keybase.io/a/i/r/d/r/o/p/spacedrop2019 https://web.archive.org/web/20191212230611/https://keybase.i...
[3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21758671 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21758671
- tyingq 6y agoDid the Stellar Lumens offer extend to brand new accounts? Edit: Ah, I see, people tried to find dormant HN and GitHub accounts. https://www.coindesk.com/stellar-tried-to-give-away-2b-xlm-tokens-on-keybase-then-the-spammers-came https://www.coindesk.com/stellar-tried-to-give-away-2b-xlm-t...
- Jedd 6y agoYup, I couldn't find the details, but IIRC it was a combination of people generating new accounts in the hope of catching a second round, and the fact some people had signups for Keybase auth on only one or two systems, and also IIRC even if your Keybase account pre-dated the cutoff date, you needed three associated auth systems configured in order to qualify for the coin drop. So there was a huge surge in signups for Github & Hacker News to tick that box. Doubtless some surge was related to people hoping to get in on a (speculative) second drop date.