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95%-ile isn't that good (2020)

danluu.com

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Re: 95%-ile isn't that good (2020)

#51

Post by zlg_codes »

no1pcjfan wrote: post #40
zlg_codes wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's kinda sad, this place feels kinda like Slashdot, and not in a good way. :(

As long as you can upvote/downvote/flag shit, you’ll get shit. The incentives aren’t aligned. That’s exactly why you’d have someone re-posting this stuff. People here aren’t old enough to remember when this happened on Digg, Nevermind Slashdot. Dang was in elementary school back then.

Agreed. There's something flawed about the voting model that totally messes with people socially. It ends up replacing actual discourse with gamesmanship.

I assume the green handle is because you're a mod. ~~Given that you seem to understand the design problems and limitations, do you feel like modding sites like these is more of a hassle than other platforms? Investigating antisocial shit seems more complex than just checking DMs and post history. Voting history is relevant, too.~~ Assumption wrong.

Re: 95%-ile isn't that good (2020)

#52

Post by madamelic »

onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #34
madamelic wrote: post #26

I would have to agree about 95th percentile being not that difficult. A streamer that I occasionally tune into (Asmongold) says that if you are seeking information outside of the game such as watching streams of the game, that makes you a top 10% player automatically. Most people are passive consumers and participants in their activities and that isn't exclusive to the individual. I am a passive consumer & participan…

It's easy to be in the top 99% in a competition nobody cares about. Try being in the top 1% of basketball players if you're under 5'9". Easier said than done.

Absolutely. The article hints at this problem by saying 95th percentile is easy but the grind from 95th to 99th is more difficult, requiring explicit effort and reflection on your process.

To use a gaming metaphor that hopefully lands, the XP grind from level 1 to 92 in Runscape is the same XP amount as the XP needed to go from 92 to 99 [0].

It is also illustrated with the Pareto Principle and the 90/10 rule where the final portion takes the most resources. Someone can easily become top 10% basketball player given the right training. 27M people played basketball recreationally in the US in 2021 [1], you only need to be in the top 2,700,000 players to be a top 10% player. There's only about 500 people in the NBA in a given year [2] so they represent approximately the top 0.0018% of organized basketball players.

If you include people who play rarely or in pick-up games, the odds of a top 10% 5'9 player jump drastically. 5'9 isn't that short either, it's roughly the median height of an American man.

[0]: https://runescape.fandom.com/wiki/Experience/Table [1]: https://www.statista.com/statistics/191632/participants-in-b.... [2]: https://www.hoopsbeast.com/total-nba-players/

Re: 95%-ile isn't that good (2020)

#53

Post by bee_rider »

OkayPhysicist wrote: post #32
AndyKelley wrote: post #16

This is my sad reality of local multiplayer games like Speedrunners, Duck Game, and Ultimate Chicken Horse. They're super fun, but I'm too good for my friends & family, and too bad for people who take it seriously online.

A group of friends and I would go into empty classrooms on our college campus and play Duck Game on their projectors. Made a great drinking game: You die, 1 sip. You die by falling object, another sip. If your death is memorialized (either by having your eyes closed, or turned into a tombstone), another sip. There were enough of us that we were constantly passing the controllers around. Absolute blast.

In super smash bros I always like the opposite: drink when you win or drink when you get a kill. Automatically levels the playing field.

Re: 95%-ile isn't that good (2020)

#54

Post by NooneAtAll3 »

JCharante wrote: post #9
AirMax98 wrote: post #5

@dang — pretty annoying that this user is engagement farming by reposting classics. Not great behavior. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31199361

Wow they submit like 20 posts a day but I've never noticed their name before

he's alone, tho

Re: 95%-ile isn't that good (2020)

#55

Post by HideousKojima »

zlg_codes wrote: post #33
wharvle wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Classic “Kid who owns the only Sega in a friend group” problem. Nobody wants to play Mortal Kombat with them.

It's a big meme in the Smash Bros world, too. Tons of people who beat their friends but get bodied at tournaments. If I could stand the BO or the competitive atmosphere I'd consider it.

I always demolished my friends as Ness (to the point where they renamed PK Fire to PK Cancer) but Ness is one of the least competitive characters in tournaments and I'd get absolutely demolished because he's so easy to counter if you know what you're doing (hint: intentionally absorb his PK thunder when he's trying to get back on stage).

