YC.News Lesson: Lose over 50 Karma points in a matter of minutes!
If only there was a way to lose 50 pounds in a matter of minutes! I'd be rich for sure ;)
This is an interesting lesson for me on detractors. Last night when I went to bed I had about 780 karma and this morning I had about 730. Puzzled, I looked at my comments and noticed that some poor soul (obviously in need of a hug) had gone through and down-modded loads of my comments. Apparently they attempted some sort of random pattern so as not to be suspicious and they only got as far back as 22 days before their clicker-finger got tired and they gave up.
This experience reminds me of the detractor posts aimed at various early stage startups that I've seen popping up lately. I don't understand the mentality behind it, but it obviously exists. The worst offenders launch their attacks anonymously - probably from a hidden subterranean lair (read: Mom's basement). Fortunately, the startup community is full of great examples to follow that seem immune to detractors and even appreciative of them (Matt Mullenweg touched on this at SXSW).
My questions are:
How would you handle this on your own site?
Would you put in algorithmic controls to deter anonymous detractors?
Or would you go for a more community-correcting approach?
___ Update ___
Paul Graham left this response in the comments:
I found out who did this and zeroed their karma, which will take away their down arrow. Will add protections against this. Also fixed your karma.
___ Update ___
Note: To avoid *any* misunderstanding - please know that I'm not personally invested in arbitrary karma point fluctuations on niche sites like YC.News ;) Experimenting with the karma concept is just useful as an example in understanding the interactions and perceived value in an online community.
11 May 2007 Matt Jaynes
Popularity can fall as easily as it can rise. Just as this happeend, one person could go and upvote all your comments.
That is a thing to think about…
That is why they called karma…sort of anyway.
But in some way I agree with Ryan's comment…its is your reputation…imagine that happening in your real fife…one day you find someone who hates you and start gossiping around bad things about you. Telling all your friends that what you say or have said is just a lot of crap.
It might damaged your reputation fro a while, but it will all depends on how true are the gossips or how strong are yous personality or how good are your friendship or in fact how strong is your past reputation and so on…