I don't see much correspondence between quality and upmods. Exhibit A: This current "submission" is at #1. Why? Who is upmodding it and why do they think it is a valuable or even sensible question? nickb "does it" by submitting and commenting a lot...too much, really. There's usually something wrong with outliers.
I'm on the "leaders" link, but I know perfectly well that plenty of my comments would have had me banned from any real world settings...and that includes comments that got upmodded.
Agreed. Sometimes the same behavior, implemented with slightly different intentions, can have vastly different effects.
nickb isn't far from a link spammer - he might very well be detected as one by a poor algorithm on a lesser site. Instead he's an incredibly important contributor.
On the other hand, I too have suspected that he was just a really well trained bot - which would still be impressive.
nickb "does it" by submitting and commenting a lot...too much, really
I don't see any problem with submitting lots of stories as long as they're of a reasonable quality. Unfortunately the fact that stories can't be voted down means that there's no penalty (at least as far as karma is concerned) for flooding the site with submissions.
While I don't think nickb falls into this category, there are certainly other people who are making (IMHO) excessive numbers of submissions without significant merit.
Ironically, a few hours ago I posted a suggestion for dealing with this problem (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=99846): Make submitting a story cost a few points of karma, so that submissions only result in a net gain in karma if the submissions get voted up.
I guess it all depends on how you view the site. I view it the way I view Delicious . . . I'm using it primarily for social bookmarking (except that I make sure I only submit items that are of "hacker interest"). If others find my bookmarks meritorious, that's nice. If not, that's fine too. Either way, the cream will rise to the top for the most part.
"Make submitting a story cost a few points of karma, so that submissions only result in a net gain in karma if the submissions get voted up."
Interesting approach.
My own experience tells me that I have absolutely no idea whatsoever how well a submission will do. Sometimes I submit something I find especially profound and helpful, and no one else ever votes or comments. Other times, I see something of passing interest, and it goes wild. Of course, there is always the "Old Faithful List": Facebook, Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, pg, Google, or anything professing a like/dislike of a language.
Comments
I don't see much correspondence between quality and upmods. Exhibit A: This current "submission" is at #1. Why? Who is upmodding it and why do they think it is a valuable or even sensible question? nickb "does it" by submitting and commenting a lot...too much, really. There's usually something wrong with outliers.
I'm on the "leaders" link, but I know perfectly well that plenty of my comments would have had me banned from any real world settings...and that includes comments that got upmodded.
Who is upmodding it and why do they think it is a valuable or even sensible question?
I upmodded it because I can see that, while grammatically a question, its real purpose is to thank Nickb, and I think he deserves it.
There are plenty of situations where being an outlier is not a bad sign, and reputation in a (nonlame) community is one of them.
Agreed. Sometimes the same behavior, implemented with slightly different intentions, can have vastly different effects.
nickb isn't far from a link spammer - he might very well be detected as one by a poor algorithm on a lesser site. Instead he's an incredibly important contributor.
On the other hand, I too have suspected that he was just a really well trained bot - which would still be impressive.
nickb "does it" by submitting and commenting a lot...too much, really
I don't see any problem with submitting lots of stories as long as they're of a reasonable quality. Unfortunately the fact that stories can't be voted down means that there's no penalty (at least as far as karma is concerned) for flooding the site with submissions.
While I don't think nickb falls into this category, there are certainly other people who are making (IMHO) excessive numbers of submissions without significant merit.
Ironically, a few hours ago I posted a suggestion for dealing with this problem (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=99846): Make submitting a story cost a few points of karma, so that submissions only result in a net gain in karma if the submissions get voted up.
I guess it all depends on how you view the site. I view it the way I view Delicious . . . I'm using it primarily for social bookmarking (except that I make sure I only submit items that are of "hacker interest"). If others find my bookmarks meritorious, that's nice. If not, that's fine too. Either way, the cream will rise to the top for the most part.
"Make submitting a story cost a few points of karma, so that submissions only result in a net gain in karma if the submissions get voted up."
Interesting approach.
My own experience tells me that I have absolutely no idea whatsoever how well a submission will do. Sometimes I submit something I find especially profound and helpful, and no one else ever votes or comments. Other times, I see something of passing interest, and it goes wild. Of course, there is always the "Old Faithful List": Facebook, Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, pg, Google, or anything professing a like/dislike of a language.