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the problem is that even though WE don't like poll stories or random bush bashing on the front page, a TON of people do like them obviously, and you need to
by utnick 19y ago
the problem is that even though WE don't like poll stories or random bush bashing on the front page, a TON of people do like them obviously, and you need to accomadate them too
anyone ever used pandora.com?
you give it an artist, it plays you a song by the artist or in the same genre, you vote the song up or down, eventually pandora learns enough about your tastes to only play songs that you enjoy
what if a social news site kept track of what kind of stories you voted up or down, did some magic to draw connections between types of stories, so the front page of the site would look different for each user... people that don't like poll stories wouldn't have poll stories on the front page, etc, etc
- pg 19y agoeven though WE don't like poll stories or random bush bashing on the front page, a TON of people do like them Not quite, unfortunately. The problem with voting, as the reddits realized from the very beginning, is that people will vote something up not just because they liked it, but because they want other people to read it. And a site full of what the majority want everyone else to read could be significantly less interesting than one full of what people like themselves. And with polls there's not even a pretense that they reflect anyone's interest. The voting mechanism is being hacked for another use.
- aston 19y agoPeople voting for whatever they want other people to read is basically the same as voting for what they want themselves. I know surveyors occasionally ask questions like "How do you think most people would answer the following question: ___" in order to get an honest answer in cases where people might not want to fess up to some position personally.
- pg 19y agoPeople voting for whatever they want other people to read is basically the same as voting for what they want themselves. Only if the Bible is basically the same as porn.
- utnick 19y agoFor a blind person, they basically are. Why people vote the way they do is an interesting topic, but it won't really affect how the reddits of the world deal with it. A vote is a vote.
- aston 19y agoNot the best comparison. I don't see why a person would vote something up that they have no interest in personally. Altruism isn't all that common.
- pg 19y agoThere's a difference between what people want to read and what they want other people to read. I know of no precise word for this. Altruism is too charitable, and hypocrisy too uncharitable. Imagine yourself inside the head of, say, an abortion rights advocate. A story appears with a headline saying that abortion is just as common where it's illegal. You don't read it; you already know that; but you upvote it as a way of saying "hear hear." Now apply the same rule to articles about Bush, Ron Paul, the RIAA, police abuses, etc, and you've filled up most of the frontpage of a site.
- DanielBMarkham 19y agoSeems to me like we're confusing the users and the system. The users want to read the best material for them. The system only has two states: yes/no. If people are voting _knowing that their vote will influence what others read_, then they aren't working for the best interests of the users, only their own best interests. As you indicate, I don't think there's a word for that, but if there is a recommendation-consumption impedance mismatch (a gap between recommender interests and reader interests) then the system will always swing out of whack. That's true no matter how much it is weighted, because all you're doing is switching the impedance mismatch from a user-to-user scenario to a user-to-editor one.
- yters 19y agoAs an aside, this is actually true, though the filter we read the Bible through makes it quite boring. There's a reason the Bible is the most important book for understanding Western civilization.
- yters 19y agoI think we all would like it if everyone else were better behaved than we want to be.
- greendestiny 19y agoIndividual recommendations don't fine tune social news, they destroy it. You no longer have a shared resource and the communication becomes very indirect.
- utnick 19y agoIf you make the magic good enough, the filtering system will only filter out stories that the reader wouldn't read or comment on anyways. So it won't really affect the community.
- samson 19y agoI agree, systems like digg and alot of other voting sites, don't seem to create alot of invested time for the users. What I mean is, the data they have the opportunity to collect and use to benefit the individual would make users infinitly more loyal, and reduce the chance of them being overly liberal in their voting habits. The reason being is that they'd CARE. My argument then if I had one to begin with is that users don't care about the system because there's nothing invested in it for them. Yes..Yes..the community..I know, but whats in it for them to make them care.