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Why would it not be okay to get karma for sharing something you produced, but okay to get karma for sharing something someone else produced?
by Darmani 17y ago
Why would it not be okay to get karma for sharing something you produced, but okay to get karma for sharing something someone else produced?
- mbrubeck 17y agoSome forums (e.g. MetaFilter) have rules against self-promotion. The main reason is that the authors are not in the best position to judge whether their own work is interesting or relevant. Of course, MetaFilter doesn't use HN/Digg/Reddit-style voting to filter items after they're submitted, so it relies much more on contributors' judgement.
- icco 17y agoProbably for the same reason you're not supposed to create wikipedia articles about yourself.
- cduan 17y agoThere are at least two reasons why this analogy is weak. 1. Wikipedia is a source of information that is supposed to be true. Thus, it has a need to eliminate biases and unverifiable sources of data, and disallowing self-promoting articles serves that goal. Sites like HN, however, are sources of information that is supposed to be interesting. Here, biased sources of information are welcome, because readers are seeking the opinions of others--that is, the biases of others. So the need to avoid bias is lessened. 2. Most Wikipedia pages are rarely, if ever, edited, and even less often fact-checked. Thus, a self-promoting article there can last for a long time, appearing as legitimate as any other. On HN, posting an article gives it only one vote. Articles only make it to the top after review by several readers that are not the initial poster. So even if the initial vote was tainted by self-promotion, the other votes, presumably legitimate, can offset this.