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This (from the article) was unexpected -- Surprisingly, the cost includes “lost” contributions from community members who had accounts already, but whose activi

This (from the article) was unexpected -- Surprisingly, the cost includes “lost” contributions from community members who had accounts already, but whose activity appears to have been catalyzed by the (often low quality) contributions from those without accounts. So the crappy hot takes that cause the "quality members" respond to with a quality post are a net value to the content quality?

krisrm 5y ago
I'm not certain if you're being tongue-in-cheek or not, but I would think that often this would be positive net-value to content quality. If it takes a troll or a bot to stimulate quality discussion... so be it, I suppose.
- vicda 5y ago
  sounds like a "The fastest way to get a good answer on Stack Overflow is to post a wrong answer with a second account" type of thing.
  - DeathArrow 5y ago
    Because people like to contradict someone more than they like to help someone.
  - jasondigitized 5y ago
    The fastest way to get the answer in a organization is to send a email/slack with a wildly inaccurate answer to the question no one wants to answer/respond to. It is even more effective when you attribute the wrong person to it. This is a anti-pattern but it does work. "Hey everyone, I just heard the Phoenix Project that Jim is leading is going to be completed next week and will be under budget by $5m. I will go ahead and report that up to the VP in my 1x1 today" You may look stupid but people will get really emotional and give you the real answer you need very quickly.
  - kingcharles 5y ago
    This is also a standard LEO interrogation technique. "Well, son, your buddy just told us you killed her with a hammer." "NO! It was an axe! I mean... oh, damn.."
ec109685 5y ago
Pretty much this: https://xkcd.com/386/ https://xkcd.com/386/
mikeiz404 5y ago
I too found that surprising. My assumption is that a low quality entry spurs some one to action to edit it and since they are already there they mind as well put effort in to improving it. I still need to read the paper though. I believe this study was done in the context of wiki entries (Fandom) so I’m not sure if this does, and it may, generalize to conversational forum posts as I think you’re saying.

krisrm 5y ago

I'm not certain if you're being tongue-in-cheek or not, but I would think that often this would be positive net-value to content quality. If it takes a troll or a bot to stimulate quality discussion... so be it, I suppose.

vicda 5y ago
sounds like a "The fastest way to get a good answer on Stack Overflow is to post a wrong answer with a second account" type of thing.
- DeathArrow 5y ago
  Because people like to contradict someone more than they like to help someone.
- jasondigitized 5y ago
  The fastest way to get the answer in a organization is to send a email/slack with a wildly inaccurate answer to the question no one wants to answer/respond to. It is even more effective when you attribute the wrong person to it. This is a anti-pattern but it does work. "Hey everyone, I just heard the Phoenix Project that Jim is leading is going to be completed next week and will be under budget by $5m. I will go ahead and report that up to the VP in my 1x1 today" You may look stupid but people will get really emotional and give you the real answer you need very quickly.
- kingcharles 5y ago
  This is also a standard LEO interrogation technique. "Well, son, your buddy just told us you killed her with a hammer." "NO! It was an axe! I mean... oh, damn.."

ec109685 5y ago

Pretty much this: https://xkcd.com/386/ https://xkcd.com/386/

mikeiz404 5y ago

I too found that surprising. My assumption is that a low quality entry spurs some one to action to edit it and since they are already there they mind as well put effort in to improving it. I still need to read the paper though. I believe this study was done in the context of wiki entries (Fandom) so I’m not sure if this does, and it may, generalize to conversational forum posts as I think you’re saying.