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Good god this was funny, right down to the usernames. But now its time to be very HN about it. > Rats, top comments will be impossible to beat. Actually I th

Good god this was funny, right down to the usernames. But now its time to be very HN about it. > Rats, top comments will be impossible to beat. Actually I think I have a solution to this, though its just guesswork. I'm not particularly well known here (or anywhere), but either people actually like the words I say, or I simply have yet to make a complete ass out of myself. (I think one of these is more plausible, but who is to say.) My average karma on HN is 20.59, which seems to be a lot. Specifically, on the Leaderboard[1] that puts me in fourth place among the HN big names for average karma (though I have nowhere near the total karma to appear there). I've noticed that when I reply to a post, even if there's already 30 comments, my post usually ends up at the top. And it stays there, even if no one replies, and even if I don't get many or any upvotes for it, for a few hours sometimes. Alas I don't know for certain, but my guess is that if you have a high average karma then your posts are automatically weighted higher, so you can inject your opinion into almost any topic at any time. This affords me the luxury of being a contradictory whine even if I come late to the party! Can anyone confirm or deny my suspicion here? [1] http://news.ycombinator.com/leaders http://news.ycombinator.com/leaders

Xcelerate 14y ago
> Actually I think I have a solution to this, though its just guesswork. Darn you ;)
chimeracoder 14y ago
> Alas I don't know for certain, but my guess is that if you have a high average karma then your posts are automatically weighted higher, so you can inject your opinion into almost any topic at any time. This affords me the luxury of being a contradictory whine even if I come late to the party! One thing I dislike about the 'average karma' is that it discourages engaging in an extended discussion. For example, if you reply to this post, you may get a number of upvotes, but probably not as many as your original post. This creates an incentive just to ignore replies (when possible) so as not to bring down your average comment score.
- johnernaut 14y ago
  It matters in high performance Python.
  - kmfrk 14y ago
    Just sort the comments randomly, as long as their karma is >=0, and place the negative-karma comments at the bottom. Done. :P This algorithmic craze is too clever for its own good. It is particularly evident in the false-positive bans. (And I swear, it's scary how HN joke comments are indistinguishable from the real ones.)
    - vukmir 14y ago
      >This algorithmic craze is too clever for its own good. It is particularly evident in the false-positive bans. Source?
      - kmfrk 14y ago
        Well, I've been banned on this acccount for long periods of time for one. I don't know if people keep written accounts of being banned for stupid reasons. It's not like I'm a menace to the community.
      - D_Alex 14y ago
        OMG dude google it! http://www.google.com.au/#hl=en&output=search&sclient=psy-ab&q=This+algorithmic+craze+is+too+clever+for+its+own+good.+It+is+particularly+evident+in+the+false-positive+bans&oq=This+algorithmic+craze+is+too+clever+for+its+own+good.+It+is+particularly+evident+in+the+false-positive+bans&gs_l=hp.3...11809.11809.0.13011.1.1.0.0.0.0.0.0..0.0.les%3B..0.1...1c.1.5.psy-ab.Q1eKIJd8-Vs&pbx=1&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_qf.&bvm=bv.43287494,d.dGY&fp=7f557d56038fe934&biw=1600&bih=759 http://www.google.com.au/#hl=en&output=search&sclien... Edit: Why am I being downvoted????
    - 1337p337 14y ago
