I work for a gaming website that lets people vote on the games and comment. It's mostly a younger audience (under 18) but there's still a good amount of all ages.
Anyway, we released a game one day and some of the first comments were really negative, even though the game was objectively a pretty darn good game. Knowing the game was good I was awaiting the nice comments to show up, but they didn't. It was just a flurry of negativity.
I talked to some other employees and they agreed the game was good and something felt off. We all jumped into the comments, gave good reviews of the game and started discussions with all the negative reviewers. Then the positive reviews started showing up, and the games rating did a complete turn around to overwhelmingly positive.
I feel like if we hadn't intervened, the game would have continued to have negative reviews and end up with a bad rating. There's a kind of hive mind mentality going on, and the first public comments have some sort of psychological effect on the rest of the players.
As much as the other comments here might disagree, HN is subject to the same situation.
Early comments dictate the tone and focus of the conversation.
For example, its trivial to highjack any thread about security with a well written comment about the connection (however fleeting) to the NSA/snowden leaks.
I have frequently seen a thread begin with ill-informed, substanceless dismissal, and then turn around and produce a well-reasoned and informative discussion. That's one of the reasons I visit HN regularly, but not any other discussion site.
Whenever I comment here, I usually consider a bunch of different factors:
Is my comment necessary? Will it teach anybody anything? Did somebody else already make my point?
All in all, I try my hardest _not_ to comment. As a general rule, I won't participate in communities that value one-liners. A basic respect for thought is enough to make one community far better than another.
Just today I was over-listening a conversation about body hair that essentially amounted to "hair is there for protection," and all I could think was "what does that mean? What 'protection'? Do you even know what you're talking about?" It seems like the _entire_ point of that conversation was to find something to laugh about, and that the thoughts didn't even matter. They could have talked about anything. As soon as laughs were had, subjects changed.
Just a thought: understandably, with a younger audience, I imagine that most of your users are not going to be conscious or care about conflicts of interest. I am curious though, did you and your fellow reviewers disclose your roles in your reviews?
I don't think that your case is particularly malicious or anything, but it makes me wonder how easily similar tactics could be used in larger websites or about more serious topics. Thinking along these lines, it feels very "real" how quickly things like payola came about in past media formats, and how what was old is new once again.
Comments
I work for a gaming website that lets people vote on the games and comment. It's mostly a younger audience (under 18) but there's still a good amount of all ages.
Anyway, we released a game one day and some of the first comments were really negative, even though the game was objectively a pretty darn good game. Knowing the game was good I was awaiting the nice comments to show up, but they didn't. It was just a flurry of negativity.
I talked to some other employees and they agreed the game was good and something felt off. We all jumped into the comments, gave good reviews of the game and started discussions with all the negative reviewers. Then the positive reviews started showing up, and the games rating did a complete turn around to overwhelmingly positive.
I feel like if we hadn't intervened, the game would have continued to have negative reviews and end up with a bad rating. There's a kind of hive mind mentality going on, and the first public comments have some sort of psychological effect on the rest of the players.
As much as the other comments here might disagree, HN is subject to the same situation.
Early comments dictate the tone and focus of the conversation.
For example, its trivial to highjack any thread about security with a well written comment about the connection (however fleeting) to the NSA/snowden leaks.
I have frequently seen a thread begin with ill-informed, substanceless dismissal, and then turn around and produce a well-reasoned and informative discussion. That's one of the reasons I visit HN regularly, but not any other discussion site.
Whenever I comment here, I usually consider a bunch of different factors:
Is my comment necessary? Will it teach anybody anything? Did somebody else already make my point?
All in all, I try my hardest _not_ to comment. As a general rule, I won't participate in communities that value one-liners. A basic respect for thought is enough to make one community far better than another.
Just today I was over-listening a conversation about body hair that essentially amounted to "hair is there for protection," and all I could think was "what does that mean? What 'protection'? Do you even know what you're talking about?" It seems like the _entire_ point of that conversation was to find something to laugh about, and that the thoughts didn't even matter. They could have talked about anything. As soon as laughs were had, subjects changed.
Just a thought: understandably, with a younger audience, I imagine that most of your users are not going to be conscious or care about conflicts of interest. I am curious though, did you and your fellow reviewers disclose your roles in your reviews?
I don't think that your case is particularly malicious or anything, but it makes me wonder how easily similar tactics could be used in larger websites or about more serious topics. Thinking along these lines, it feels very "real" how quickly things like payola came about in past media formats, and how what was old is new once again.
“No wireless. Less space than a Nomad. Lame.”