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Re: undefined

#31

Post by corin_ » Mon, Apr 02, 2012, 3:57 PM UTC

jpdoctor wrote: post #11

> Is it just me or is it a cheap way to flood the front page for a bit of karma? It's just you. As soon as somebody determines why HN karma is worth a damn, then it's a problem.

People care about their HN karma - I don't know if it's 1% of people or 99% of people (maybe a poll is needed for that) - but certainly some people do.

And because of that, "cheap ways to get a bit of karma" matter, because by their definition they are acts of people who are valuing karmic return over quality of submission, resulting in low-quality discussions that appeal to our lowest common denominators, not to our curiosity.

edit:

To take the discussion further... First, I wouldn't neccesarily say that polls are a cheap way to get karma. Is karma meant to be a reward for effort, or for value? Sure, a poll might get more points per minute it took to create than a great blog post or Show HN post, but it doesn't neccesarily mean it was less useful to have on HN. And in comments we don't discriminate, I've seen plenty of extremely-short comments get high upvote numbers.

And finally... while some people may be motivated more by karma than anything else, is this automatically a bad thing? Arguably if a poll (or anything else) gains the user karma, it is (in theory) a sign that what they submitted was good content, and therefore better that somebody submit it to get karma than for nobody to bother at all.

Re: undefined

#32

Post by kamechan » Mon, Apr 02, 2012, 3:58 PM UTC

Interesting that the OP of this poll wrote this at the top of his last poll post:

"(Please be sure to also vote this poll up as well as vote for a choice; voting for a choice doesn't up vote the poll!)"

I don't care about the karma from polls per se. I mean it's nice, but I've been an HN user for a while now (580 days) and haven't felt the need to seek it out.

I feel the choice of OS is an interesting question these days. The OS climate has changed significantly over the last few years.

Asking the question has also spawned quite a bit of discussion (currently 310 comments) with relatively little flaming going on, so that demonstrates another interesting property of HN readers: that we're capable of having non-childish discussions about things.

For me, as a long time linux user, the question seems relevant as well. I've seen quite a few posts in recent weeks declaring that linux is dead on the desktop. And yet, so far in my poll, it beat out windows and is not that far behind OSX among HN readers, who we'll assume are synonymous with "technical users". With the number of votes that's been collected, I think we can call it a decent sample. The results are definitely not what I would have expected.

Re: undefined

#33

Post by zomgbbq » Mon, Apr 02, 2012, 4:03 PM UTC

One fear I have is that HN is going to turn into reddit or digg. I have always come here for no-nonense hacker news with a strong emphasis on startups and technology for startups. I hope that we can avoid posting too many memes, joke replies, talks of karma, and "what's your favorite flavor of os/language".

Re: undefined

#34

Post by jpdoctor » Mon, Apr 02, 2012, 4:03 PM UTC

Sword_Monkey wrote: post #28

jpdoctor wrote: post #11

> Is it just me or is it a cheap way to flood the front page for a bit of karma? It's just you. As soon as somebody determines why HN karma is worth a damn, then it's a problem.

This is what I was thinking, and since this guy said it, I gave him an upvote. Now I'm not sure if I'm making a mockery of the system or falling for it...

> or falling for it

:) That certainly wasn't my intent. The usefulness of upvotes is that the most useful information goes to the most readable place. (Usefulness being defined by the number of upvotes!)

Having a history of providing useful information might be good for somebody's personal ego, to which I say: Get a life. But does anyone here bother to look at somebody's karma count and say, "Now THAT person needs listening to!"

Re: undefined

#35

Post by bitcracker » Mon, Apr 02, 2012, 4:04 PM UTC

I would like to see a graphical chart where I could follow the votings over time. That would be interesting.

Re: undefined

#36

Post by blangblang » Mon, Apr 02, 2012, 4:04 PM UTC

I think the quality of the current crop of polls is a greater concern than the quantity.

Re: undefined

#37

Post by dkersten » Mon, Apr 02, 2012, 4:09 PM UTC

Feature request: a reverse showdead for polls.

Re: undefined

#38

Post by fady » Mon, Apr 02, 2012, 4:10 PM UTC

i like them. it would be nice if we could see past polls for referencing or comparing.

Re: undefined

#39

Post by AndrewDucker » Mon, Apr 02, 2012, 4:10 PM UTC

I think that what we need is a way to get to polls easily, and page for them to be archived on. That way new people can easily go down them ticking their response and seeing what kind of dog co-founders are most fond of without a new poll being necessary every six months because people have forgotten the old one.

Re: undefined

#40

Post by bad_user » Mon, Apr 02, 2012, 4:10 PM UTC

corin_ wrote: post #31

jpdoctor wrote: post #11

> Is it just me or is it a cheap way to flood the front page for a bit of karma? It's just you. As soon as somebody determines why HN karma is worth a damn, then it's a problem.

People care about their HN karma - I don't know if it's 1% of people or 99% of people (maybe a poll is needed for that) - but certainly some people do. And because of that, "cheap ways to get a bit of karma" matter, because by their definition they are acts of people who are valuing karmic return over quality of submission, resulting in low-quality discussions that appeal to our lowest common denominators, not to our…

100% of active participants care about not getting negative karma on comments.

This is good actually, because rude or completely pointless comments are severely downvoted, this being the punishment instrument that the community has for people that break the guidelines.