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I think a good idea would be to treat karma the same way that tennis rankings are counted: Only the past 52 weeks are counted. So if you gain 1000 karma in a ye

I think a good idea would be to treat karma the same way that tennis rankings are counted: Only the past 52 weeks are counted. So if you gain 1000 karma in a year, then don't participate, your karma will be 0. That will encourage continual good behavior.

mechanical_fish 18y ago
I think rankings in other sports might be more fun if they worked more like HN rankings. Baseball fans do a lot of that. It's kind of what baseball statistics are all about: The player in front of you is not just competing with himself, and the other players on the field, and the other players in the league. In a sense, he's competing with Lou Gehrig. Of course, the reason to avoid putting dead players in the rankings is that the people who prefer watching competitions between living players -- i.e. the majority of fans -- don't want the dead ones cluttering up their leaderboard. But this is the web, not TV, so the solution is simple: Multiple leaderboards. Create a version of the HN leaderboard that only counts the past 52 weeks. Put it up at some URL or other. Then people can decide to use the alternative leaderboard if they want. Heck, if we want, we can allow every reader to create his or her own leaderboard algorithm. Then we can have big chair-throwing debates about which leaderboard best represents the True State of Play on HN. That is exactly how the world of baseball statistics works. ;)
- gambling8nt 18y ago
  I don't think we actually want to have chair-throwing debates over who the karma leaders are...while the leaderboard is a slight concession in the general direction of caring about karma, this site has always been set-up to stress the content of a comment over the nature of the author precisely because the accumulation of karma should be mostly irrelevant. Every comment that is posted about karma or some other meta-aspect of the community (including this one) is another comment that isn't actually content itself, and we should be trying to minimize such things when it is possible to do so.
Prrometheus 18y ago
You assume that karma encourages good behavior. If that were the case, then I think this would be a good idea.
- sh1mmer 18y ago
  I couldn't agree more. Karma encourages karma getting behavior. Sometimes that overlaps with good.
  - PieSquared 18y ago
    Agreed. Karma might not be the best system for encouraging good behavior... But does anyone have any other ideas? It's also slightly more difficult because what constitutes good behavior isn't always black and white and isn't even always agreed upon.
sh1mmer 18y ago
That encourages lock-in. What if my wife had a baby and I went offline for a year because I didn't have time. Would that make my opinions suddenly invalid? Tennis rankings are based on physical form. Physical form is something much more likely to change year to year than intellectual form. Someone might be out of date with the latest topics, consensus from the community, etc but it doesn't imply their thinking apparatus or world view has dramatically altered.
- lehmannro 18y ago
  But then again karma is no indicator for intellect or sanity, is it?
run4yourlives 18y ago
Karma ensures popular behaviour, not "good". If that's what you're gunning for, it's a great idea. What's popular is only dependent on your users and their tastes, and this can change over time.

mechanical_fish 18y ago

I think rankings in other sports might be more fun if they worked more like HN rankings. Baseball fans do a lot of that. It's kind of what baseball statistics are all about: The player in front of you is not just competing with himself, and the other players on the field, and the other players in the league. In a sense, he's competing with Lou Gehrig. Of course, the reason to avoid putting dead players in the rankings is that the people who prefer watching competitions between living players -- i.e. the majority of fans -- don't want the dead ones cluttering up their leaderboard. But this is the web, not TV, so the solution is simple: Multiple leaderboards. Create a version of the HN leaderboard that only counts the past 52 weeks. Put it up at some URL or other. Then people can decide to use the alternative leaderboard if they want. Heck, if we want, we can allow every reader to create his or her own leaderboard algorithm. Then we can have big chair-throwing debates about which leaderboard best represents the True State of Play on HN. That is exactly how the world of baseball statistics works. ;)

gambling8nt 18y ago
I don't think we actually want to have chair-throwing debates over who the karma leaders are...while the leaderboard is a slight concession in the general direction of caring about karma, this site has always been set-up to stress the content of a comment over the nature of the author precisely because the accumulation of karma should be mostly irrelevant. Every comment that is posted about karma or some other meta-aspect of the community (including this one) is another comment that isn't actually content itself, and we should be trying to minimize such things when it is possible to do so.

Prrometheus 18y ago

You assume that karma encourages good behavior. If that were the case, then I think this would be a good idea.

sh1mmer 18y ago
I couldn't agree more. Karma encourages karma getting behavior. Sometimes that overlaps with good.
- PieSquared 18y ago
  Agreed. Karma might not be the best system for encouraging good behavior... But does anyone have any other ideas? It's also slightly more difficult because what constitutes good behavior isn't always black and white and isn't even always agreed upon.

sh1mmer 18y ago

That encourages lock-in. What if my wife had a baby and I went offline for a year because I didn't have time. Would that make my opinions suddenly invalid? Tennis rankings are based on physical form. Physical form is something much more likely to change year to year than intellectual form. Someone might be out of date with the latest topics, consensus from the community, etc but it doesn't imply their thinking apparatus or world view has dramatically altered.

lehmannro 18y ago
But then again karma is no indicator for intellect or sanity, is it?

run4yourlives 18y ago

Karma ensures popular behaviour, not "good". If that's what you're gunning for, it's a great idea. What's popular is only dependent on your users and their tastes, and this can change over time.