This is an informative takedown of another paper that concluded early performance is negatively correlated with adult performance (which they explained by "peaking early.") The authors show using a simulation that when selection criteria are biased, the results do not explain population wide effects.
Among elite performers, there is a slight negative association with early performance (red), but among the "unconditioned" population there's an overwhelmingly positive association (black).
From the wikipedia for Berkson's paradox:
For example, a person may observe from their experience that attractive celebrities tend to be untalented, and talented celebrities unattractive; but people who are neither particularly talented nor attractive will not become celebrities, so will not be part of the observer's perspective.
Hence one may believe talent and attractiveness have a negative association (if you have one, you can't have the other) when talented celebrities might only be relatively unattractive among less talented celebrities.
another frontpage post without any comments?
this one is interesting, so maybe your "fix online communities with economics" thing is working; however, I'd hope that people would have interesting comments to add, beyond simply integer ranking deltas...