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Reward users for browsing "New" This is an interesting suggestion. I think of looking at new submissions as a kind of "service to the community"-- more specif

Reward users for browsing "New" This is an interesting suggestion. I think of looking at new submissions as a kind of "service to the community"-- more specifically, to the community I want HN to be. If the front page is filled with links I don't value, then it's partly my fault if I've failed to upvote submissions I would rather see on the front page (this, of course, means browsing "new" is a reward unto itself, but it's a somewhat abstract reward nonetheless). Sometimes I wish HN wouldn't track average karma. That discourages me from commenting on new submissions that I believe won't get many eyeballs. Intellectually, I know my average karma shouldn't mean anything to me, but the fact that it's there for all the world to see exerts a gravity of its own. "You get what you measure."

majormajor 14y ago
"Sometimes I wish HN wouldn't track average karma. That discourages me from commenting on new submissions that I believe won't get many eyeballs." Maybe some sort of comment karma normalization based on the upvotes for the topic as a whole or the total number of votes on the topic, to try to adjust for popularity of the topic vs quality of the comment...
rauljara 14y ago
I'm someone else who refrains from commenting in order to protect my average karma. The thing is, that it isn't as irrational as you are making it out to be. Posts from users with higher average karma are sorted higher. Presumably you are posting because you want your post to be read. Either you want it to influence people or you want your question answered, or whatever. If you didn't want it to be read, you wouldn't have posted it. I'm pretty sure this has a 'rich get richer' effect. On a page full of a lot of comments, most people will only read the first few. Being at the top leads to more up-votes, leading to more posts at the top, and so on recursively. I am totally guilty of gaming this system. I normally only post in threads where I think that I'll get up-votes, and I only post things that I think are worth posting. The latter effect is good. There are too many people on HN and it's a good thing to encourage us to maintain a high signal to noise ratio. But the former, the fear of posting in unpopular threads, or on comments near the bottom of the page, is awful.
- codeka 14y ago
  I thought the sorting of comments was based on the votes for that comment in that thread, not based on the average karma of the poster. Is that not the case?
  - hkmurakami 14y ago
    If 5 of us post in a thread at the same time, and no one upvotes any of the comments for an hour, then the ranking of the posts is going to have some kind of dependency on our karma metrics, rather than a "first come first serve" ordering.
- polyfractal 14y ago
  Wow, I had no idea average karma sorted people higher/lower. But you actively try to protect your karma? After my karma hit 1000 I basically stopped caring anymore. What incentive do you have to protect your karma (serious question, I'm not sure I understand why it matters)?
  - deleted 14y ago
    [deleted]
  - dhimes 14y ago
    I didn't know this, either. This idea will only work if karma measures what we want it to measure. If karma isn't associated with quality but with site-gaming, or snarky commenting, or other bad stuff, this system creates a positive feedback loop for sending the site in the wrong direction. Yikes!
    - deleted 14y ago
      [deleted]
- SwellJoe 14y ago
  I suspect the average karma preference has a negative effect on quality, as you've pointed out. There is incentive for the best commenters to only comment occasionally, when they'll get a lot of karma for it. Digg kept piling on stuff like that, making some users more valuable than others according to the algorithms, and I think it hurt rather than helped. I'm not sure it hurts on HN, but it doesn't seem to solve the core problem, either. I think it does come down to a social problem being tackled by technical solutions. It may be that the only way to make this problem go away is to empower moderators (of which HN has more than a few) to simply remove the most negative stuff before it has a chance to alter the tenor of a thread. Hostility breeds more hostility and it spirals ever upward, until the conversants are more frustrated than talkative.
ChuckMcM 14y ago