      Well, random sorting might be a bit of an annoyance due to HN's other annoyance, the "Unknown or expired link" problem, which seems to crop up more often if I do actual work and then pop over to HN when I have to wait for tests/compilation/etc. Locating the comment you were replying to with random or date-based sorting (so that you can click "reply" again, paste your previous reply, and then resubmit) would be a serious pain in combination with that. But you're correct in that the current algorithm (or any sufficiently transparent algorithm) does lend itself to gaming. It might be harder to game if you didn't mind penalizing comments based on the quality[1] of replies they generate, then sorting based on the thread's average quality would mean that there's less incentive to post in the top thread just to get exposure, since your new, karma-less post will drag down its average and subsequently could drag down the thread. That could get prohibitively expensive to calculate for huge threads, but would be less prone to gaming, I think. [1] If we can hand-wave "karma" to mean "quality"; I get way more upvotes when I am flippant but technically correct than I do when I try to be thoughtful.
orangethirty 14y ago
You are also forgetting your groupies. People will upvote your post because its you and not due to its content. tptacek has mentioned this in the past, and I personally suffer from it.
- mhurron 14y ago
  > also forgetting your groupies. ... tptacek has mentioned I never would have guessed. I wonder if this thread could be turned into a parody of the parody?
  - kylemaxwell 14y ago
    It already has.
    - gala8y 14y ago
      The question is whether we control it.
      - saraid216 14y ago
        The answer to that is always no.
        latterd 14y ago
        Hilarious!
      - aangjie 14y ago
        Councillor Harmann: Of course not. How could they? The idea is pure nonsense. But... it does make one wonder... just... what is control? ~ The matrix revolutions
      - rozap 14y ago
        Disrupt. Disrupt. Disrupt. Crisis averted.
robomartin 14y ago
Well, pg isn't on that leaderboard. Not sure what karma means or what it's worth other to the user than giving one the ability to down-vote (which should require posting a reason for having done so, but that's a different thread). As a tool or "quality score" that aims to control and keep a forum from derailing this kind of a scoring system has probably done OK. Not sure if it is solely responsible for these effects on sites like HN and SO, but there's not denying that the signal to noise ratio is far better than for example USENET S/N or some forums out there (vBulletin or phpBB type). Having operated a forum before I can tell you that it can be an absolute nightmare (I was using vBulletin) on many fronts. HN seems to be able to maintain decent quality.
- scott_s 14y ago
  I believe he has a special rule to take himself off - his karma would put him at the top, and I think he used to be on it.
  - mindcrime 14y ago
    Yeah, he was definitely at the top before, and now he doesn't appear at all. I'm pretty sure you're right, and he coded in a rule to remove himself from the list.
Claudus 14y ago
Rats, top comments will be impossible to beat. I can probably piggy-back off a top comment, though, those comment threads aren't long yet...
- jewbacca 14y ago
  Piggybacking off a piggyback comment to take the discussion back on topic: There is further parody content in the URLs of the 'reply' links Didn't realize until stalking through to the author's commentary on his personal blog: http://bradconte.com/hacker-news-parody-thread.html http://bradconte.com/hacker-news-parody-thread.html, because the relevant replies (including the author's own: ctrl+f "B-Con") were too far down this thread to ever see without foreknowledge.
lmm 14y ago
I've certainly noticed it's become easier to get replies as my average karma rises. It's also easier to get posts modded up, creating a positive feedback loop (I'm guessing more people vote on posts that are near the top of the page?). Don't have any concrete evidence though.