Re: 95%-ile isn't that good (2020)

#56

Post by madamelic »

namaria wrote: post #47
madamelic wrote: post #26

I would have to agree about 95th percentile being not that difficult. A streamer that I occasionally tune into (Asmongold) says that if you are seeking information outside of the game such as watching streams of the game, that makes you a top 10% player automatically. Most people are passive consumers and participants in their activities and that isn't exclusive to the individual. I am a passive consumer & participan…

> A streamer (...) says that if you are (...) watching streams of the game, that makes you a top 10% player automatically. Sounds like pandering to the audience. Performing better then 90% of people makes you a top 10% player. Self soothing about how what you like to do in your spare time makes you better then others is not making you any favors. It doesn't matter how much effort you put into being effective. In fact…

I knew I should've been an asterisk / joke about that! :)

Yeah, I could certainly see that but I disagree with your assessment that it is just pandering or self-soothing.

Seeking out any external information in your off-time / outside from that activity gives you the edge against people who just show up and only engage and think about the activity while doing it.

If you are watching basketball play-by-plays or even better, recordings of your own games (read: consuming transformative versions of games just outside your skill vs passively consuming a professional game) outside of basketball practice, there is a good chance you will pick up or develop ideas of how to apply that to your own game.

Yes, passively watching someone play WoW has a low chance of making a world-first raider but watching a world-first raider do raiding with the intention of picking new ideas up will expose you to ideas and methods you won't otherwise be exposed to through normal gameplay.

By listening to other engineers speak, you are being exposed to problems and solutions you would have had to encounter and solve yourself (or possibly never have so you will never cross pollinate ideas)

Re: 95%-ile isn't that good (2020)

#57

Post by thefaux »

303uru wrote: post #27

I'm a pretty consistent top 10 amateur cyclist in Colorado. Some really get wrapped up in it and let it get to their head. The reality though is most people don't ride or race, of those who even race many are there just to participate, now of those who are there to race my percentile has dropped. On the flip side, the truly great riders are overseas and even of them there are just a handful of riders anyone will ever…

Even within bike racing, defining 99% is tricky. The sport generally punishes all-arounders. In road racing, most winners either have great sprints with just enough aerobic capacity to hang on til the finish or have massive aerobic capacity and anemic sprints. I no longer follow the sport, but riders like Peter Sagan and Julian Alaphilippe were more impressive to me than, say, Chris Froome.

Re: 95%-ile isn't that good (2020)

#58

Post by tptacek »

gnicholas wrote: post #49
tptacek wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's no such thing as "@dang". When you have concerns like this, mail hn@ycombinator.com, rather than crudding up the thread. Whatever this users is doing, Dan Luu's posts tend to be treasures, and we can have reasonable threads on them even as you try to clear up the submission behavior with Dan.

I think what the commenter did was reasonable, since it also lets other HNers know that this is a behavior to be on the lookout for. I knew people spammed HN with links to their own websites, but I didn't realize people tried did the same with previously-successful submissions. I agree with the commenter that this isn't appropriate, even if it sometimes leads to good discussions. I appreciate that he posted it here,…

The guidelines are pretty explicit about asking people not to write comments like this. Either way: "@dang" is not a thing.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: 95%-ile isn't that good (2020)

#59

Post by brewdad »

danielh wrote: post #23
barumrho wrote: post #4

Incidentally, I was in the top 10% in my last half-marathon. My next goal is to be in the top 5% (~1h30m). I expect this to take decent amount of effort and more structured training.

The easiest way to improve your relative ranking is to find a less competitive event :) I recently won my age class in a 10k (6th overall out of 147 men). In a very competitive race earlier this year, the exact same time barely put me in the upper half (242/498).

The year I ran the NYC Marathon, I finished in the top 2 percent of men. The winner beat me by 45 minutes.

While I wouldn't go so far as to say 95% sucks, there can be a world of difference between that level and the true elites.

Re: 95%-ile isn't that good (2020)

#60

Post by Raidion »

namaria wrote: post #47
madamelic wrote: post #26

I would have to agree about 95th percentile being not that difficult. A streamer that I occasionally tune into (Asmongold) says that if you are seeking information outside of the game such as watching streams of the game, that makes you a top 10% player automatically. Most people are passive consumers and participants in their activities and that isn't exclusive to the individual. I am a passive consumer & participan…

> A streamer (...) says that if you are (...) watching streams of the game, that makes you a top 10% player automatically. Sounds like pandering to the audience. Performing better then 90% of people makes you a top 10% player. Self soothing about how what you like to do in your spare time makes you better then others is not making you any favors. It doesn't matter how much effort you put into being effective. In fact…

I think it depends on how you measure top 10% in a video game (especially the MMORPGs Asmongold plays), being a top 10% player by stats is a function of play time and 'grind'.

People actively looking at top 10% players can have more game knowledge and build efficiency than people who just grind bigger numbers.

Being an "effective" software engineer also depends on your definition of effective. Mark Zuckerberg was clearly an effective software engineer, but was he in the top 5% of engineers?

People judging their abilities by adjacent (and loosely correlated) metrics is a road to unhappiness.

"When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to become a good measure"

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