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Wow. Exactly what kind of pleasure does a person derive from giving false answers to the question "What's your age?" on an anonymous internet poll? I am not a

by jonahx 14y ago

Wow. Exactly what kind of pleasure does a person derive from giving false answers to the question "What's your age?" on an anonymous internet poll? I am not asking that facetiously -- I really am curious to know. Is this some people's of idea of "being bad"? "being funny"? Something like trolling, getting a rise out of people, etc -- I don't like it or agree with it, but I can comprehend it. In this case, no one is even going to see or know what you did. Is there some pleasure taken in knowing that people think the results are valid while you secretly know they aren't? Or was there an awareness that the moderators would see the bad results, be annoyed by them, and post about it?

arh68 14y ago
Pleasure? That's not what comes to mind. I haven't answered the poll, but I did think about putting <10. Since you seem to comprehend the situation.. it's not about the readers or the moderators, it's more like a dialogue between me and the poll-creator: do you really think there are 10 year olds on the site? Why even make it a poll option? What a hilarious concept, 7 year olds browsing 'Hacker News' at what, 6 in the morning? I like my polls mostly Slashdot-style: you'd be crazy to take them as 'scientific' or 'accurate'. You put options out there, I'll entertain my sense of humor. If you've ever played Apples to Apples, you'll know which kind of player I am. The options I would've expected as more reasonable: <20, 20-35, 36-40, 41+. Then you would hope the results of the poll are interesting enough to talk about (otherwise, yes, you'll degenerate into humour).
1337biz 14y ago
I is just my habit of creating some noise in any data collection effort. Based on the fact that pg is apparently digging through the results and trying to profile certain user behaviors it is somewhat proving the point. You never know who is going to fiddle with the data so you better noise it up.
- TeMPOraL 14y ago
  AKA. you're breaking things because you can?
  - solistice 14y ago
    Yes, uhmm, no (I actually answered truthfully". "Because I can" seems to be pretty deeply ingrained in the hacker ethos of "analyzing, understanding, controlling" systems. Technically I'm the reason for my old schools digital policy. I couldn't find the student drives on the school computers, I looked for network drives, and somehow the teacher/admin drives showed up. I did report that in truely whitehat fashion, but if someone asked me why i was snooping around there, I could have given them the long answer "I was looking around here, and curious to see whether this and that worked", or just "Because I could". So "I was curious whether I could muddy up the data of the poll, and whether there'd be consequences or not" becomes "I broke things because I could"
    - TeMPOraL 14y ago
      I might have been wrong, but I interpreted "I is just my habit of creating some noise in any data collection effort" not as "I was curious what happens if I'll try to mess up with the poll" but more like "I don't like when people gather and analyze data, so I'll screw this up for Greater Good".
      - solistice 14y ago
        Again, it could be the motivation you put forth to, but in favor of the defendant if the evidence is inconclusive. What really bugs me is that on a site that is not entirely void of coders (There might be some around. Mayyybeee...), we use a honor based polling tool that doesn't allow for the creator to set a max number of votes per person. Now I know that creating a new poll takes time, but surely not much more than setting all the +80s font to extra large and all the <10s font to comic sans.
        TeMPOraL 14y ago
        True, though I guess lack of features is kind of HN style. > setting all the +80s font to extra large and all the <10s font to comic sans That actually made me seriously consider voting up both the 80+ and <10 answers just to see what "easter eggs" pg implements.
trotsky 14y ago
general contempt for silly surveys that bear little purpose and whose results are easily predictable before hand. In my opinion the option for over 80 is the proxy vote for please don't post things like this.

by jonahx 14y ago

arh68 14y ago

Pleasure? That's not what comes to mind. I haven't answered the poll, but I did think about putting <10. Since you seem to comprehend the situation.. it's not about the readers or the moderators, it's more like a dialogue between me and the poll-creator: do you really think there are 10 year olds on the site? Why even make it a poll option? What a hilarious concept, 7 year olds browsing 'Hacker News' at what, 6 in the morning? I like my polls mostly Slashdot-style: you'd be crazy to take them as 'scientific' or 'accurate'. You put options out there, I'll entertain my sense of humor. If you've ever played Apples to Apples, you'll know which kind of player I am. The options I would've expected as more reasonable: <20, 20-35, 36-40, 41+. Then you would hope the results of the poll are interesting enough to talk about (otherwise, yes, you'll degenerate into humour).

1337biz 14y ago

I is just my habit of creating some noise in any data collection effort. Based on the fact that pg is apparently digging through the results and trying to profile certain user behaviors it is somewhat proving the point. You never know who is going to fiddle with the data so you better noise it up.

TeMPOraL 14y ago
AKA. you're breaking things because you can?
- solistice 14y ago
  Yes, uhmm, no (I actually answered truthfully". "Because I can" seems to be pretty deeply ingrained in the hacker ethos of "analyzing, understanding, controlling" systems. Technically I'm the reason for my old schools digital policy. I couldn't find the student drives on the school computers, I looked for network drives, and somehow the teacher/admin drives showed up. I did report that in truely whitehat fashion, but if someone asked me why i was snooping around there, I could have given them the long answer "I was looking around here, and curious to see whether this and that worked", or just "Because I could". So "I was curious whether I could muddy up the data of the poll, and whether there'd be consequences or not" becomes "I broke things because I could"
  - TeMPOraL 14y ago
    I might have been wrong, but I interpreted "I is just my habit of creating some noise in any data collection effort" not as "I was curious what happens if I'll try to mess up with the poll" but more like "I don't like when people gather and analyze data, so I'll screw this up for Greater Good".
    - solistice 14y ago
      Again, it could be the motivation you put forth to, but in favor of the defendant if the evidence is inconclusive. What really bugs me is that on a site that is not entirely void of coders (There might be some around. Mayyybeee...), we use a honor based polling tool that doesn't allow for the creator to set a max number of votes per person. Now I know that creating a new poll takes time, but surely not much more than setting all the +80s font to extra large and all the <10s font to comic sans.
      - TeMPOraL 14y ago
        True, though I guess lack of features is kind of HN style. > setting all the +80s font to extra large and all the <10s font to comic sans That actually made me seriously consider voting up both the 80+ and <10 answers just to see what "easter eggs" pg implements.

trotsky 14y ago

general contempt for silly surveys that bear little purpose and whose results are easily predictable before hand. In my opinion the option for over 80 is the proxy vote for please don't post things like this.