Ask PG: Can we see the response to the HN changes? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask PG: Can we see the response to the HN changes?

#71

Post by noonespecial » Wed, Apr 13, 2011, 7:00 AM UTC

fluidcruft wrote: post #70

noonespecial wrote: post #11

I've made one important change in how I vote as a result of the hidden score change. I'm now more afraid to downvote. My usual downvote algorithm was: If offtopic/noise and score >-4 then downvote. Now I don't downvote for fear that it already has 100s of downvotes and I'd just be dogpiling.

I'm not understanding the downside? If the post is offtopic/noise why is -4 a magic threshold? If that threshold can be justified why not incorporate it into HN as policy? If it's just to protect egoes, then HN can just secretly use something like a log scale or some other relationship when displaying karma to users. If voting patterns are more independent of a post's current karma, the measurement should be less bia…

Its the functional equivalent of "someone should tell him that his comment is just a little off", and the score: "oh, good, someone has | I guess no ones done it yet, I guess I will".

Re: Ask PG: Can we see the response to the HN changes?

#72

Post by gluejar » Wed, Apr 13, 2011, 12:17 PM UTC

On the iPad, the up and down arrows are close together. when I upvoted a comment, I couldnt be sure I hit the correct arrow.

Re: Ask PG: Can we see the response to the HN changes?

#73

Post by fluidcruft » Wed, Apr 13, 2011, 3:30 PM UTC

noonespecial wrote: post #71

fluidcruft wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not understanding the downside? If the post is offtopic/noise why is -4 a magic threshold? If that threshold can be justified why not incorporate it into HN as policy? If it's just to protect egoes, then HN can just secretly use something like a log scale or some other relationship when displaying karma to users. If voting patterns are more independent of a post's current karma, the measurement should be less bia…

Its the functional equivalent of "someone should tell him that his comment is just a little off", and the score: "oh, good, someone has | I guess no ones done it yet, I guess I will".

I would see loosing a record of your evaluation as a loss for the community. You've gone to the effort of evaluating the content, but your feedback is not recorded and is treated the same as if you had not read it at all. Maybe rather than just ^/v voting, capturing that sentiment is better handled by an agree--disagree scale.

Re: Ask PG: Can we see the response to the HN changes?

#74

Post by ZackOfAllTrades » Wed, Apr 13, 2011, 4:02 PM UTC

dhimes wrote: post #9

scott_s wrote: post #7

I think we need to let it go on for at least a week before drawing any conclusions. People need to integrate this way of displaying posts into their mental model for the site, and that takes time. Before that happens, none of the data will be meaningful.

I agree. I feel like I need to get used to it first before I can decide whether or not I like it. Besides- maybe more change trials are coming? I'm actually curious as to how pg (and others?) is /are going to evaluate the changes. Monitor chatter? Randomly distributed survey? I'm curious because I'm not sure how much thought/effort it's really worth, and I wonder how much pg &co think it's worth.

Way too early to tell, but I figured I might as well get the idea out there early.

And pg & friends probably have some different goals than what some hn users are used to a online forum having. HN doesn't need to be monetized or have huge page views for it to be a success. All pg needs hn to do is attract the right people and scare off the wrong people. And I imagine that creates some metrics that are more quality based than what most hn users are user to.