K
karankaran
Guest
So, I thought i will post it here. I have been on Hair loss talk (HairLossTalk.com) for a long time now. I have been thinking about online communities and i once wrote a paper on it and i have observed something about HairLossTalk.com community.
1) In the absence of any moderation or interference, Polarization helps the warring sides a lot. At HairLossTalk.com, a few months back there was a huge fight about an experimental treatment. One side consisted of people who were anti-science nut jobs - they were abusive in their replies and were evasive on evidence and yet were able to create one of the biggest online hair loss threads ever existed. The other side was a group of people who valued facts and reasoning and demanded evidence. This, roughly, created two groups within HairLossTalk.com and due to the effects of polarization, both sides reputation points increased substantially during the fight. Since the fight ended, the reputation points of those involved have not increased much.
Now i am not saying that people incited the fight or took part in it because they wanted to benefit from it (i was a part of it and i should say i went from a new member to a senior member with huge reputation) , I am just making an OBSERVATION - During heavily polarized fights, the sides on both end of the spectrum win a lot. Also, sometimes during these fights, the polarization becomes so huge that disparities within the two groups are often ignored or do not come out in the open. I guess the same happens in politics.
2) When you have a high reputation, people often desist from giving you negative reputation, even if they want to. Why? because you can take them down as well and with bigger reputation power, you can inflict more damage. I feel that this skews the balance of community power to already established members.
3) However, a large reputation, at times, enforces healthy community behavior. People try to be less confrontational, be more rational and cite more evidence to support their posts. This - so that they do not loose the network which put them in a high position and also to not loose the reputation they have gained. They often want to reinforce the notion that they are reasonable and intelligent. Just like when you hold people to high standards, they act better. Yes, there are exceptions to this. but few.
These have been my observations about the HairLossTalk.com online community reputation system. I know you guys are thinking - This guy is crazy nuts. Think so deep about an online community. But i have always been fascinated by online communities and their behavior.
1) In the absence of any moderation or interference, Polarization helps the warring sides a lot. At HairLossTalk.com, a few months back there was a huge fight about an experimental treatment. One side consisted of people who were anti-science nut jobs - they were abusive in their replies and were evasive on evidence and yet were able to create one of the biggest online hair loss threads ever existed. The other side was a group of people who valued facts and reasoning and demanded evidence. This, roughly, created two groups within HairLossTalk.com and due to the effects of polarization, both sides reputation points increased substantially during the fight. Since the fight ended, the reputation points of those involved have not increased much.
Now i am not saying that people incited the fight or took part in it because they wanted to benefit from it (i was a part of it and i should say i went from a new member to a senior member with huge reputation) , I am just making an OBSERVATION - During heavily polarized fights, the sides on both end of the spectrum win a lot. Also, sometimes during these fights, the polarization becomes so huge that disparities within the two groups are often ignored or do not come out in the open. I guess the same happens in politics.
2) When you have a high reputation, people often desist from giving you negative reputation, even if they want to. Why? because you can take them down as well and with bigger reputation power, you can inflict more damage. I feel that this skews the balance of community power to already established members.
3) However, a large reputation, at times, enforces healthy community behavior. People try to be less confrontational, be more rational and cite more evidence to support their posts. This - so that they do not loose the network which put them in a high position and also to not loose the reputation they have gained. They often want to reinforce the notion that they are reasonable and intelligent. Just like when you hold people to high standards, they act better. Yes, there are exceptions to this. but few.
These have been my observations about the HairLossTalk.com online community reputation system. I know you guys are thinking - This guy is crazy nuts. Think so deep about an online community. But i have always been fascinated by online communities and their behavior.
