Gaming Stacker News is Self-Defeating in the Long-Run
3076 sats \ 51 comments \ @Undisciplined 21 May meta
Previously, I wrote about my concerns surrounding the Keynesian Beauty Contest nature of Stacker News: #473181. Check that out for context.
Now, I'd like to add some thoughts about why I'm hopeful that we can sustain a culture of authenticity in the face of the perverse incentives those contests have.

Repeated games are different
The most important element that I didn't touch on in the previous post is that most of us don't just use Stacker News once and abscond with our rewards. We come back over and over again.
That matters for the incentives because we aren't just guessing today's beauty contest winner, we're signaling who tomorrow's contestants should be. If you're zapping posts that you don't like, just because you expect them to do well, then you're going to have more posts like that to look at in the future and fewer of the ones you do want to look at.
Eventually, I imagine inauthentic zappers will lose interest in a site that only offers content that's valuable to other people.

Authenticity optimizes global trust
Our votes in this beauty contest are weighted by our global trust score, which is something like our propensity to zap content that is valued by others. It's based on our individual trust scores with every other stacker, though, and this is what got me thinking about this post.
When you zap inauthentically, you may get more rewards today, but you are also increasing the trust scores of those who also zap that way and decreasing the scores of those who share your authentic preferences.
Alternatively, if you zap authentically, then you will elevate those who share your preferences and give more weight to their votes in the future. This incentivizes such people to be on Stacker News at all.

