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Its the age-old question of being able to maintain a high signal-to-noise ratio. The bottom-line is that the more "democratic" a forum/board/discussion media ge

by ivenkys 17y ago

Its the age-old question of being able to maintain a high signal-to-noise ratio. The bottom-line is that the more "democratic" a forum/board/discussion media gets, the more clueless it becomes. There doesn't seem to be a way to get away from that.

edd 17y ago
"The bottom-line is that the more "democratic" a forum/board/discussion media gets, the more clueless it becomes." The voice in the back of my head reading that is shouting" but what about the "Wisdom of Crowds"? I think the problem we are seeing here though is that we are starting with a very "smart crowd" and only adding people with less knowledge of the subject.
- berntb 17y ago
  All examples in the article had self selected crowds that later got diluted. It is the common problem, not only HN.
- rubinelli 17y ago
  The "Wisdom of the Crowds" is simply a specialization of the Law of Big Numbers to average out the noise and leave the signal. As such, it has two weaknesses: (1) if all you have as input is garbage, no matter how much garbage you put in, you will get garbage as output, e.g. "the Emperor's nose" (2) every action has to be independent, or the math behind it is no longer sound; due to the anchoring effect and social pressure, early noise tends to be amplified.
- ahoyhere 17y ago
  "The Wisdom of Crowds" - as the book explains - applies only to questions with concrete answers, and it works because groups are wrong in a predictable distribution so that they average out to right. I, for one, believe the state of social software on the internet would be better if people actually read the book.
coliveira 17y ago
The issue discussed in the article is not being democratic or not, but let me choose who I want to pay attention to. If you visit a blog you know who is talking, and the same is true for twitter.
- ivenkys 17y ago
  Correct ,but there is also the focus on the ensuing discussion, feedback. Popular blogs can have a large comment population and it is quite hard to follow the ensuing relevant discussion. Twitter to some extent alleviates that but then Twitter is not really a discussion forum.

by ivenkys 17y ago

edd 17y ago

"The bottom-line is that the more "democratic" a forum/board/discussion media gets, the more clueless it becomes." The voice in the back of my head reading that is shouting" but what about the "Wisdom of Crowds"? I think the problem we are seeing here though is that we are starting with a very "smart crowd" and only adding people with less knowledge of the subject.

berntb 17y ago
All examples in the article had self selected crowds that later got diluted. It is the common problem, not only HN.
rubinelli 17y ago
The "Wisdom of the Crowds" is simply a specialization of the Law of Big Numbers to average out the noise and leave the signal. As such, it has two weaknesses: (1) if all you have as input is garbage, no matter how much garbage you put in, you will get garbage as output, e.g. "the Emperor's nose" (2) every action has to be independent, or the math behind it is no longer sound; due to the anchoring effect and social pressure, early noise tends to be amplified.
ahoyhere 17y ago
"The Wisdom of Crowds" - as the book explains - applies only to questions with concrete answers, and it works because groups are wrong in a predictable distribution so that they average out to right. I, for one, believe the state of social software on the internet would be better if people actually read the book.

coliveira 17y ago

The issue discussed in the article is not being democratic or not, but let me choose who I want to pay attention to. If you visit a blog you know who is talking, and the same is true for twitter.

ivenkys 17y ago
Correct ,but there is also the focus on the ensuing discussion, feedback. Popular blogs can have a large comment population and it is quite hard to follow the ensuing relevant discussion. Twitter to some extent alleviates that but then Twitter is not really a discussion forum.