Ask HN: Should high-karma users comments appear higher on the page?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2036840

by mixmax • 16 years ago

7 7 16 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

In this thread http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2036588 which is the top item right now I've made a comment that currently has 10 points and is 1 hour old. Woodrows comment, which is the second comment in the base of the thread, has 20 comments and is one hour old. Personally I believe woodrow's comment to be more insightful than mine, and the votes seem to agree on this, yet my comment is shown higher on the page.

I understand that people with a lot of karma and/or hig average karma per post get somewhat differential treatment, and I understand the reason for doing so. There are however also some problems with this approach, namely:

1) It doesn't entice new or low karma users to comment, since their comment has a higher chance of being lost at the bottom of the page.

2) Some good comments get buried lower on the page, and not everyone gets to see a poetntially great comment.

What do you think?

mixmax2• 16 years ago

Clickable links:

The thread in question: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2036588

Woodrow's link: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2036640

Mz• 16 years ago

I have mixed feelings about such things. I'm pretty idealistic, like to promote egalitarianism, etc. On the other hand, there is value to having context, to having someone "vetted" so to speak, and so on.

Talking about my personal accomplishments (in terms of getting myself well) often falls on deaf ears. Why? Because it is so far outside the experience of others with my diagnosis that they just can't relate to it. I sound like some nutcase. I get called a charlatan, liar and snake oil salesman. And I might never get anywhere with it because I really want the information to stand on its own and not get "sold" based on personal charm/popularity -- and that is undermining my ability to speak about it at all because other people are chasing popularity and doing all in their power to shape what can and can't be discussed through social influence of a sort that I loathe.

I have thought about writing up some stuff about moderating forums and talking about the importance of creating a forum with "gravity" rather than "magnetism". As most folks here probably know, gravity is a quality space not objects. If gravity were a property of objects, it would work like magnetism and all your planets would clump together with the sun or something like that -- like the big mess you find in a typical kitchen junk drawer where a magnet has gotten tossed in with paper clips and scissors and such. And life as we know it just wouldn't exist.

I am not entirely clear how to create "gravity" as part of the social space and take some of the emphasis off the "magnetism" of important members. Yet, even though gravity is a property of space, some objects have higher gravity (due to size, etc) than others and therefore exert more pull. How to clearly distinguish the two things and make sure you are encouraging gravity over magnetism is something I am a bit less clear on -- at least at the moment, a tad shy of 4am.

nostrademons• 16 years ago

I wonder if your comment is on top of Woodrow's because of recent activity on the subthread. It makes sense to bump more recently commented threads to the top, because users are more likely to be looking for new content there.

mixmax2• 16 years ago

That's certainly part of it, and as you point out there's a good reason for that. I've encountered other instances where my comments are shown higher on the page even though they have fewer points and were submitted longer ago than other comments. So there's certainly an algorithm that favors some users over others.

ljf• 16 years ago

The issue is also self fulfilling...

Those with higher karma will get more and more, those with less will to some extent be ignored. How to encourage new users when there chances of increasing their karma are decreased, since their comments appear lower.

Surely it's best to encourage new users to comment, rather than to post off topic / repost material? And surely this dissuades commenting?

pwhelan• 16 years ago

What about doing a "partial sort" where the point sum of a discussion thread starts to go lower that it is pushed lower than any zero/positive sum thread? This way discussion threads that are low quality tend to be pushed away, but the rest are treated equally -- after some testing to make sure the modification isn't too sensitive.

Disclosure: low karma poster

zslwork• 16 years ago

i have good karma rate but my comments are not getting recognized yet

Ask HN: Should high-karma users comments appear higher on the page?

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