A big purpose of awards is to send a signal about what kind of work will get recognized. If we give awards to joke posts, expect more joke posts.
I actually think the best use of awards is to recognize posts that are not the kind of content that spreads virally. Pageviews already serve as an ego boost for most authors. We should reward serious boring posts, in the same way the Nobel Prize is given out for serious boring research.
GiveWell’s classic April Fools joke
This post was controversial, but I laughed long and hard and really enjoyed seeing a more human side from them.
A big purpose of awards is to send a signal about what kind of work will get recognized. If we give awards to joke posts, expect more joke posts.
I actually think the best use of awards is to recognize posts that are not the kind of content that spreads virally. Pageviews already serve as an ego boost for most authors. We should reward serious boring posts, in the same way the Nobel Prize is given out for serious boring research.
The link “View test writeup” seems broken. It brings me to a login page rather than the actual joke post. Did they take it down?