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Comment by NeedMoreTea | Hacker News Reader

Exposing the utterly meaningless number seems to hugely encourage playing to the crowd on sites where it's visible. It's one of the worst aspects of reddit that almost every thread has the same pattern. I may be wrong, but it seems like that pattern stems from playing for karma. Not for interest, not for discussion, just points which encourages the smart arse in every sub thread.

Exposing who would just further encourage tit for tat.

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Agreed, having never really thought about it until this thread. I like the fact that I can't see vote count on this site

You can on your own posts though. And that is something in of itself. Particularly because you are rewarded with powers for doing “well.”

That's fairly new isn't it? I feel like HN showed scores fairly recently

Well "new" is relative, but it's been around 8 years since the comment scores were hidden.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2595605

Hmm, not since I've been on here.

It's not only tit for tat but also the herd behavior of following the masses and like the already popular content instead of deciding for yourself if you like something.

One of the most basic ways to combat that is to set the default sort to "new", not top.

Does not eliminate that behavior, but it does very significantly reduce it to almost a non issue.

Just FYI.

True, mostly. I do find it wearing that so many interesting reddit discussions would be so much easier without the 50% that's all the "your mum" jokes and "username fits" easy karma wins.

That varies considerably by subreddit. I do agree with you though. Many Redditors are not longer form type people.

I tend to skim, and when I find something compelling, I power through where the subs do little about those things.

Some subs do cultivate better, longer form writing, and or less of the Reddit "BS."

And, I vary too. It's not always annoying. Mixed in there are some real zingers. Love those.

I confess I vary too - sometimes there's a few really clever ones. I think it's most frustrating in the busier subs where the pollution gets out of hand. I;m much more forgiving of the odd digression on here or the more on topic subs.

We all have our shallow moments. I relish them. :D

I came to the same conclusion and made a Chrome extension to remove several of these numbers (upvotes, karma, etc.) from reddit: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/novote/kepihilioco....

It's not a meaningless number, especially when not exposed. But you're right that exposing it causes undesired behaviour, + makes the number increasingly meaningless (c.f. Goodhart's law).

You nailed it. I appreciate that aspect of this site and it makes reading even the lower posted replies somehow more meaningful and relevant to me.

If number is utterly meaningless it should not be here at all, visible or not.

I don't think it adds anything at all having it visible on my own posts. Occasional surprise when something attracts a particularly high or controversial voting pattern isn't giving much. Keeping the overall total seems relatively harmless and helps identify the low and negative karma trolls.

Ordering on HN by vote count works, and would continue to work invisible to all. The few places it breaks - the political, the climate change discussions etc, are where there may be more voting for tribal reasons.

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