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The Evaporative Cooling Effect in Social Networks (2010)

blogs.cornell.edu

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Re: The Evaporative Cooling Effect in Social Networks (2010)

#11

Post by coldtea »

finnh wrote: post #4

Doesn't this complaint assume a strict stack-ranking of contributors, where the "top" person has no reason to stay and thus leaves, and then the new top does the same, etc? Which is not at all how actual humans and relationships work. We each bring different value to the table, along multiple dimensions.

>Which is not at all how actual humans and relationships work. We each bring different value to the table, along multiple dimensions.

Sort of. In practice there are valuable and less valuable contributors.

Plus all those multiple dimensions are not of equal value themselves.

Re: The Evaporative Cooling Effect in Social Networks (2010)

#12

Post by dredmorbius »

pockmarked19 wrote: post #3
rzk wrote: post #2

Previous discussion: The Evaporative Cooling Effect in Online Communities — https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1777665 (2010, 35 comments) https://archive.ph/q8DlQ

That’s a different discussion, because this one has the added benefit of being from a cornell.edu domain! /s The submission here is also more of a discussion of that post, so this thread would be a discussion of a discussion, not direct comments on the article.

It's worthwhile to link earlier related discussions, and both the original article (now linkrotted) and a direct discussion of it satisfy that relation to me.

Re: The Evaporative Cooling Effect in Social Networks (2010)

#13

Post by Groxx »

numpad0 wrote: post #8

Isn't this model a bit outdated with prevalence of likes and retweets? Users on modern social platforms optimize output to maximize favorable responses, thereby gratification. There are not really ceilings, barrier to entry, or way around the system, so it's resistant to spams and manipulations. Classical BBS systems did have this problem. It was said that a community beegins with interesting people posting interesti…

>There are not really ceilings, barrier to entry, or way around the system, so it's resistant to spams and manipulations.

I feel like we must be using different internets. Spam and manipulation are rampant on social networks lately, far beyond what they used to be, and while there aren't really barriers to entry there absolutely are barriers to reach: you're not as widely followed as the spammers, your stuff will be drowned out.

As evidence I offer: any cursory glance at Facebook or Twitter, both of which have likes and retweets.

Re: The Evaporative Cooling Effect in Social Networks (2010)

#14

Post by dredmorbius »

finnh wrote: post #4

Doesn't this complaint assume a strict stack-ranking of contributors, where the "top" person has no reason to stay and thus leaves, and then the new top does the same, etc? Which is not at all how actual humans and relationships work. We each bring different value to the table, along multiple dimensions.

A ranking need not have absolute certainty of be fixed over time to be useful. We could well rank into tiers of contributors or participants. I'd generally suggest that such tiers would likely be roughly exponential, with tier n+1 having m^1 more members than tier n, but also a lower net value.

(n and m are arbitrary, I'm not insisting on log base 10, and the natural log e might well be a better fit.)

This is typical of almost all large network functions which exhibit power laws, Zipf functions, or the like.

Measurement itself is difficult and subject to both cost and error, as well as variability over time.

Re: The Evaporative Cooling Effect in Social Networks (2010)

#16

Post by joshdavham »

This pretty much describes a lot of what I’ve experienced in online language learning communities. A large majority of my friends who eventually reached fluency in their target language ended up leaving or becoming significantly less active over time despite their success. Over time, the quantity of ‘wannabe’ language learners has generally increased and reduced the overall quality of the communities. I used to be completely anti-gatekeeping but my opinion has been slowly changing on this point.

It is interesting that HN still seems to be very high quality (though I haven’t been using it super duper long to truly judge). Does HN have any healthy gatekeeping mechanisms aside from its (ugly) UI to keep it high quality?

Re: The Evaporative Cooling Effect in Social Networks (2010)

#17

Post by hiatus »

joshdavham wrote: post #16

This pretty much describes a lot of what I’ve experienced in online language learning communities. A large majority of my friends who eventually reached fluency in their target language ended up leaving or becoming significantly less active over time despite their success. Over time, the quantity of ‘wannabe’ language learners has generally increased and reduced the overall quality of the communities. I used to be co…

> Does HN have any healthy gatekeeping mechanisms aside from its (ugly) UI to keep it high quality?

Yes, the mods.

Re: The Evaporative Cooling Effect in Social Networks (2010)

#18

Post by numpad0 »

Groxx wrote: post #13
numpad0 wrote: post #8

Isn't this model a bit outdated with prevalence of likes and retweets? Users on modern social platforms optimize output to maximize favorable responses, thereby gratification. There are not really ceilings, barrier to entry, or way around the system, so it's resistant to spams and manipulations. Classical BBS systems did have this problem. It was said that a community beegins with interesting people posting interesti…

> There are not really ceilings, barrier to entry, or way around the system, so it's resistant to spams and manipulations. I feel like we must be using different internets. Spam and manipulation are rampant on social networks lately, far beyond what they used to be, and while there aren't really barriers to entry there absolutely are barriers to reach : you're not as widely followed as the spammers, your stuff will b…

> I feel like we must be using different internets.

I can't shake off the thought that this statement might be more truthful than it deserves to be. Some of social media accounts are closer to what you have described, some are more like what I have. The Dead Internet Syndrome must be not spreading uniformly, but there must be significant disparity across fields and bubbles, deepening divides between common folks without clean freshwater supply and those privileged that has access to spam-immune input source.

My Twitter timeline is... not great, not terrible. Reddit is out of question.

Re: The Evaporative Cooling Effect in Social Networks (2010)

#19

Post by MichaelZuo »

Groxx wrote: post #13
numpad0 wrote: post #8

Isn't this model a bit outdated with prevalence of likes and retweets? Users on modern social platforms optimize output to maximize favorable responses, thereby gratification. There are not really ceilings, barrier to entry, or way around the system, so it's resistant to spams and manipulations. Classical BBS systems did have this problem. It was said that a community beegins with interesting people posting interesti…

> There are not really ceilings, barrier to entry, or way around the system, so it's resistant to spams and manipulations. I feel like we must be using different internets. Spam and manipulation are rampant on social networks lately, far beyond what they used to be, and while there aren't really barriers to entry there absolutely are barriers to reach : you're not as widely followed as the spammers, your stuff will b…

Aren’t ‘barriers to reach’ pretty much necessary beyond a certain scale?

Since a pure chronological feed would be unusable for anyone following more than a few dozen people.

Or for anyone searching any terms more popular than the most obscure niches.

So there has to be some system deciding winners and losers effectively.

Re: The Evaporative Cooling Effect in Social Networks (2010)

#20

Post by numpad0 »

MichaelZuo wrote: post #19
Groxx wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There are not really ceilings, barrier to entry, or way around the system, so it's resistant to spams and manipulations. I feel like we must be using different internets. Spam and manipulation are rampant on social networks lately, far beyond what they used to be, and while there aren't really barriers to entry there absolutely are barriers to reach : you're not as widely followed as the spammers, your stuff will b…

Aren’t ‘barriers to reach’ pretty much necessary beyond a certain scale? Since a pure chronological feed would be unusable for anyone following more than a few dozen people. Or for anyone searching any terms more popular than the most obscure niches. So there has to be some system deciding winners and losers effectively.

GP's point is that organized spamming had defeated algorithms and contributing/consuming organic high quality contents is no longer viable. I think that depends.
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