

Is the IQ of the Hacker News community as a whole = average IQ of its members? - amichail

One would expect not as collaborative behavior could result in a higher collaborative IQ than the average of its members (e.g., when it comes to determining which submissions and comments are interesting).<p>It might be interesting to determine the IQ of the Hacker News community as a whole using a standard IQ test and compare it to that of reddit and digg.  One way to do this would be to use polls where you can see how others have voted so far before giving your answers to the various IQ test questions.
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ars
I think that the IQ of a forum is not the average but actually the top and the
bottom. The top people control the quality posts, and the bottom people make
trouble.

The answer to your question depends on the goal. If the goal is to solve a
problem then the IQ of the whole is actually the IQ of the top members, and
NOT the average.

If the goal is competition (everyone wants attention, or wants to make the
best posts) then it's more often the IQ of the lowest members.

But the average IQ of a large group is never a good measure because the good
floats to the top (i.e. the top IQ's matter), and the bad clutters it (i.e.
the bottom IQ's matter).

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colins_pride
Not many aggregates are truly equal to the sum of the parts.

I would argue that it's at closer to being proportional to some sort of
weighted average, where the weights are activity based: a very active member
has a much larger impact than an inactive member.

Of course, it's also very debatable whether community IQ is a good variable to
maximize on. Civility & creativity both strike me as more important, once some
basic intelligence threshold is exceeded.

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ErrantX
Online IQ tests are never very indicative. It can be hard to concentrate on &
parse the test. Scores are likely to be significantly lower.

Also most top out at 144 as anything higher would be tough to judge based on
such a test. I would imagine a large segment of this cmmunity is above 144 IQ.

However if anyone wanted to post their IQ'ds it would be interesting (if not
very conclusive). I would figure the average to be in excess of 120 though.

It _might_ work here, I doubt Digg/Reddit would manage it (too biiiiig) :P

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overcyn
ive always figured that online iq test were on average higher because they
want you to buy the results. Id also doubt that over 5% have an iq of 140+

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ErrantX
Well, yes, I suppose some are. But ones like the Mensa online tests are
usually fairly ok in terms of fair marking.

5% is quite a high number to be above 140 :) I'd bet there are a goodly few
people far enough over 144 to skew any results.

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skmurphy
I would focus much less on IQ and more on knowledge, experience, skills. To
the extent that HN is a learning community or a community of practice then
members can learn from others with more relevant experience to improve their
own understanding and skills. There is a lot more that HN could do to foster
shared learning, at the moment it's primary advantage is maintaining shared
situational awareness.

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mcav
Yeah, but it's tough to judge intelligence... I seem to recall people always
saying that IQ tests aren't good indicators of intelligence, especially when
taken online. Something like ACT/SAT might demonstrate academic ability, but
then again not everyone copes so well with standardized testing.

