My impression is that prolific posters show up on the Top Contributors list more often than low-post-count, high-karma posters. And, of course, worst of all they don't get ranked by positive karma percentage, or by karma per post. Somebody posting a good article in Main seems to be a less common cause of showing up on the list than high output.
For that reason, I don't see it as having a positive motivational effect either. I pay loads of attention to my positive karma percentage, none at all to karma in absolute terms. If I wanted to be on the list, my best bet would be to chime in on everything no matter how low-value my opinion actually is – which appears to be a poor and occasionally frustrating use of my time. Quality, not quantity.
I pay loads of attention to my positive karma percentage
I've seen a suggestion in a comment here that you don't want your positive karma percentage to be near 100%, because it indicates you are being consumed by the hive mind.
you don't want your positive karma percentage to be near 100%, because it indicates you are being consumed by the hive mind.
I think there are aspects of posting where one most certainly wants to be 'consumed by the hivemind'--if your posts are never so poorly reasoned that you get a downvote for that reason, then more power to you!
And if one is polite, clear, and kind, one can weigh in on controversial topics with a different view than the hivemind and still not get downvoted.
That's something you might want to go by. Not me. I don't thrive in controversy nearly as much as you. The topics on which LessWrongers go hivemind-y about can very easily be sidestepped without incurring downvotes; medium to low karma percentages more often indicate that the poster has a penchant for getting himself into every controversial shit the site has to offer.
It wasn't my comment and I don't have a strong opinion on the matter. I suspect it was at least half tongue-in-cheek, anyway.
The first question would be: "Why do we have the board in the first place?"
Do we have it because we believe it provides a significant motivation effect?
The first question would be: "Why do we have the board in the first place?"
Historically, I think it was to replace the Top Contributors, All Time leaderboard, which had become stale since at least half the people on it didn't post frequently anymore (and at least one of them had left permanently). I think that one had existed both for motivational and reputational effects. (If you want people to respect and listen to the top 10 posters, it helps if they know who those are.)
I'm wondering what the optimal number of people on the leaderboard would be.
From a usability point of view, 15 sounds about right to me. There is already a lot of other stuff on the side bar.
I suspect that if there were 20 people on the leaderboard, that would increase the motivation effect, without significantly devaluing being on the leaderboard itself.
Maybe, if the point is to increase motivation there might be better ways. I don't know if these are any good, but here's some example ideas:
suggested articles
I wrote the rough equivalent for articles I am writing/planning to write..
Month in review
I will think about it if I have time to review things.
collaborators
Yes. Me. Write to me! Write about things; I will read things and make suggestions.
I wrote the rough equivalent for articles I am writing/planning to write..
I liked that post. Those sort of posts are brilliant as well. For the suggested articles post, I was thinking more of something like this:
I think that I am going to move away from the reasoning aspect of the mental model theory just because there seems to be some justifiable reasons for why the wording of the examples it uses to convey itself may be skewing the results. That is, people interpret the problems in a different way and this might just be all there is to them getting the answer 'wrong'. I don't know if this issue has been dealt with in the literature on mental models. I still think that mental model theory is a interesting area to look into. But, I probably wont be able to get/devote the time to it that I need to before I am able to expand on and deal with the issues with the overview of mental model theory post I wrote. If anyone thinks that this would be an interesting idea to look into, I recommend reading this book. I haven't read it, but Johnson-Laird - the author - is the originator of the mental model theory and most prolific writer on the subject.
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Yes. Me. Write to me! Write about things; I will read things and make suggestions.
I might do this after I have planned out some potential posts.
I think it might be nice to try putting 20 people on the leaderboard. I myself have never been on the leaderboard as far as I know, although I have been on LW for a long time. (I actually have no idea what my name recognition status is in the community, relative to the average. Do people think, "Oh, a post by moridinamael, I know that guy," or have I wasted energy trying to establish an identity here?) A slightly extended leadboard would allow more people to gauge their relative position as a contributor in the community at a given time.
FWIW, I recognize your name, vaguely think of it as associated with sensible comments, but couldn't offhand say what your areas of special interest, political views, etc., are.
[EDITED to fix a typo.]
I guess the motivational effect of the leaderboard is biggest for people near its cutoff. I guess that increasing the number of leaderboard slots means a small overall motivation increase (good, I guess), and a shift of motivation from higher up to lower down (not so good, I guess).
The other point of the leaderboard is to help readers get a sense of who's who. A longer leaderboard contains more information, but I suspect is less digestible.
None of this seems like an obvious win (nor a big loss).
I think the top contributor list could be even shorter (to save space) but a link to a more complete list (via the unused header link) would be nice in that case.
The answer is 42.
(But, seriously, I think 15 is fine. I'd even be fine reducing it to 10 (username is currently #12)).
I'm wondering what the optimal number of people on the leaderboard would be. I suspect that people who appear on the leaderboard post more often because they want to remain on it. The other advantage, is that if the leaderboard seems in reach, more people will compete to get on it.On the other hand, if too many people were added to the leaderboard, then "being on the leaderboard" would be worthless and people would only care if they had a high position.
There are currently 15 people on the leaderboard. I suspect that if there were 20 people on the leaderboard, that would increase the motivation effect, without significantly devaluing being on the leaderboard itself.
What do people think?