

Ask PG: Feature request, remove yourself from the leaderboard - jacquesm

I know that the top entry on the leaderboard, pg's is invisible. I've had one too many 'you're a karma whore' messages and wouldn't mind a checkbox in my profile so I can remove myself from the leaderboard.<p>Maybe others would like that option too?
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mechanical_fish
Why do you think that removing your name from the leaderboard will matter?
Will the name-callers even notice?

Rude people are rude people. If they can't complain about your karma they will
complain about your socks.

My advice is to ignore them and carry on. Don't take criticism seriously
unless it's serious criticism.

~~~
jacquesm
> Why do you think that removing your name from the leaderboard will matter?

Because the leaderboard has positive and negative sides to it.

The negative sides have to do with the people that think that HN is all about
'being in the top 100'.

The positive side is that you can see fairly easily who are the people that
have spent a lot of time on the site, in other words who is here for the long
haul and who is passing through.

On /. you get a similar feeling by looking at people uid#, here we don't have
that so the leaderboard has some of that function.

> Rude people are rude people. If they can't complain about your karma they
> will complain about your socks.

Ah, but they can't see my socks :)

> My advice is to ignore them and carry on. Don't take criticism seriously
> unless it's serious criticism.

It gets a little tedious after a while and the negative returns from being on
the leaderboard seem to outweigh the positive ones, hence the request.

~~~
msc
Even if you remove yourself from the scoreboard, they can still see your karma
by just going to your profile, I don't think the name calling would stop.

~~~
jacquesm
I think it would, otherwise I would not have asked. It seems a simple enough
change to the code to me, but then again it isn't my call.

You know how YC always preaches that you should take your users feed back
serious and all that ;)

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pg
This is a feature of pretty narrow appeal, so I don't think I'd want to
clutter the source with it. (I'm not listed because no admins are, but the
others don't have enough karma for it to matter.)

~~~
jacquesm
It's your call, I figured asking wouldn't harm. On my two bit websites adding
that feature would take 10 minutes, and potentially the appeal is huge.

After all, for every person that removes themselves from the leaderboard
another one gets the ability to make the decision.

Unless you think that the majority of the HNers is here to make it to the
leaderboard, which is a possibility but I highly doubt that a majority here is
taking the karma count as their reason for contributing.

edit: this is the third time in as many weeks that I get pretty negative email
definitely caused by HN users, it's not at a level where I worry about it
(that takes a lot more) but it is a nuisance and it spoils some of the
pleasure of being here.

The biggest reason why I am here is because of the people, the second one is
the ability to ask and answer 'Ask HN' style postings, the third is to learn
and interact. None of that stands a chance of being harmed by a couple of
idiotic emails.

I figure that by taking my name off the leaderboard I would make a statement
about what I think HN is all about, which is _not_ the leaderboard, anything
but.

The silly emails just made me think about it, and in that sense they served a
purpose. The alternative, to make another account is also a possibility but
then I'm still taking up that slot.

Even if the leaderboard does serve a purpose, which to me is simply to
distinguish the frequent contributors from the rest (but for that the
leaderboard is actually too small since HN has far more than 100 frequent
contributors). I have gone through ever single profile on the leaderboard and
visited the sites of the people listed there to see what they're up to.

~~~
ntoshev
Why don't you get a new username without the karma burden ;) You can keep
yourself recognizable if you want, just use jacquesm2 and put a short comment
in your profile.

------
vorador
Why not remove the leaderboard altogether ? I don't see what it brings, except
competition because people want to get listed.

~~~
pg
It rewards people for their contributions to the site.

~~~
vaksel
the real reward would be if the top 100 people got the ability to add live
dofollow links in their profiles. that way people would get a little bit of
Google juice for their sites

~~~
ivankirigin
That puts a horrible incentive on those who would do it just for the links.

The best incentives are non monetary. Real people are motivated by them.

~~~
vaksel
Not really, the lowest # on the leaderboard right now is ~4.2K.

To get that you'd need to spend like 6-7 months on HN submitting quality stuff
or making quality posts(need those votes). Noone is going to do all that for a
single link, they'd rather spend that time adding their site to a bunch of
directories or writing articles to submit to content farms.

~~~
ivankirigin
I think you underestimate both the capability for automation and the
motivation of the spammers.

~~~
jacquesm
The motivation for the spammers would be the direct clickthrough from the new
page that's what they're doing it for today, their accounts would never have a
snowballs chance in hell to make it to the leaderboard.

Votingrings with sockpuppets would be detected long before they would get even
near that level, presumably long before they'd reach even 10% of what it takes
to get on the leaderboard.

There must be softer targets than the HN leaderboard.

------
tptacek
There's already a way to decouple your posts from the leaderboard: change your
nick slightly.

~~~
jacquesm
You suggest I create another account ?

That has other effects too, such as splitting the posting history / comment
history across several accounts. And the 'sockpuppet' detector might not like
that.

~~~
tptacek
We can argue ad nauseam about the pros and cons of different approaches, but
if you just posted as jacquesm_, the trolls who are under your skin about
karma won't get their ammo, and the people that care to read your whole
history can figure out how to get the rest of it.

~~~
jacquesm
Hehe, I can see one problem with that approach which will surface in a year or
so, and I'll have to switch to jacquesm__ or something like that, but it's
worth a try.

~~~
icey
Unless you're getting seriously trolled via email, it sounds like a lot of
work when you could just press the delete key and move on.

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vaksel
that's weird, I never had a single comment about my karma, and I have more
than you.

~~~
jacquesm
Must be my charming personality :)

~~~
vaksel
do you get the hate mail via email or just in comments? Because if it's the
former, that'd explain it, since I don't have mine in the profile

~~~
jacquesm
Email.

And because the return is forged I haven't a clue who it could be. Not that
that would matter much but it would at least give an indication why.

The only thing I can think of that could cause this in recent memory is this
thread:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1035080>

It generated a fair amount of email, not all of it positive.

------
tokenadult
Feature requests belong on the feature request thread.

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=363>

~~~
jacquesm
I thought you were going to say that.

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axod
Maybe another way to achieve the same would be to allow optional anonymous
posting. (With 2 caveats)

1\. There's a way to recognize the same user in a thread - maybe color, or
some way to say "This is the same user that you just replied to".

2\. admins etc can see who you really are.

I think then you'd be able to truly let your comments win/die on their own.

------
jhancock
jacques, sorry to hear you're getting harassed enough to make this feature
request. I don't pay any attention to the leader board (or my own karma), but
I guess some do.

I think most of us can tell the difference between a great contributor such as
yourself and a karma-whore.

------
swombat
What, you mean HN isn't about karma-whoring one's way to the top of the
leaderboard?

Damn, I've been had!

