A sequence of lines consecutively traced by 500 individuals | Hacker News Reader

A sequence of lines consecutively traced by 500 individuals

clementvalla.com

67 pointsjohn_horton14 comments

This is similar to a cocktail party game I once played.

You get everyone in a circle, and then you choose someone across the circle to look at. Basically, everyone is looking at someone else, and they, in turn are looking at someone else (not you).

Then, you're asked to mimic as exactly as you can the person you are looking at. Everyone starts out standing still.

But soon, funny stuff happens. Little inevitable movements by people are mimicked and magnified as the movements ripple down the chain. Eventually, you get ridiculous huge movements that ripple.

It's a fun game, and I suggest everyone try it out with a group. It's a real life experiment of signal and error amplifications.

I think there were a couple trolls in that group.

I particular liked the guy who just ignored the previous line and drew "-V-"

For a whopping 2 cents, I imagine there are people who participate only out of sheer boredom and trolling it gives them more than 2 cents of value. It would be interesting to repeat the experiment with varying payouts and see how that impacts accuracy. If possible, pay each worker a bonus based on programatically calculating their accuracy and see how that turns out too.

I recommend checking out the other pieces on his site---all very beautiful. Several others also build on the theme of turkers interacting with each other, albeit through a limited channel.

I'll have to admit, slightly more engaging than watching paint dry.

I suppose "De gustibus non disputandum est" applies here. Oh well.

Then I would suggest you skip the next Boring Conference: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405274870339590457602...

I bet his inspiration for this was Sol Lewitt, a famous conceptual artist who did the exact same thing.

"His instructions might call for one person to draw an irregular line and for others to attempt to imitate it."

This reminds me a little bit of Sketch-a-bit, though it's not the same premise (users modifying other user's sketches, rather than trying to trace them): http://superfiretruck.com/sketchabit/

Russian telephone.

We call it "Chinese whispers".

Entropy in action?

Perhaps "entropy inaction" would be more fitting.

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