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Poll: What is your age?

news.ycombinator.com

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Re: Poll: What is your age?

#101

Post by pointyhatuk »

pg wrote: post #62

The most significant result of this poll is that HN now seems to be past the point where we can rely on an honor system to prevent users from giving junk answers to polls. A few years ago we could. That's an unfortunate change. However, it's an ill wind that blows no good. When I'm done reading applications, I'll add a little tweak to HN to make the fonts super big for all the users over 80.

It still looks roughly like a bell curve. I think the genuine answers are enough to extrapolate some information from this.

Re: Poll: What is your age?

#102

Post by waterlesscloud »

saulrh wrote: post #85
pg wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll have to think of something extra for them too. Any ideas? Bear in mind that about half the users under 10 are also over 90, so whatever it is can't conflict with extra large fonts.

How about an animated hacker mascot that provides helpful tutorials for features, complete with colorful highlighting and font changes to indicate important UI elements?

We could call him Poochie.

Re: Poll: What is your age?

#104

Post by jacquesm »

willlll wrote: post #22
kintamanimatt wrote: post #18

Are there really people over 80 and under 10 on this site, or are people just clicking shit for the hell of it?

I always vote every option in any poll that you can pick more than one thing.

Would you like me to treat you as under 10 or over 90 from now on, or both at the same time?

Please put your reading glasses on and take the dummy out of your mouth, then re-read the poll text:

"Please be honest and click one answer only!"

Re: Poll: What is your age?

#106

Post by michaelkscott »

kintamanimatt wrote: post #26
willlll wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always vote every option in any poll that you can pick more than one thing.

Why? Why fuck up the data like that? The thing with HN Polls is you've no way to create polls in which you can select only one option. All you can do is list the options you want included in the poll, nothing else. On a side note, your personal website is fucking hilarious.

+1 for his site, really funny.

Re: Poll: What is your age?

#108

Post by orenjacob »

staunch wrote: post #77
pg wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll have to think of something extra for them too. Any ideas? Bear in mind that about half the users under 10 are also over 90, so whatever it is can't conflict with extra large fonts.

Sadly, I think you're going to have to ban them. COPPA[1] makes it risky to have children under 13 on your web site without clear parental consent. ..you could let them send in a note from their parents to get unbanned :-) 1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Childrens_Online_Privacy_Protec...

There can be a very real issue if HN accounts have an age or birthdate associated with them which indicate that the user is under 13. In that situation where knowledge of age is in the hands of the website operator, the FTC has taken notice, and action. See Path's recent FTC COPPA ruling as an example.

So, if HN internally keeps a reference from votes in the under-10 category of this poll to the accounts they came from, and if any of those people are under 13, there may be cause for real concern re: COPPA.

There are sort of 3 ways to approach this safely... 1. don't ask, don't tell (eg: Google's main search page) 2. ask, and reject (eg: Facebook account signup) 3. ask, accept, and get consent (eg: some child focused sites)

HN is pretty clearly not a child-oriented website, but if there is concrete knowledge of age, COPPA can apply.

Re: Poll: What is your age?

#109

Post by phryk »

pg wrote: post #67
SCdF wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My thoughts exactly. That's a lot of <10 year olds...

I'll have to think of something extra for them too. Any ideas? Bear in mind that about half the users under 10 are also over 90, so whatever it is can't conflict with extra large fonts.

and .

Re: Poll: What is your age?

#110

Post by aethr »

gegenschall wrote: post #68
pg wrote: post #62

The most significant result of this poll is that HN now seems to be past the point where we can rely on an honor system to prevent users from giving junk answers to polls. A few years ago we could. That's an unfortunate change. However, it's an ill wind that blows no good. When I'm done reading applications, I'll add a little tweak to HN to make the fonts super big for all the users over 80.

Put a poll out there, give it at least one irrelevant/obviously inapt answer and people will click it. Not really an HN problem if you ask me...

At first reading, I thought you were suggesting a poll that was the human version of a honeypot!

Put up a poll with one obviously troll answer, and anyone who upvotes the troll answer gets hellbanned immediately. Obviously a heavy-handed approach, it just made me laugh thinking about it.

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