I would be very interested in understanding the psychology of the 1%. I would bet they (we? I mostly lurk, but am still probably at least in the top 10%) are a very weird bunch.
1% rule
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Re: 1% rule
#12I hope many of us internalized this early. It's not very accurate, but I try to think of this as meaning that on average, everything I post online is being read by a minimum of 99 people, multiplied by either the upvote count on the thread (for HN) or the number of active followers I have (for Twitter). It has helped me to always think this to myself before posting something. I probably am biased from the culture on…
Why should we care about what the silent 99% think? We’re the top 1%, everyone else wishes they either had something to say or the courage to say it.
Re: 1% rule
#13What percent get banned? There are plenty of percents who would happily edit pages on wikipedia about politics, but those pages tend to be locked.
Re: 1% rule
#14I would be very interested in understanding the psychology of the 1%. I would bet they (we? I mostly lurk, but am still probably at least in the top 10%) are a very weird bunch.
More probably they (we) are selling something... or even themselves?
Re: 1% rule
#15I thought it was the basis of consulting companies as was told to me by an old boss: "if you know 1% more than the other guy you are the expert!"
Re: 1% rule
#16I hope many of us internalized this early. It's not very accurate, but I try to think of this as meaning that on average, everything I post online is being read by a minimum of 99 people, multiplied by either the upvote count on the thread (for HN) or the number of active followers I have (for Twitter). It has helped me to always think this to myself before posting something. I probably am biased from the culture on…
But is all that thinking really worth it? I mean surely you don't want to say too much bullshit, or mislead people... But take this comment; would I really post it if I thought it would waste the time of some hundreds of people reading it?
Also... then there's the problem of feedback, which is how you make progress in a conversation... but I fear I begin to digress.
Re: 1% rule
#17Applies well to political involvement of any kind. Or just any social organization supporting a cause
Re: 1% rule
#18A Redditor did an analysis of Reddit's ratio and it's more like 98-x-y (x and y were not broken out): https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/b5f9wi/let...
Re: 1% rule
#19I blab online quite a bit (in comments only, no blog or anything), but I rarely vote/like/etc. Does that make me more or less of a narcissist?
Re: 1% rule
#20I would be very interested in understanding the psychology of the 1%. I would bet they (we? I mostly lurk, but am still probably at least in the top 10%) are a very weird bunch.
I have worked closely with some phenomenal 1%-ers. :-) They are really efficient at processing broad information in what you could call a shallow manner. They also don't feel the depth-of-comprehension pressure that some of us 99%-ers feel.
To them it's just interesting, interesting, ah wow, next thing, ok cool...that sort of thing. It's like rolling down the windows in your car, letting in some outside air. Sharing is fun, in part because the personally-felt pressure to _do_ in response (learn about it, make something of it) is low, in their experience.
The 99% audience is comprised of a lot of people who are a FOMO audience, and this flow can create serious stress for the portion of those people who read about a new idea and they feel the need to _do_ something about it. Meanwhile the 1% crew are often sharing third-party info briefly and broadly, with brief commentary, but no real interest or pressure to seriously do something or make something.
IMO each group can be said to carry really impressive gifts/benefits. And encouraging lurkers to post is always nice, but many of them also secretly wish for a more inviting / less critical community. HN has a _lot_ of commenters ready to smash the next idea into bits by intuiting its flaws, and some will naturally take that as a sign of a toxic community, or at least one that isn't as welcoming in their view. It's tough to work on this issue because it can radically affect the balance of the community psychology and upset larger groups of people.