My take on this is: maybe this is fine actually, because, for precisely the reasons you said, high karma is a sign of high accessibility and high popularity...which is useful for users! If I see that a post has high karma, thatâs a reliable signal to me that itâs both interesting and accessible to the general reader (i.e., to me).
I donât think there really is a regular reader, there are just a bunch of different readers with different interests. If I had to choose between these two scenarios --
Scenario A: Front page of 10 posts where all 10 are mediocre, but I can relate to and interact with all of them.
Scenario B: Front page of 10 posts where all are high quality, but I can only relate to and interact with 3 of them.
I would personally go with (B). Would you prefer (A), or do you think quality wouldnât be compromised in that way, i.e. Iâm presenting a false choice? (By âqualityâ I mean some combination of useful/âinteresting takeaways, good reasoning transparency, engages with previous work, treats an important subject matter, etc.)
I think this is a false choice, because I donât think the top karma posts are usually mediocre. I think high karma is a good proxy for high quality, but low karma isnât a good proxy for poor quality, because some low karma posts are (as OP said) good, but too technical or niche for general readership, or perhaps just not many people have seen it. In other words, I think there are lots of false negatives with karma but few false positives (is that metaphor at all clarifying, lol).
I do think itâs a shame if good non-community-drama posts never even get seen; on going onto the Forum, Iâd love to see a front page featuring articles on a range of topics.
I think this is a false choice, because I donât think the top karma posts are usually mediocre.
âMediocreâ was too strongâI shouldâve written âhigh qualityâ in scenario A versus âexcellent qualityâ in scenario B.
I think high karma is a good proxy for high quality, but low karma isnât a good proxy for poor quality, because some low karma posts are (as OP said) good, but too technical or niche for general readership, or perhaps just not many people have seen it. In other words, I think there are lots of false negatives with karma but few false positives (is that metaphor at all clarifying, lol).
I mostly agree, but I think thereâs some tendency for some of the best, most front-page-worthy posts to get stuck at âquite a lot of karma, but not the mostâ due to some combination of being (necessarily) long, specialized, technical, rigorous, difficult and/âor dealing with a non-topical subject matter.
I do think itâs a shame if good non-community-drama posts never even get seen; on going onto the Forum, Iâd love to see a front page featuring articles on a range of topics.
I donât think there really is a regular reader, there are just a bunch of different readers with different interests. If I had to choose between these two scenarios --
Scenario A: Front page of 10 posts where all 10 are mediocre, but I can relate to and interact with all of them.
Scenario B: Front page of 10 posts where all are high quality, but I can only relate to and interact with 3 of them.
I would personally go with (B). Would you prefer (A), or do you think quality wouldnât be compromised in that way, i.e. Iâm presenting a false choice? (By âqualityâ I mean some combination of useful/âinteresting takeaways, good reasoning transparency, engages with previous work, treats an important subject matter, etc.)
I think this is a false choice, because I donât think the top karma posts are usually mediocre. I think high karma is a good proxy for high quality, but low karma isnât a good proxy for poor quality, because some low karma posts are (as OP said) good, but too technical or niche for general readership, or perhaps just not many people have seen it. In other words, I think there are lots of false negatives with karma but few false positives (is that metaphor at all clarifying, lol).
I do think itâs a shame if good non-community-drama posts never even get seen; on going onto the Forum, Iâd love to see a front page featuring articles on a range of topics.
âMediocreâ was too strongâI shouldâve written âhigh qualityâ in scenario A versus âexcellent qualityâ in scenario B.
I mostly agree, but I think thereâs some tendency for some of the best, most front-page-worthy posts to get stuck at âquite a lot of karma, but not the mostâ due to some combination of being (necessarily) long, specialized, technical, rigorous, difficult and/âor dealing with a non-topical subject matter.
I agree!