

Are successful artists good or lucky? Web-Based Experiments [pdf] - gwern
https://www.princeton.edu/~mjs3/salganik_watts09.pdf

======
jcr
The paper is from 2009 and its full title is, "Web-Based Experiments for the
Study of Collective Social Dynamics in Cultural Markets". The paper seems good
(though I've only read the first few sections of it), but title on this HN
submission should be changed to something less link-baitish. I'd suggest
something like:

Web Experiments on Collective Social Dynamics in Cultural Markets (2009)

~~~
gwern
I admit it is a little link-baitish, but it does one important thing: it
explains why this is interesting at all.

(Its actual title, "Web Experiments on Collective Social Dynamics in Cultural
Markets", is so incredibly buzzwordy and opaque that anytime I want to cite or
link this paper, I have to think to myself 'ah yes, those fascinating Yahoo
music experiments... let's see if I can refind it in Google Scholar or not,
because I certainly do not remember the title and even if I did, it would
probably be buried under thousands of other papers with higher buzzword
concentrations'.)

~~~
jcr
Of course, don't let me get in the way of a better description, and more
importantly, thanks for posting so many papers. I appreciate it.

The HN mods/admins seem to hate long titles almost as much as they hate link-
bait titles, so the typically long and boring "official" titles of academic
papers can be a pain. Worse yet, the "official" paper titles can occasionally
be nearly as misleading as link-bait. Here's a perfect recent example:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9847197](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9847197)

I shortened the title but the original was even worse, "Effect of monthly
vitamin D3 supplementation in healthy adults on adverse effects of
earthquakes: randomised controlled trial". In spite of its whimsical title,
it's a great paper on some creative science.

~~~
gwern
I actually tried to submit that one as, IIRC, 'Vitamin D for Earthquakes: an
RCT', and discovered you had beaten me to it.

------
nosuchthing
Some are good, some just have a good hustler;

[http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/04/magazine/the-art-worlds-
pa...](http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/04/magazine/the-art-worlds-patron-
satan.html)