TLDR
Long-term, being authentic actually maximizes your voting power on Stacker News and will result in being maximally rewarded for zapping your favorite content.
That's in addition to the direct effect of incentivizing people to make more content that you like.
Zap true and Stacker News will become the place you want it to be.
(Just hover over links to see the post titles)
From me #287074 #523858 #488525
From @Natalia #252695 #392551
From @cryotosensei #400068 #444755 #393176
As always, zap well.
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234 sats \ 1 reply \ @StillStackinAfterAllTheseYears 21 May
I sometimes worry for a nanosecond that my zapping stuff that's unpopular or esoteric might "hurt" me, but I'm also okay with getting a feed more in my taste.
I do think this post will take on even more meaning as SN scales; right now, it's still kind of possible to keep up with all of SN's posts. There's a certain point (long before reaching Reddit levels) where that simply becomes impossible, and curating your feed/experience becomes essential.
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42 sats \ 0 replies \ @elvismercury 21 May
The optimistic thought in that idea is that you'll be rewarded for curating your feed authentically, bc enough other people will share your tastes.
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204 sats \ 24 replies \ @grayruby 21 May
Great post. I still think the reward algo needs to be tweaked so that people can't simply zap top posts and have a few notable comments and end up with thousands of sats in rewards while others get punished for spending the entire day posting, zapping and commenting broadly.
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90 sats \ 2 replies \ @Undisciplined OP 21 May
I would guess that there are some wonky tweaks that @k00b and @ek have already thought through to address that, if it seems like it's becoming a serious problem.
As it is, I see the rewards system as getting things mostly right, with the occasional undesired outcome.
One thing I'd love to see is bigger rewards for posts/comments that generate more discussion. It's another one that's hard to implement without opening up easy exploits.
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73 sats \ 1 reply \ @grayruby 21 May
Regardless what the algo is there is always going to be some risk of people trying to game the system. Agree overall the reward system is solid but agreed sometimes it produces some head scratching results like a person with one comment and a few zaps being 5th for the day.
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81 sats \ 0 replies \ @Undisciplined OP 21 May
As long as it's just one person, I imagine it's not worth the time to address. If half of the top 10 looked like that, though, they'd probably do something.
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112 sats \ 2 replies \ @0xbitcoiner 21 May
This is a more difficult issue to address, as this type of behavior could be legitimate. However, I believe that to be rewarded with thousands, it is not enough to simply reach the end of the day and zap the top posts. The algorithm takes into account the order of the zaps and the value, which seems balanced. More stackers would help to better distribute rewards, I would say a few thousand daily.
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161 sats \ 1 reply \ @grayruby 21 May
Agree more stackers would help balance things out and it is not as simple as zapping top posts and having a few comments but we did see last week at least 3 days where one stacker got into the top ten with only a few zaps and a couple top comments. I understand why the algo is set up to reward quality but I think it punishes quantity to try and root out spam. I don't know what the answer is. We don't want to reward people for posting nonsense all day to get rewards but also don't want people who aren't really engaging broadly to be rewarded above others simply because they zapped every top post and had the top comment on a top post.
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50 sats \ 0 replies \ @0xbitcoiner 21 May
It's definitely a tough balance to strike.
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102 sats \ 15 replies \ @cryotosensei 22 May
Randomise the time zone so that no one Stacker has the first mover advantage at all times
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60 sats \ 14 replies \ @Undisciplined OP 22 May
I hope they do that experiment soon. I'm really curious to see if we get more night (US time) activity that way.
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62 sats \ 13 replies \ @carlosfandango 22 May
Perhaps we should move to a 25-hour day or use a variation of a block clock…
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81 sats \ 2 replies \ @cryotosensei 22 May
I like the idea of a block clock! So innovative n exemplifies the purpose of this platform
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70 sats \ 1 reply \ @Undisciplined OP 22 May
I like it, too. There's no reason that the two ideas can't be merged.
SN could randomly choose a block that's going to be mined in the next 12 to 36 hours.
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61 sats \ 0 replies \ @carlosfandango 22 May
Would be more fun than MSM
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70 sats \ 9 replies \ @Undisciplined OP 22 May
I like the idea of it being unpredictable to a larger degree.
My thought would be to randomly choose a value between 12 and 36 and let that be the length of the current day.
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41 sats \ 8 replies \ @carlosfandango 22 May
That’s a good idea. Should you keep the timer on display?
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81 sats \ 7 replies \ @Undisciplined OP 22 May
My gut says no, because I don’t want people to game it.
However, it might be worth trying it both ways to see what happens.
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91 sats \ 4 replies \ @cryotosensei 22 May
My gut says no too. Prior to MSM, we never knew our position relative to others, so all we could do is post n comment the best way we knew how. It was a simpler time haha
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41 sats \ 1 reply \ @carlosfandango 22 May
My thought is no. But I’m not sure how many Stackers do watch the clock to game it.
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40 sats \ 0 replies \ @Undisciplined OP 21 May
I agree
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50 sats \ 0 replies \ @Bell_curve 21 May
You’re killing me lol
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209 sats \ 2 replies \ @TNStacker 21 May
⚡ZAP well, Zap often.
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62 sats \ 1 reply \ @0xbitcoiner 21 May
⚡ZAP early
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22 sats \ 0 replies \ @Bell_curve 21 May
+1 💯
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79 sats \ 5 replies \ @cryotosensei 22 May
I think your appeal only works when people are personally invested in SN n genuinely/somewhat care about its development. Unfortunately, some people will see SN just as a place to earn n stack sats - nothing more nothing less. It’s illustrated in the way how some users seldom zap any other Stacker. I wish you had chosen Do you zap people who don’t zap back? instead. I actually don’t mind if people work the time zone in their favour n earn an optimal amount of rewards. But if they don’t spread a portion of their gains around, it just doesn’t sit well with me.
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42 sats \ 4 replies \ @Undisciplined OP 22 May
Sorry about the omission. I grabbed the relevant posts from your list of top posts and I missed it.
I don’t think people need to feel invested for my argument to land. The assumption I need is that Stackers will eventually leave if there’s no longer any content that interests them.
The takeaway I’m hoping people get is that honest zapping creates a feedback cycle: people like you get more voting power, which leads to your content creators getting more rewards, which attracts more users like you, which increases your voting power…
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79 sats \ 3 replies \ @cryotosensei 22 May
No lar, no apologies needed. After all, I write dozens of articles on SN haha.
The point about voting power is thought-provoking, and I think it would fly by many Stackers, me included. Reason being voting power isn’t as visible as sats haha. N erm, since it’s kinda clouded in mystique, it’s an abstract entity. It’s nearly impossible to track the ups n downs of my voting power, I reckon. N what doesn’t get tracked doesn’t get managed.
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21 sats \ 2 replies \ @Undisciplined OP 22 May
I don’t really expect this message to land, but it popped into my head last night, so I made a post about it this morning.
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41 sats \ 1 reply \ @cryotosensei 22 May
Well done, you. You should post your original content more often
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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Undisciplined OP 22 May
I like being able to give a lot of attention to the comments on my posts and it starts feeling hectic when I have more than one discussion going on at a time.
We've been talking basketball quite a bit lately, so that's where most of my original content has been going.
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73 sats \ 3 replies \ @nullcount 21 May
I may earn more than you on this post simply because I was early to zap it.
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52 sats \ 1 reply \ @0xbitcoiner 21 May
The early zapping bonus is definitely a big boost. And the higher the zap value, the better.
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52 sats \ 0 replies \ @Undisciplined OP 21 May
The early bonus is important, since otherwise the incentive is to wait and see what catches on.
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10 sats \ 0 replies \ @Undisciplined OP 21 May
That's true, but you are the undisputed master and, much like the Highlander, there can only be one.
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42 sats \ 2 replies \ @quark 21 May
I'm not sure. I zap authentically for example a science post that I like and I know it is not going to be popular and I am not rewarded but it is ok. Curating is rewarded for popular topics like something about bitcoin for example. Maybe I'm wrong or maybe the whole system is flawed.
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21 sats \ 1 reply \ @Undisciplined OP 21 May
~science is still in its infancy, but long term you're helping to identify good science posts and that will help new stackers interested in science build trust with you, once they find their way here.
In turn, that will increase your global trust and there will be more science posts, more science readers, and more rewards for you.
You're laying the groundwork, now, for a better SN tomorrow.
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52 sats \ 0 replies \ @quark 22 May
Yes I would like it to be so. But I don't know a way to check the trust score. Maybe by zapping content that others don't zap, the trust actually decreased. And it is not that the content is bad or spam, it is just that the content may not be for the majority. So in that sense, curation is not well rewarded.
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63 sats \ 2 replies \ @carlosfandango 21 May
  • If you're zapping posts that you don't like, just because you expect them to do well, then you're going to have more posts like that to look at
Genuinely great comment. Bravo.
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62 sats \ 0 replies \ @0xbitcoiner 21 May
Comparing our feed with anon mode offers an intriguing experience.
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20 sats \ 0 replies \ @Undisciplined OP 21 May
Thanks
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21 sats \ 2 replies \ @Satosora 21 May
oh man, I like to zap whenever I am having a discussion. Even if that comment isnt great, at least they are replying to my stuff. There are some comments I dont agree with, and dont zap.
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10 sats \ 1 reply \ @Undisciplined OP 21 May
It's not always easy, but I recommend zapping comments you don't agree with, too, as long as they're civil.
Otherwise, we risk turning Stacker News into an echo chamber.
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21 sats \ 0 replies \ @Satosora 21 May
I know, I contemplate it all the time. I usually zap pretty consistently.
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21 sats \ 0 replies \ @BlokchainB 21 May
Man I zap what ever I feel like it. The algos are going to algo. I’m just going to do my thing push the circular economy one sat at a time
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21 sats \ 0 replies \ @Fabs 21 May
Nah tranquilo señor! Everything will be fine! 🤠🧡⚡
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