Xcelerate 14y ago

> Actually I think I have a solution to this, though its just guesswork. Darn you ;)

chimeracoder 14y ago

> Alas I don't know for certain, but my guess is that if you have a high average karma then your posts are automatically weighted higher, so you can inject your opinion into almost any topic at any time. This affords me the luxury of being a contradictory whine even if I come late to the party! One thing I dislike about the 'average karma' is that it discourages engaging in an extended discussion. For example, if you reply to this post, you may get a number of upvotes, but probably not as many as your original post. This creates an incentive just to ignore replies (when possible) so as not to bring down your average comment score.

johnernaut 14y ago
It matters in high performance Python.
- kmfrk 14y ago
  Just sort the comments randomly, as long as their karma is >=0, and place the negative-karma comments at the bottom. Done. :P This algorithmic craze is too clever for its own good. It is particularly evident in the false-positive bans. (And I swear, it's scary how HN joke comments are indistinguishable from the real ones.)
  - vukmir 14y ago
    >This algorithmic craze is too clever for its own good. It is particularly evident in the false-positive bans. Source?
    - kmfrk 14y ago
      Well, I've been banned on this acccount for long periods of time for one. I don't know if people keep written accounts of being banned for stupid reasons. It's not like I'm a menace to the community.
    - D_Alex 14y ago
      OMG dude google it! http://www.google.com.au/#hl=en&output=search&sclient=psy-ab&q=This+algorithmic+craze+is+too+clever+for+its+own+good.+It+is+particularly+evident+in+the+false-positive+bans&oq=This+algorithmic+craze+is+too+clever+for+its+own+good.+It+is+particularly+evident+in+the+false-positive+bans&gs_l=hp.3...11809.11809.0.13011.1.1.0.0.0.0.0.0..0.0.les%3B..0.1...1c.1.5.psy-ab.Q1eKIJd8-Vs&pbx=1&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_qf.&bvm=bv.43287494,d.dGY&fp=7f557d56038fe934&biw=1600&bih=759 http://www.google.com.au/#hl=en&output=search&sclien... Edit: Why am I being downvoted????
  - 1337p337 14y ago
    Well, random sorting might be a bit of an annoyance due to HN's other annoyance, the "Unknown or expired link" problem, which seems to crop up more often if I do actual work and then pop over to HN when I have to wait for tests/compilation/etc. Locating the comment you were replying to with random or date-based sorting (so that you can click "reply" again, paste your previous reply, and then resubmit) would be a serious pain in combination with that. But you're correct in that the current algorithm (or any sufficiently transparent algorithm) does lend itself to gaming. It might be harder to game if you didn't mind penalizing comments based on the quality[1] of replies they generate, then sorting based on the thread's average quality would mean that there's less incentive to post in the top thread just to get exposure, since your new, karma-less post will drag down its average and subsequently could drag down the thread. That could get prohibitively expensive to calculate for huge threads, but would be less prone to gaming, I think. [1] If we can hand-wave "karma" to mean "quality"; I get way more upvotes when I am flippant but technically correct than I do when I try to be thoughtful.

orangethirty 14y ago

You are also forgetting your groupies. People will upvote your post because its you and not due to its content. tptacek has mentioned this in the past, and I personally suffer from it.

mhurron 14y ago
> also forgetting your groupies. ... tptacek has mentioned I never would have guessed. I wonder if this thread could be turned into a parody of the parody?
- kylemaxwell 14y ago
  It already has.
  - gala8y 14y ago
    The question is whether we control it.
    - saraid216 14y ago
      The answer to that is always no.
      - latterd 14y ago
        Hilarious!
    - aangjie 14y ago
      Councillor Harmann: Of course not. How could they? The idea is pure nonsense. But... it does make one wonder... just... what is control? ~ The matrix revolutions
    - rozap 14y ago
      Disrupt. Disrupt. Disrupt. Crisis averted.

robomartin 14y ago

Well, pg isn't on that leaderboard. Not sure what karma means or what it's worth other to the user than giving one the ability to down-vote (which should require posting a reason for having done so, but that's a different thread). As a tool or "quality score" that aims to control and keep a forum from derailing this kind of a scoring system has probably done OK. Not sure if it is solely responsible for these effects on sites like HN and SO, but there's not denying that the signal to noise ratio is far better than for example USENET S/N or some forums out there (vBulletin or phpBB type). Having operated a forum before I can tell you that it can be an absolute nightmare (I was using vBulletin) on many fronts. HN seems to be able to maintain decent quality.

scott_s 14y ago
I believe he has a special rule to take himself off - his karma would put him at the top, and I think he used to be on it.
- mindcrime 14y ago
  Yeah, he was definitely at the top before, and now he doesn't appear at all. I'm pretty sure you're right, and he coded in a rule to remove himself from the list.

Claudus 14y ago

Rats, top comments will be impossible to beat. I can probably piggy-back off a top comment, though, those comment threads aren't long yet...

jewbacca 14y ago
Piggybacking off a piggyback comment to take the discussion back on topic: There is further parody content in the URLs of the 'reply' links Didn't realize until stalking through to the author's commentary on his personal blog: http://bradconte.com/hacker-news-parody-thread.html http://bradconte.com/hacker-news-parody-thread.html, because the relevant replies (including the author's own: ctrl+f "B-Con") were too far down this thread to ever see without foreknowledge.

lmm 14y ago

I've certainly noticed it's become easier to get replies as my average karma rises. It's also easier to get posts modded up, creating a positive feedback loop (I'm guessing more people vote on posts that are near the top of the page?). Don't have any concrete evidence though.