Although it's by Karma rather than by front-page reaching skill, so it's a different metric really.
It's odd that it displays Karma for everyone outside the top ten.
Actually I hate that leader page and would like to replace it with something more interesting. There's too much past and not enough present and future in it.
Any list that includes me, but not eg grellas is probably doing something wrong.
I'd say to just remove the page altogether, but a suitable replacement could possibly serve as a tool to uplift behavior you'd like to see more of. That's definitely easier said than done, but I'd love to see some experimentation in this area.
End by adding a time filter (let people have a few choices).
It was removed since it offered no insight and was often inaccurate.
This is an example of how people try to maximize numbers, even when they know they shouldn't. You make what you measure.
That said, I don't think it was all bad: it definitely incentivized me to write comments that were consistently longer and deeper than they would be otherwise. Looking back through my old comments, a surprising number read like essays.
But it also created a bunch of perverse incentives. Apart from disincentivizing conversation it also pushed me towards trying to comment on bigger stories and pushed me away from commenting on stories that had been up for a while and would fall off the front page soon.
The downsides of focusing on average votes per comment definitely outweigh the upsides. I wonder if there's some better measure out there that creates fewer weird incentives and isn't as gameable but still has the same positive effects.
It's a fun distraction every once in a while (oh hey, another X points and I hit the leaderboard!), but gaming the system in general, or spending any time worrying about it... just no.
It's worth leaving this leader page up as it indicates the system as it stands. The answer lies much more in changing the system than in hiding its results.
So you should leave this existing feedback page up until you can improve the feedback.
If the feedback makes you unhappy, it's not the feedback's fault. It's your system's.
:-)
tptacek 241986