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, that’s a reliable signal to me that it’s both interesting and accessible to the general reader (i.e., to me).
I don’t 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 wouldn’t be compromised in that way, i.e. I’m presenting a false choice? (By “quality” I mean some combination of useful/interesting takeaways, good reasoning transparency, engages with previous work, treats an important subject matter, etc.)
I think this is a false choice, because I don’t think the top karma posts are usually mediocre. I think high karma is a good proxy for high quality, but low karma isn’t 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 it’s a shame if good non-community-drama posts never even get seen; on going onto the Forum, I’d love to see a front page featuring articles on a range of topics.
I think this is a false choice, because I don’t think the top karma posts are usually mediocre.
“Mediocre” was too strong—I should’ve written “high quality” in scenario A versus “excellent quality” in scenario B.
I think high karma is a good proxy for high quality, but low karma isn’t 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 there’s some tendency for some of the best, most front-page-worthy posts to get stuck at “quite a lot of karma, but not the most” due to some combination of being (necessarily) long, specialized, technical, rigorous, difficult and/or dealing with a non-topical subject matter.
I do think it’s a shame if good non-community-drama posts never even get seen; on going onto the Forum, I’d love to see a front page featuring articles on a range of topics.
I don’t 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 wouldn’t be compromised in that way, i.e. I’m presenting a false choice? (By “quality” I mean some combination of useful/interesting takeaways, good reasoning transparency, engages with previous work, treats an important subject matter, etc.)
I think this is a false choice, because I don’t think the top karma posts are usually mediocre. I think high karma is a good proxy for high quality, but low karma isn’t 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 it’s a shame if good non-community-drama posts never even get seen; on going onto the Forum, I’d love to see a front page featuring articles on a range of topics.
“Mediocre” was too strong—I should’ve written “high quality” in scenario A versus “excellent quality” in scenario B.
I mostly agree, but I think there’s some tendency for some of the best, most front-page-worthy posts to get stuck at “quite a lot of karma, but not the most” due to some combination of being (necessarily) long, specialized, technical, rigorous, difficult and/or dealing with a non-topical subject matter.
I agree!