I always thought it would be interesting if you're 'average karma' number was rounded (floor(avgK)) to the nearest int and then applied as an upvote (or down vote) if that would change things. It is always dangerous though to embed in the system a feedback mechanism like this. I downloaded the source once again to see how hard it would be to implement my 'directional multi-root' sort of karma system in HN [1]. Its one of my 'spare time' projects. [1] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3563430 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3563430
ljd 14y ago
How about a mathematical reward system for new threads? Something like: Vote Value = (Log[base:Median(AvgUserKarma)](AvgUserKarma)) * (Log[base:(25)](ThreadTop50Rank + 1)) That way if you contribute something great in a new thread and someone upvotes you, you'll get more karma from it. A warning though, this reward system would encourage equal distribution of comments, versus the typical 80/20 rule. Not sure if that is what is best for the community.
wilfra 14y ago
Yes please fix the new page! It's complete dumb luck whether or not something makes it out of there now, tons of great content that never gets seen.
brk 14y ago
Fuck average karma. Who even looks at it (besides the owner of the karma)? I post a relatively high volume of comments on articles that get little visibility. Sometimes I answer an Ask HN type question with what ( I thik) is a good/useful answer and don't even get an up vote from the asker (but I have gotten 'thanks!' replies). Oh well, I come here to discover new things and try and return knowledge I've contributed over the years. Karma has zero inherent value to me. The day I can spend it at Starbucks, the gas station, a sushi bar, or any place else I'll start go give a fuck.
- FrojoS 14y ago
  I guess some people hope, that high Karma will improve their chances when they apply to Y Combinator. Actually, I vaguely remember a post or essay from pg, which suggested that one of the reasons to create HN was to assess potentially good founders based on the content they post on HN. I'm not saying YC is actually skimming applications based on user Karma. But even if they don't, people might believe it.
  - brk 14y ago
    Here's what (relatively) high karma netted me on my YC application: a personalized rejection email (and brief ensuing conversation) from pg. High karma does not make up for an application that does not resonate with the reviewers.
  - matwood 14y ago
    Actually, I vaguely remember a post or essay from pg, which suggested that one of the reasons to create HN was to assess potentially good founders based on the content they post on HN. Hahaha. PG should be doing the inverse. If someone is spending enough time on HN to have a really high karma then they aren't spending that time building something.
- peterwwillis 14y ago
  Fuck karma in general. I can't think of a practical use for publishing the karma number. Real karma ripples throughout the world on it's own, you don't need a number to record it. There's far too much ego worship in communities like HN, where nerds are often too concerned with it to begin with. The whole 'honoring the most popular community members' is the same. It's horrifically vain and just gives otherwise normal people's commentary much greater weight than it needs. Good comments will stand on their own.
sendos 14y ago
> I think of looking at new submissions as a kind of "service to the community" Why not have the 10 or so newest submissions on the top or bottom of the main page, so that everyone gets to see them, without having to explicitly click on a different page? e.g. if the new submissions are at the bottom of the main page, the "service to the community" of reading the new submissions is done almost automatically once you have gone through the list of the top submissions.
duaneb 14y ago
Why is karma tracked at all? I know that it's used to unlock features of the site, but that doesn't need to be visible. The point of voting is for ranking comments and stories (which is great!), but it seems to have negative effects when public.
- petercooper 14y ago
  I disagree. I put a lot of effort into finding good stories and posting more useful comments when the /leaders page was a big deal, solely because I wanted to reach the top half of the page. Not everyone is motivated by point scoring but some people are, and that's not always a bad or selfish thing.
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]

