The best conversations online are those in spaces that model well to how we converse as people: flat and linear in format. From the Well to Metafilter, the best conversation happens on flat sites.
Nesting and threading and sorting all solve conversation problems that don't really exist: we already know how to keep track of digressing conversations, intuitively. In the physical world, we're exceptionally good at branching and merging linear discussion threads, at weeding out noise from signal and at setting community norms. The sites that thrive are those that allow users to engage those skills, not those that try to turn it all into math.
In a lot of places, karma and scoring isn't really about making conversations easier for the participants, it's about making editing easier or hands-off for the moderators. Unfortunately, there's not really any way around the fundamental need for community stewardship and moderation beyond a certain size, and when you hit that size you find you have a site that you need to moderate anyway, but it's one that also has user-hostile conversation display and so it begins, inevitably, to suck.
Conversations used to be linear in Groupie (forum app i created) and things got completely out of control. Three people would try to have a conversation and someone else would randomly throw in a totally unrelated point. Get a dozen people doing this and all of sudden there's a mess. What happens is that users stop trying to follow along and only read whats immediately in front of them. Anecdotally, threading and nesting dramatically improved the experience of forum-based communities and noticably improved the quality of replies.
Also, another benefit of scoring is that it lends to reputation. Just like in real life, people do what they can to preserve their digital reputations (once they establish them). Last week I saw something rather incredible: several of my users dished out extremely harsh digital justice on one of the most popular (by "fame") users who made some ridiculous statements. When you're among the most influential on a platform, people watch and literally hold you to a higher standard. Anyway just wanted to share this view.
Yes, I agree with you, things can get out of control. That's because the other thing the sites with great conversations have in common is an element of moderation and "etiquette". You can't take a random selection of people and expect their community values to spring from nothing. It has to be tended and moderated and standards have to be established, people have to establish reputation by becoming known among others.
Threading and nesting and numerical reputation have an allure because they seem to allow you to skip all that -- let the math and the tech enforce a lowest-common community value. But, as I think we see time and again, that doesn't really scale and it doesn't engender great conversation on a par with the best of the flat forums.
> When you're among the most influential on a platform, people watch and literally hold you to a higher standard.
Reddit's "celebrity users" have been grumbling publicly about exactly this recently. They feel like they can no longer disagree or behave like other users without being swarmed by people who recognize their username, and it's making them a lot disgruntled. Generally, it's a bad sign when your power users are unhappy, so I don't think that holding certain users to a higher standard than other users is a good idea.
If you dislike your status on a forum, it's easy enough to start a new psuedonym, especially on reddit. I know kleinbl00 has complained about people recognizing him across screennames, but then perhaps it's time for a new one, or a change in writing style.
I think the benefits of a reputation outweigh its negatives though. It won't keep the truly prolific users happy (karmanaut, PDub, kleinbl00, etc), but it will motivate more people overall, I assume.
It is important to have an easy means of becoming anonymous for expressing controversial opinions, however. Perhaps instead of Slashdot's "post as anonymous" checkbox, there could be a "thread psuedonym" button when you want to be anonymous, but hold a coherent discussion.
> If you dislike your status on a forum, it's easy enough to start a new psuedonym, especially on reddit.
Since you mentioned him specifically, I'll mention that kleinbl00 has on several occasions responded to this with varying degrees of, "that's not fair", "I don't want to", "I don't think I should have to", etc. ... of course, he usually puts it a little more colorfully.
> I think the benefits of a reputation outweigh its negatives though.
What you're actually looking for, I think, is accountability: some way for bad behavior to have consequences. Unfortunately, in pseudo-anonymous environments like Reddit (and HackerNews), developing a reputation through score or activity or what-have-you can have downsides for the person with the reputation, and you still don't get the accountability you want. It really is the wrong solution to the wrong problem.
Likewise, you also say,
> ...but it will motivate more people overall, I assume.
...but in a field where we have relatively few experiments to study, this is one experiment that has already been tried. Reddit already uses this, and the only difference you really get in user behavior is that some of them choose to switch to a new account every once in a while.
That might be a good game, but again, it's poor conversation.
Comments
The best conversations online are those in spaces that model well to how we converse as people: flat and linear in format. From the Well to Metafilter, the best conversation happens on flat sites.
