

Ask YC: Hacker News has got POINTS... I smell some game theory here? - ideamonk

Is it true that Hacker News is based on a game theory... where users play a game to get points... and this game keeps HN alive? same goes for Reddit.
What views you have ?
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gaika
No. Point system is broken and encourages groupthink. This place is still the
best forum for hackers because most people are not here for points.

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stcredzero
"Point system is broken and encourages groupthink."

Is that so different from how society works? There may be no numbers
displayed, but a lot of society works through affirmations of one kind of
another.

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gaika
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=196390> , society is using subjective
reputation system so it is less affected by groupthink.

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lpgauth
The community keeps HN alive not the point system. I don't really get why
there is a point system in the first place... It's not because someone is
considered as a troll on some subjects that when he post on a topic he know
and is right that is post should automatically lower on the page.

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babul
The HN points system is an efficient way of filtering articles and comments -
valued items quickly reach the top of a page/thread (usually). Even if it is
broken in some ways, it is better to have it than not.

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ideamonk
It seems the number of comments your post gets and number of visitors your
post gets decides what rank and what point your post gets... besides age of
the post is also an important factor

