

Online Status Anxiety - cwan
http://scienceblogs.com/cortex/2010/03/online_status_anxiety.php

======
chime
> And that's why I wish there was a popular social platform that didn't
> measure anything. I doubt such a platform will ever exist - we clearly want
> the explicit hierarchies, even when they drive us crazy - but it sure would
> be a relief.

The social platforms measure and proudly display everyone's friends,
followers, karma, and rating in order to provide some level of trust within
the network. Displaying these stats is just the most basic way of showing that
user A is trusted and respected by many. I don't think it's enough though.
Here on HN, we value each other by our comments and our accumulated karma. And
there is a direct relation between these two. But is it really enough?

I might have more karma on HN than someone who headed the $10B research
department at a large tech firm. I love that online I can be on the same
standing with this person when we discuss a topic we're both passionate about.
However, if people start to judge us solely by our karma, then I will
certainly have an advantage and I don't think that would be fair. Karma is a
good start but not enough. In real life, just knowing that so-and-so is the
CTO of XYZ or Prof. Emeritus at ABC.edu is enough to make us stop and listen
(regardless of whether we agree or not). Online, we use karma for the same
reason i.e. to decide if we should even read the 10 paragraph post by some
user named 'nld445'.

My point is that stats like friends, karma etc. are certainly useful but they
do not carry over from real-life into online life or one online system to
another. Attempts have been made to make universal online avatars with rating
but nothing concrete yet. Twitter actually managed to bridge the 'real-life to
online' gap by their 'account verified' star. If there truly was an easy way
to merge how well-respected and noteworthy a person is in real life into the
online world, nobody would care about the number of followers someone has.
What I am certain of is that the one-dimensional karma system we have is not
even close.

~~~
Periodic
A funny thing is that I don't actually look at Karma almost at all. It's sort
of a game to me to see when I break certain milestones, but I have no idea how
much karma other posters have.

I like to read the posts, figure out if they contribute to the discussion, and
up/down-vote accordingly. If a post requires verification, then perhaps I'll
go dig a little deeper, but on HN I'm inclined to trust that most people are
who they say they are in their posts.

~~~
chime
I should have clarified better that karma also encompasses the comment karma
(i.e. votes) in addition to the user's overall karma. Even if you're not
concerned with a user's karma, the score of a comment definitely affects our
perception of it. A few months ago pg hid the comment karma as an experiment
and personally, I did not like it one bit. I have relied on the comment karma
to highlight what's good and save me the time from reading inessential
comments.

------
dubcomesaveme
to continue his human monkey analogy:
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pSm7BcQHWXk>