Nesting and threading and sorting all solve conversation problems that don't really exist: we already know how to keep track of digressing conversations, intuitively. In the physical world, we're exceptionally good at branching and merging linear discussion threads, at weeding out noise from signal and at setting community norms. The sites that thrive are those that allow users to engage those skills, not those that try to turn it all into math.
In a lot of places, karma and scoring isn't really about making conversations easier for the participants, it's about making editing easier or hands-off for the moderators. Unfortunately, there's not really any way around the fundamental need for community stewardship and moderation beyond a certain size, and when you hit that size you find you have a site that you need to moderate anyway, but it's one that also has user-hostile conversation display and so it begins, inevitably, to suck.
Not sure i agree with your "linear" point.
Conversations used to be linear in Groupie (forum app i created) and things got completely out of control. Three people would try to have a conversation and someone else would randomly throw in a totally unrelated point. Get a dozen people doing this and all of sudden there's a mess. What happens is that users stop trying to follow along and only read whats immediately in front of them. Anecdotally, threading and nesting dramatically improved the experience of forum-based communities and noticably improved the quality of replies.
Also, another benefit of scoring is that it lends to reputation. Just like in real life, people do what they can to preserve their digital reputations (once they establish them). Last week I saw something rather incredible: several of my users dished out extremely harsh digital justice on one of the most popular (by "fame") users who made some ridiculous statements. When you're among the most influential on a platform, people watch and literally hold you to a higher standard. Anyway just wanted to share this view.
Yes, I agree with you, things can get out of control. That's because the other thing the sites with great conversations have in common is an element of moderation and "etiquette". You can't take a random selection of people and expect their community values to spring from nothing. It has to be tended and moderated and standards have to be established, people have to establish reputation by becoming known among others.
Threading and nesting and numerical reputation have an allure because they seem to allow you to skip all that -- let the math and the tech enforce a lowest-common community value. But, as I think we see time and again, that doesn't really scale and it doesn't engender great conversation on a par with the best of the flat forums.
> When you're among the most influential on a platform, people watch and literally hold you to a higher standard.
Reddit's "celebrity users" have been grumbling publicly about exactly this recently. They feel like they can no longer disagree or behave like other users without being swarmed by people who recognize their username, and it's making them a lot disgruntled. Generally, it's a bad sign when your power users are unhappy, so I don't think that holding certain users to a higher standard than other users is a good idea.
If you dislike your status on a forum, it's easy enough to start a new psuedonym, especially on reddit. I know kleinbl00 has complained about people recognizing him across screennames, but then perhaps it's time for a new one, or a change in writing style.
I think the benefits of a reputation outweigh its negatives though. It won't keep the truly prolific users happy (karmanaut, PDub, kleinbl00, etc), but it will motivate more people overall, I assume.
It is important to have an easy means of becoming anonymous for expressing controversial opinions, however. Perhaps instead of Slashdot's "post as anonymous" checkbox, there could be a "thread psuedonym" button when you want to be anonymous, but hold a coherent discussion.
> If you dislike your status on a forum, it's easy enough to start a new psuedonym, especially on reddit.
Since you mentioned him specifically, I'll mention that kleinbl00 has on several occasions responded to this with varying degrees of, "that's not fair", "I don't want to", "I don't think I should have to", etc. ... of course, he usually puts it a little more colorfully.
> I think the benefits of a reputation outweigh its negatives though.
kleinbl00 has actually put this as well as I could, so I should just let him talk about it: http://www.reddit.com/r/TheoryOfReddit/comments/gdig1/everyb...
What you're actually looking for, I think, is accountability: some way for bad behavior to have consequences. Unfortunately, in pseudo-anonymous environments like Reddit (and HackerNews), developing a reputation through score or activity or what-have-you can have downsides for the person with the reputation, and you still don't get the accountability you want. It really is the wrong solution to the wrong problem.
Likewise, you also say,
> ...but it will motivate more people overall, I assume.
...but in a field where we have relatively few experiments to study, this is one experiment that has already been tried. Reddit already uses this, and the only difference you really get in user behavior is that some of them choose to switch to a new account every once in a while.
That might be a good game, but again, it's poor conversation.
So maybe the answer is to get better at gatekeeping and selecting members who will contribute to the conversation rather than just troll it?