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.
Comments
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.