@DiracDelta recent hit post on Swan \ stacker news ~meta

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46 sats \ 8 comments \ @siggy47 22 Jun 2023 meta

I think I asked @k00b about how the SN ranking system can be gamed a few weeks back, and today we have a classic example. This type of stuff can give the perception that the SN community is validating a controversial position when there's in fact little support for it. I'm just pointing it out. I know SN has been on top of this in the past. BTW, this is not meant to attack the OP's opinion in this article or to defend Swan.

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70 sats \ 6 replies \ @siggy47 OP 22 Jun 2023

@birdeye21 did some looking into it and replied to this post: #197766

He actually admits to it.

368 sats \ 5 replies \ @k00b 22 Jun 2023

I replied there, but I'll repeat.

Poxohu has zero trust. So even though they are, apparently, the big spender, his spending would have zero effect on ranking.

The effect of an individual on ranking is as follows: trust*log10(total zap amount) ... so because their trust is 0 it had no impact on ranking.

What sent it to the top was

14 other stackers zapped it - some of whom do have trust
no one flagged it (which is kind of like a downvote)
BUT MOSTLY it's that people aren't zapping other stuff that might rank higher and push down "the hit piece"
- all other "hot" posts today have zaps from an average of 5 people vs the 14 on the swan one

10 sats \ 2 replies \ @siggy47 OP 22 Jun 2023

Got you. Thanks. I just had a depressing thought. If SN were around during the Blocksize Wars imagine the gaming that could have gone on? The situation that I guess that can't be defended against is a person who doesn't have much knowledge of an issue being influenced because a particular reply got 5k sats.

10 sats \ 0 replies \ @mudbloodvonfrei 22 Jun 2023

I don't think that's a bad thing, as long as people are aware of the possibility. It's like advertising - people spend money to get your attention. SN, I believe, gets a percentage of each zap, no? This is a major improvement over traditional social media; at least here you know the algorithm.

Anyway, when I saw 90k sats or whatever that instantly raised a red flag.

25 sats \ 0 replies \ @k00b 22 Jun 2023

Yes there's no helping someone distinguish spending from value creation if they suffer the Keynesian disease of confusing them

If you hover over the sats on any post/comment it will tell you the number of "zappers" but its obviously not very visible.

0 sats \ 1 reply \ @birdeye21 22 Jun 2023

Thanks for clarifying k00b

You obviously know more about how all this works, so correct me if I'm wrong, but zapping yourself from an untrusted account could still essentially yield the same effect, no?

A recent post with over >90k zaps is probably going to attract more attention, making it easier for trusted accounts to then push it to the top.

Flagging works, but it can be hard to verify what's spam and what's not. I'll try to keep that feature in mind moving forward tho, wasn't aware I could flag.

10 sats \ 0 replies \ @k00b 22 Jun 2023

Yes, if it leads people to trust content quality based on the amount zapped. But we should all know better.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @k00b 22 Jun 2023

What evidence of gaming do we have?