It's interesting to think about what the perfect balance is, when sites like reddit, quora, and stack overflow all use "social influence" as a means of motivation. But that same driving force slowly drives the quality of the content into the ground. How do you strike a balance?
I think HN's approach of hiding vote counts is definitely a step in the right direction to cultivate quality.
Comments
It's interesting to think about what the perfect balance is, when sites like reddit, quora, and stack overflow all use "social influence" as a means of motivation. But that same driving force slowly drives the quality of the content into the ground. How do you strike a balance?
I think HN's approach of hiding vote counts is definitely a step in the right direction to cultivate quality.
Edit: Link to PDF for those too lazy to figure out where to click. (http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2011/05/10/1008636108.full...)