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A more cynical observation is that users with high "karma" point totals earn this by parroting the majority opinion or otherwise treating comment threads as a g

A more cynical observation is that users with high "karma" point totals earn this by parroting the majority opinion or otherwise treating comment threads as a game.

jspthrowaway2 14y ago
Some users get upvoted fairly quickly by username alone, too. Think pg, edw519, patio11, tptacek; I've noticed comments from them will have upvotes in seconds, regardless of content. It's just name recognition, for better or worse. pg could probably leave a comment saying only "This is a comment." and get a hundred points of karma off it. (I'd pay him to try.) So, to an outside observer, you might suggest that these users game Hacker News but the real answer is that they have an audience. It's debatable whether that's their fault, on a case-by-case basis, though. Then you could probably say it goes the other way: a large part of the community feels a certain way because Ed says so (in the top position), or Thomas says so. I've noticed the atmosphere of a thread change after a comment from a "well-known" person is left, rather rapidly on occasion. The momentum of a community like Hacker News is an interesting study, and although I didn't get an opportunity to watch the thread under the microscope, I bet a large part of it was shaped by Ed's comment. Recently I've learned how Hacker News threads are living organisms, and I've noticed the impact of the commentary that I make. If you pay close attention, you'll be surprised at how the thread evolves and grows, particularly based upon what's in the top position.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
- pygy_ 14y ago
  Not only they get free upvotes, but the people who disagree with them sometimes get free downvotes. See here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5033743 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5033743
  - oinksoft 14y ago
    What you are arguing for there is quite common-sense. Who would advocate the "throw up your hands, you're screwed if they're in the DB" approach?
    - pygy_ 14y ago
      That exchange was ridiculous. I brushed his ego by correcting him on what is supposed to be his core competency, and he resorted to bullying and fallacious reasoning rather than admitting he was wrong. It took some work, but I managed to corner him. I didn't want to lose this argument because he was trying to make me look foolish when I was technically right. Since he has a lot of street cred, I feared that a lot of people would take his ramblings as correct. And some did. I got at least three down votes on the first message.
tptacek 14y ago
If you think it was easy for Ed to post what he did about Aaron's legal troubles, you don't understand the sentiment on HN at all. He posted that comment because that's what he believed at the time.
- jacquesm 14y ago
  Exactly. And given how sensitive Ed is normally about issues involving people you can bet that he feels this more than most would.
- waterlesscloud 14y ago
  The ironic thing here is people making judgments about edw on the basis of very thin information.
  - jacquesm 14y ago
    Anybody that's been here longer than 3 months should know better.
  - kamakazizuru 14y ago
    heh - ironic is people asking others not to judge edw based on thin information - when that's precisely what HE himself did.
- thosegivenmuch 14y ago
  and what sentiment is that? Do you have any real, reliable metric since pg removed the display of karma? Dude, you are one of the people whose comments I bookmark. But this is horseshit. Ed has ensconced himself as some hacker-poet here. He's got quite a following. And the comment in question, the one this entire thread is about, was extremely callous. And all the more so since it assumed Aaron had a boatload of money that he didn't actually have. I think it was very easy for him to post that. I think its as easy for him as it is for you, who posts constantly, and often, especially these days, with a very noticeable derisive edge. Defend your friend by all means, but don't expect to be high handed and moral about it. The prevailing sentiment in this thread is the perfect echo for the current "HN sentiment".
irollboozers 14y ago
The whole behavior of "tripfags" on 4chan, or /r/circlejerk mirrors how I've seen people go after karma here on HN. I don't like it.
raganwald 14y ago
That's not an observation, it's a conjecture, and one that is fairly baseless. many things operate according to a power law. If karma is like that, a small number of users will end up with a shitload of karma points even if they aren't attempting to game the system. There are many factors that could contribute to a power law for karma distribution. One conjecture is that other users tend to "trust" high-karma users and therefore tend to upvote their comments just because they have high karma. Another is that high-karma users receive gratification from using HN and therefore use it more. Which leads to getting more karma. Either of the two conjectures I advanced could explain a small number of users having a disproportionate amount of Karma.
- jacquesm 14y ago
  Karma is pretty much directly related to how much time you spend on HN, and not much else.
  - deleted 14y ago
    [deleted]
  - elisehein 14y ago
    You could easily follow every single story without ever commenting on any of them.. Not to mention the amount of unregistered users
    - darkarmani 14y ago
      By not coming to HN very often, it's pretty much guaranteed that you won't have high karma.
- tptacek 14y ago
  Both conjectures bear out in my experience. A third one: High-karma users have followers. I've left comments on very old stories in out-of-the-way places and found them voted up. So we accumulate karma faster in part because people are simply more likely to see our posts, because they go out of their way to do so.
fluidcruft 14y ago
It's not the comment that makes the votes, it's the voters. I tend to view high "karma" comments as resonating with the geist. If they're pandering to the crowd, they're just giving the crowd what they want to hear. So, sure we can scapegoat the panderers, but the fingers should possibly point elsewhere.