majormajor 14y ago

"Sometimes I wish HN wouldn't track average karma. That discourages me from commenting on new submissions that I believe won't get many eyeballs." Maybe some sort of comment karma normalization based on the upvotes for the topic as a whole or the total number of votes on the topic, to try to adjust for popularity of the topic vs quality of the comment...

rauljara 14y ago

I'm someone else who refrains from commenting in order to protect my average karma. The thing is, that it isn't as irrational as you are making it out to be. Posts from users with higher average karma are sorted higher. Presumably you are posting because you want your post to be read. Either you want it to influence people or you want your question answered, or whatever. If you didn't want it to be read, you wouldn't have posted it. I'm pretty sure this has a 'rich get richer' effect. On a page full of a lot of comments, most people will only read the first few. Being at the top leads to more up-votes, leading to more posts at the top, and so on recursively. I am totally guilty of gaming this system. I normally only post in threads where I think that I'll get up-votes, and I only post things that I think are worth posting. The latter effect is good. There are too many people on HN and it's a good thing to encourage us to maintain a high signal to noise ratio. But the former, the fear of posting in unpopular threads, or on comments near the bottom of the page, is awful.

codeka 14y ago
I thought the sorting of comments was based on the votes for that comment in that thread, not based on the average karma of the poster. Is that not the case?
- hkmurakami 14y ago
  If 5 of us post in a thread at the same time, and no one upvotes any of the comments for an hour, then the ranking of the posts is going to have some kind of dependency on our karma metrics, rather than a "first come first serve" ordering.
polyfractal 14y ago
Wow, I had no idea average karma sorted people higher/lower. But you actively try to protect your karma? After my karma hit 1000 I basically stopped caring anymore. What incentive do you have to protect your karma (serious question, I'm not sure I understand why it matters)?
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
- dhimes 14y ago
  I didn't know this, either. This idea will only work if karma measures what we want it to measure. If karma isn't associated with quality but with site-gaming, or snarky commenting, or other bad stuff, this system creates a positive feedback loop for sending the site in the wrong direction. Yikes!
  - deleted 14y ago
    [deleted]
SwellJoe 14y ago
I suspect the average karma preference has a negative effect on quality, as you've pointed out. There is incentive for the best commenters to only comment occasionally, when they'll get a lot of karma for it. Digg kept piling on stuff like that, making some users more valuable than others according to the algorithms, and I think it hurt rather than helped. I'm not sure it hurts on HN, but it doesn't seem to solve the core problem, either. I think it does come down to a social problem being tackled by technical solutions. It may be that the only way to make this problem go away is to empower moderators (of which HN has more than a few) to simply remove the most negative stuff before it has a chance to alter the tenor of a thread. Hostility breeds more hostility and it spirals ever upward, until the conversants are more frustrated than talkative.

ChuckMcM 14y ago

I always thought it would be interesting if you're 'average karma' number was rounded (floor(avgK)) to the nearest int and then applied as an upvote (or down vote) if that would change things. It is always dangerous though to embed in the system a feedback mechanism like this. I downloaded the source once again to see how hard it would be to implement my 'directional multi-root' sort of karma system in HN [1]. Its one of my 'spare time' projects. [1] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3563430 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3563430

ljd 14y ago

How about a mathematical reward system for new threads? Something like: Vote Value = (Log[base:Median(AvgUserKarma)](AvgUserKarma)) * (Log[base:(25)](ThreadTop50Rank + 1)) That way if you contribute something great in a new thread and someone upvotes you, you'll get more karma from it. A warning though, this reward system would encourage equal distribution of comments, versus the typical 80/20 rule. Not sure if that is what is best for the community.

wilfra 14y ago

Yes please fix the new page! It's complete dumb luck whether or not something makes it out of there now, tons of great content that never gets seen.

brk 14y ago

Fuck average karma. Who even looks at it (besides the owner of the karma)? I post a relatively high volume of comments on articles that get little visibility. Sometimes I answer an Ask HN type question with what ( I thik) is a good/useful answer and don't even get an up vote from the asker (but I have gotten 'thanks!' replies). Oh well, I come here to discover new things and try and return knowledge I've contributed over the years. Karma has zero inherent value to me. The day I can spend it at Starbucks, the gas station, a sushi bar, or any place else I'll start go give a fuck.

FrojoS 14y ago
I guess some people hope, that high Karma will improve their chances when they apply to Y Combinator. Actually, I vaguely remember a post or essay from pg, which suggested that one of the reasons to create HN was to assess potentially good founders based on the content they post on HN. I'm not saying YC is actually skimming applications based on user Karma. But even if they don't, people might believe it.
- brk 14y ago
  Here's what (relatively) high karma netted me on my YC application: a personalized rejection email (and brief ensuing conversation) from pg. High karma does not make up for an application that does not resonate with the reviewers.
- matwood 14y ago
  Actually, I vaguely remember a post or essay from pg, which suggested that one of the reasons to create HN was to assess potentially good founders based on the content they post on HN. Hahaha. PG should be doing the inverse. If someone is spending enough time on HN to have a really high karma then they aren't spending that time building something.
peterwwillis 14y ago
Fuck karma in general. I can't think of a practical use for publishing the karma number. Real karma ripples throughout the world on it's own, you don't need a number to record it. There's far too much ego worship in communities like HN, where nerds are often too concerned with it to begin with. The whole 'honoring the most popular community members' is the same. It's horrifically vain and just gives otherwise normal people's commentary much greater weight than it needs. Good comments will stand on their own.

sendos 14y ago

> I think of looking at new submissions as a kind of "service to the community" Why not have the 10 or so newest submissions on the top or bottom of the main page, so that everyone gets to see them, without having to explicitly click on a different page? e.g. if the new submissions are at the bottom of the main page, the "service to the community" of reading the new submissions is done almost automatically once you have gone through the list of the top submissions.

duaneb 14y ago

Why is karma tracked at all? I know that it's used to unlock features of the site, but that doesn't need to be visible. The point of voting is for ranking comments and stories (which is great!), but it seems to have negative effects when public.

petercooper 14y ago
I disagree. I put a lot of effort into finding good stories and posting more useful comments when the /leaders page was a big deal, solely because I wanted to reach the top half of the page. Not everyone is motivated by point scoring but some people are, and that's not always a bad or selfish thing.

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]