I think you’ve identified two issues, one of which is significantly easier to fix than the other. For community topics being too prominent on the frontpage, you could (e.g.) impose a cap on how many can appear, and then list them in a “Community” section of the frontpage after general topics.
To the extent you think that the showering of karma on Community posts skews poster/commenter incentives, I think that is much harder to fix. Karma is designed to measure the degree of appeal to the entire audience, and so posts that only can engage a fraction of the audience aren’t going to score as well without some “help” from the formula.
You could try applying a deflator to karma on Community posts and/or a multiplier on other posts, although that is going to make classification as Community or non-Community more significant and possibly contentious.
You could also see what happens if you incorporate the percentage of upvotes (as a fraction of all votes) into the karma formula somehow. The current system thinks 50 up / 30 down is equivalent to 20 up / 0 down (assuming all have equal weight). I don’t think that’s quite right; I think reaction to the first example was mixed to positive, while the second post probably had near-universal positive reaction from its smaller intended audience. That also has the effect of reducing the relative rank of controversial posts, which may be a drawback.
Finally, I would be curious if a greater percentage of karma from Community posts comes from strong upvotes due to the sometimes emotional subject matter, and if so whether some sort of strongvote reform (e.g., limits on frequency) or moderating the effects of strongvotes on Community posts specifically would be somewhat equalizing.
Optionally, you can exclude Community posts from the rankings under other categories; see the explanation below.
Compute an aggregation (e.g. the sum) of all the rank values (1st, 2nd, 3rd, …) for each item
Re-rank the candidates by the rank aggregation value
Essentially, this simulates having multiple sub-forums “vote” on the ranking of items on the frontpage. This would help posts in categories that are underrepresented on the frontpage get into a higher rank, so it might help with this. However, it would still disproportionately favor posts that are in multiple top-level categories (e.g. Existential risk and Community) and have a lot of karma, because these posts would be ranked far and away the highest in the non-Community categories. To mitigate this, you could exclude Community posts when ranking for other categories.
I meant a deflator or multiplier on the calculation of karma itself. For example, a user with a +2 upvote and +6 upvote could count as +1.33/+4 on community topics (a deflator) and/or could count as +3/+9 on undervoted topics (a multiplier). The current system, if I understand correctly, only addresses Frontpage placement.
To the extent people experience receiving karma as reinforcing and/or as feedback on what contributions are valued, one might think the relative distribution of karma on Community vs. non-Community posts creates undesirable incentives that are independent from Frontpage placement. If that is so, tinkering with the Frontpage criteria will only have a limited effect on the incentive problem.
I think you’ve identified two issues, one of which is significantly easier to fix than the other. For community topics being too prominent on the frontpage, you could (e.g.) impose a cap on how many can appear, and then list them in a “Community” section of the frontpage after general topics.
To the extent you think that the showering of karma on Community posts skews poster/commenter incentives, I think that is much harder to fix. Karma is designed to measure the degree of appeal to the entire audience, and so posts that only can engage a fraction of the audience aren’t going to score as well without some “help” from the formula.
You could try applying a deflator to karma on Community posts and/or a multiplier on other posts, although that is going to make classification as Community or non-Community more significant and possibly contentious.
You could also see what happens if you incorporate the percentage of upvotes (as a fraction of all votes) into the karma formula somehow. The current system thinks 50 up / 30 down is equivalent to 20 up / 0 down (assuming all have equal weight). I don’t think that’s quite right; I think reaction to the first example was mixed to positive, while the second post probably had near-universal positive reaction from its smaller intended audience. That also has the effect of reducing the relative rank of controversial posts, which may be a drawback.
Finally, I would be curious if a greater percentage of karma from Community posts comes from strong upvotes due to the sometimes emotional subject matter, and if so whether some sort of strongvote reform (e.g., limits on frequency) or moderating the effects of strongvotes on Community posts specifically would be somewhat equalizing.
There are algorithms that would implement this elegantly. One of these is inspired by the Borda count:[1]
Rank all the candidates (forum posts) by karma within each top-level category, e.g. Global health and development, Animal welfare, Existential risk, Community
Or by “Magic (New + Upvoted)”
Optionally, you can exclude Community posts from the rankings under other categories; see the explanation below.
Compute an aggregation (e.g. the sum) of all the rank values (1st, 2nd, 3rd, …) for each item
Re-rank the candidates by the rank aggregation value
Essentially, this simulates having multiple sub-forums “vote” on the ranking of items on the frontpage. This would help posts in categories that are underrepresented on the frontpage get into a higher rank, so it might help with this. However, it would still disproportionately favor posts that are in multiple top-level categories (e.g. Existential risk and Community) and have a lot of karma, because these posts would be ranked far and away the highest in the non-Community categories. To mitigate this, you could exclude Community posts when ranking for other categories.
Section 4.1, “Borda’s method”, of “Rank Aggregation Methods for the Web” (Dwork et al. 2001)
Thanks!
FYI this is already how Community works (more or less).
I meant a deflator or multiplier on the calculation of karma itself. For example, a user with a +2 upvote and +6 upvote could count as +1.33/+4 on community topics (a deflator) and/or could count as +3/+9 on undervoted topics (a multiplier). The current system, if I understand correctly, only addresses Frontpage placement.
To the extent people experience receiving karma as reinforcing and/or as feedback on what contributions are valued, one might think the relative distribution of karma on Community vs. non-Community posts creates undesirable incentives that are independent from Frontpage placement. If that is so, tinkering with the Frontpage criteria will only have a limited effect on the incentive problem.
Ah cool, makes sense.