A more cynical observation is that users with high "karma" point totals earn this by parroting the majority opinion or otherwise treating comment threads as a game.

jspthrowaway2 14y ago

Some users get upvoted fairly quickly by username alone, too. Think pg, edw519, patio11, tptacek; I've noticed comments from them will have upvotes in seconds, regardless of content. It's just name recognition, for better or worse. pg could probably leave a comment saying only "This is a comment." and get a hundred points of karma off it. (I'd pay him to try.) So, to an outside observer, you might suggest that these users game Hacker News but the real answer is that they have an audience. It's debatable whether that's their fault, on a case-by-case basis, though. Then you could probably say it goes the other way: a large part of the community feels a certain way because Ed says so (in the top position), or Thomas says so. I've noticed the atmosphere of a thread change after a comment from a "well-known" person is left, rather rapidly on occasion. The momentum of a community like Hacker News is an interesting study, and although I didn't get an opportunity to watch the thread under the microscope, I bet a large part of it was shaped by Ed's comment. Recently I've learned how Hacker News threads are living organisms, and I've noticed the impact of the commentary that I make. If you pay close attention, you'll be surprised at how the thread evolves and grows, particularly based upon what's in the top position.

deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
pygy_ 14y ago
Not only they get free upvotes, but the people who disagree with them sometimes get free downvotes. See here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5033743 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5033743
- oinksoft 14y ago
  What you are arguing for there is quite common-sense. Who would advocate the "throw up your hands, you're screwed if they're in the DB" approach?
  - pygy_ 14y ago
    That exchange was ridiculous. I brushed his ego by correcting him on what is supposed to be his core competency, and he resorted to bullying and fallacious reasoning rather than admitting he was wrong. It took some work, but I managed to corner him. I didn't want to lose this argument because he was trying to make me look foolish when I was technically right. Since he has a lot of street cred, I feared that a lot of people would take his ramblings as correct. And some did. I got at least three down votes on the first message.

tptacek 14y ago

If you think it was easy for Ed to post what he did about Aaron's legal troubles, you don't understand the sentiment on HN at all. He posted that comment because that's what he believed at the time.

jacquesm 14y ago
Exactly. And given how sensitive Ed is normally about issues involving people you can bet that he feels this more than most would.
waterlesscloud 14y ago
The ironic thing here is people making judgments about edw on the basis of very thin information.
- jacquesm 14y ago
  Anybody that's been here longer than 3 months should know better.
- kamakazizuru 14y ago
  heh - ironic is people asking others not to judge edw based on thin information - when that's precisely what HE himself did.
thosegivenmuch 14y ago
and what sentiment is that? Do you have any real, reliable metric since pg removed the display of karma? Dude, you are one of the people whose comments I bookmark. But this is horseshit. Ed has ensconced himself as some hacker-poet here. He's got quite a following. And the comment in question, the one this entire thread is about, was extremely callous. And all the more so since it assumed Aaron had a boatload of money that he didn't actually have. I think it was very easy for him to post that. I think its as easy for him as it is for you, who posts constantly, and often, especially these days, with a very noticeable derisive edge. Defend your friend by all means, but don't expect to be high handed and moral about it. The prevailing sentiment in this thread is the perfect echo for the current "HN sentiment".

irollboozers 14y ago

The whole behavior of "tripfags" on 4chan, or /r/circlejerk mirrors how I've seen people go after karma here on HN. I don't like it.

raganwald 14y ago

That's not an observation, it's a conjecture, and one that is fairly baseless. many things operate according to a power law. If karma is like that, a small number of users will end up with a shitload of karma points even if they aren't attempting to game the system. There are many factors that could contribute to a power law for karma distribution. One conjecture is that other users tend to "trust" high-karma users and therefore tend to upvote their comments just because they have high karma. Another is that high-karma users receive gratification from using HN and therefore use it more. Which leads to getting more karma. Either of the two conjectures I advanced could explain a small number of users having a disproportionate amount of Karma.

jacquesm 14y ago
Karma is pretty much directly related to how much time you spend on HN, and not much else.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
- elisehein 14y ago
  You could easily follow every single story without ever commenting on any of them.. Not to mention the amount of unregistered users
  - darkarmani 14y ago
    By not coming to HN very often, it's pretty much guaranteed that you won't have high karma.
tptacek 14y ago
Both conjectures bear out in my experience. A third one: High-karma users have followers. I've left comments on very old stories in out-of-the-way places and found them voted up. So we accumulate karma faster in part because people are simply more likely to see our posts, because they go out of their way to do so.

fluidcruft 14y ago

It's not the comment that makes the votes, it's the voters. I tend to view high "karma" comments as resonating with the geist. If they're pandering to the crowd, they're just giving the crowd what they want to hear. So, sure we can scapegoat the panderers, but the fingers should possibly point elsewhere.