

H-index for Hacker News - gsivil

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H-index<p>the variation for Hacker News:<p>A HNer has index h:<p>if h of [his/her] posts have at least h upvotes,
and the rest posts have at most h upvotes each.
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ScottWhigham
I don't understand what you are proposing - what is the outcome you want/hope
for from mentioning this to us? I don't see a suggestion in your comments or
any indication of what sort of dialogue you want/expect.

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gsivil
Thanks for asking to clarify. I was just giving another established measure of
performance. One that is currently used in academia. It basically indicates
the consistency that someone produces quality posts. If for example some body
has only 50 posts with more than 50 votes, he has served the community more
than somebody that has 2500 vote from 2500 posts. Since he has not polluted
the wall with many crappy and indifferent posts.

I was mainly sharing that index, with the hope that karma based site will find
interesting.

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ryanto
I see a lot wrong with this.

At HN we are not initially tied to our username. I would keep making new
accounts/submissions until I hit a gold mine, something that generated a ton
of karma. This would make my initial HIndex very high, and give me 2nd, 3rd,
and 4th posts a much larger edge.

It would also encourage high risk initial posting. Since every new account's
first post is going to be a calculated gamble to gain karma, that first post
should be something highly controversial, opinionated, shocking, risky, etc.
When it fails or gets downvoted, we just open a new account and try again.

I do not think indifferent comments are bad, in fact I think they are good.
They help us realize that its ok to have a non-opinion on something that is
seemingly coming off as 'the greatest thing ever'. Of course these comments
never get upvoted because they don't mix things up or stir the pot, but they
help add clarity and balance to the conversation.

Also my biggest pet peve with HN is often times really good thought out
comments go overlooked. Maybe because they are on too high of a level or do
not present themselves well. This of course is a current problem with the
karma system that the HIndex does not resolve.

~~~
angusgr
_new accounts/submissions until I hit a gold mine, something that generated a
ton of karma. This would make my initial HIndex very high, and give me 2nd,
3rd, and 4th posts a much larger edge._

I think this is exactly what the HIndex is designed to avoid. One jackpot high
karma value only gives you HIndex "1". Two gives you HIndex "2", and so on.

The HIndex rewards a broad pattern where nearly every comment gets
consistently well upvoted, rather than lots of ordinary comments and the
occasional massive jackpot.

It's closer to the median than the mean.

 _Also my biggest pet peve with HN is often times really good thought out
comments go overlooked_

I agree. I think that, in general, karma should be viewed as generalised
encouragement for the HN community to stay helpful and informative, rather
than as tightly coupled to how helpful and informative each individual comment
is.

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ScottWhigham
Wish this had been more active - I enjoyed reading OP and ryanto's comments.
OP, you might find a bigger audience if you resubmit on a weekday?

