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Fix HN by tying karma to upvotes.

news.ycombinator.com

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Fix HN by tying karma to upvotes.

#1

Post by andrewfelix »

Both HN Articles and comments have been gradually slipping in quality. I think this is probably inescapable as more users with less discerning tastes and attitudes come on board.

However I think the slide towards a reddit style board can be slowed significantly by reducing the influence of new and less appreciated users. By giving long term HN users with high karma (ie. not me, but the people who made HN great) more up-vote power and newer members and those with lower karma less up-vote power.

The current system allows high karma users to down vote, but this power is nullified when everyone has the ability to up-vote. For example you could have one dubious article or comment upvoted 100 times by users with 0 karma.

I propose halving up-votes for those with low karma and doubling the up-votes for those with high karma. This way you retain the influence of original members, and you further incentivise new members to make meaningful comments and strive for higher karma.

EDIT: benologist makes a good point that high karma might just represent a lot of submissions and not quality posts. Perhaps then the up-voting could be tied to karma avg. This was you incentivise posting higher quality comments and articles.

Re: Fix HN by tying karma to upvotes.

#2

Post by benologist »

High karma mostly just means you submit a lot of stuff. Age of account is a meaningless metric as well.

I like the suggestion I saw weeks ago of just ditching submission karma. When people have no incentive to automatically or manually dump everything Ars/TC/etc publish then the quality of stories might go up.

Edit: found the suggestion, it was by Cletus:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3788875

Re: Fix HN by tying karma to upvotes.

#3

Post by andrewfelix »

benologist wrote: post #2

High karma mostly just means you submit a lot of stuff. Age of account is a meaningless metric as well. I like the suggestion I saw weeks ago of just ditching submission karma. When people have no incentive to automatically or manually dump everything Ars/TC/etc publish then the quality of stories might go up. Edit: found the suggestion, it was by Cletus: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3788875

How about karma Avg. then?

Re: Fix HN by tying karma to upvotes.

#4

Post by rollypolly »

benologist wrote: post #2

High karma mostly just means you submit a lot of stuff. Age of account is a meaningless metric as well. I like the suggestion I saw weeks ago of just ditching submission karma. When people have no incentive to automatically or manually dump everything Ars/TC/etc publish then the quality of stories might go up. Edit: found the suggestion, it was by Cletus: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3788875

This would also reduce duplicates.

As for tweaking the "power" of upvotes, I think this would probably have unintended consequences. Like creating an old boys' club perhaps.

Re: Fix HN by tying karma to upvotes.

#5

Post by eof »

Something I have thought about is giving more weight to rare-voters.

My HN karma is easily 50x the number of votes I have ever given, up or down. But when I do vote, I really mean it.

This is somewhat a problem though if I never vote but happen to vote my buddies post because he is my friend; so maybe it wouldn't work.

To your idea; instead of giving a 4-1 ratio from high-to-low voters; I would propose something like like 0-10 with 10 points for those with the highest karma, and 0 for those with the lowest.

Re: Fix HN by tying karma to upvotes.

#7

Post by unimpressive »

andrewfelix wrote: post #3
benologist wrote: post #2

High karma mostly just means you submit a lot of stuff. Age of account is a meaningless metric as well. I like the suggestion I saw weeks ago of just ditching submission karma. When people have no incentive to automatically or manually dump everything Ars/TC/etc publish then the quality of stories might go up. Edit: found the suggestion, it was by Cletus: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3788875

How about karma Avg. then?

>How about karma Avg. then?

Step one: Make new account

Step two: Post Techcrunch or similar article guaranteed to hit the front page of HN.

Step three: Use newfound insane karma average to upvote crap submissions.

Step four: ???

Step five: Profit.

I actually like "Remove submission karma.". That should stop the linkbait articles from people who have to have their play money.

Re: Fix HN by tying karma to upvotes.

#8

Post by paulsutter »

Maybe the solution is to let each user choose how articles / comments are ranked. A PHP programmer will just have different interests from someone who has started three companies or who has written a petabyte sort.

This is all written in lisp right? Maybe advanced users could contribute ranking schemes and people could try them out.

Separately: I'd love to see a ratio of points given to points received. And a separate count of total downvotes.

Re: Fix HN by tying karma to upvotes.

#9

Post by samirahmed »

eof wrote: post #5

Something I have thought about is giving more weight to rare-voters. My HN karma is easily 50x the number of votes I have ever given, up or down. But when I do vote, I really mean it . This is somewhat a problem though if I never vote but happen to vote my buddies post because he is my friend; so maybe it wouldn't work. To your idea; instead of giving a 4-1 ratio from high-to-low voters; I would propose something lik…

To implement such an approach HN users should not be made aware of the fact that more weighting is given to rare-voters.

Otherwise users will change the manner in which they vote, making frequent voters want to vote less and discouraging participation

Re: Fix HN by tying karma to upvotes.

#10

Post by paulsutter »

unimpressive wrote: post #7
andrewfelix wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How about karma Avg. then?

>How about karma Avg. then? Step one: Make new account Step two: Post Techcrunch or similar article guaranteed to hit the front page of HN. Step three: Use newfound insane karma average to upvote crap submissions. Step four: ??? Step five: Profit. I actually like "Remove submission karma.". That should stop the linkbait articles from people who have to have their play money.

Remove submission karma is a great idea. Right now the fastest way to get monster karma is to be the first to post a Paul Graham essay.
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