Invisible Ratings

You can criticize the principles, specific formulas, according to which ratings are calculated on Habré, but this is not the point. And not even about the fact that Habr has no competitors, where one could go in the hope of a different rating decision. The problem is wider - building a good rating system is an extremely difficult task, depending on the type of resource, the composition of users, human psychology, and so on. Here are a couple of case studies on how ratings can be related to audience composition and resource type [ 1 ], [ 2 ]. I will not go around and beloved [ 3 ]. According to the mind, you need to have a whole research department with highly professional psychologists, mathematicians, sociologists, Internet researchers, etc., to build something acceptable. But if you follow the logic of my post. Good projects are created by users , this is not enough.

Suppose that users of Habr have the opportunity to take the results of other people's votes on karma, topics and comments and (somehow) calculate the values ​​of karma and the rating of participants, according to their own approaches and formulas. These alternatives, for example, will not be visible to anyone except the author of the rating. But based on them, you can automatically create your own top materials. The idea is similar to the idea of ​​friends in blog platforms - this tape is in fact our individual top. The difference is that we have to point out our friends with “hands”, and here they will get into our tape as a result of votes of strangers, but according to our rating principles. Of course, this is rather a toy for geeks, for those who are interested.

Probably the most interesting thing to do with such things are the developers of Habr and similar resources - for example, you can make 10 or 100 (as you can) invisible alternative rating options and then watch which one of them is best (in your opinion, of course) highlights the most interesting authors and materials . This is essentially close to creating 10 or 100 Habr variants with the same content and without the need for users to re-vote in each of them.
')
This approach has a drawback - if you change the rating system clearly, apparently without alternatives, then the users change their behavior in response. Those. You have an implicit response. With invisible ratings, there is no response. However, we can read other friends. Accordingly, it is possible to think of a situation when alternative sorts of content and authors, if desired, will be visible to all users. And even it will be possible to vote for these options :) At the same time, perhaps, not the developers of Habr will win, but someone from the users. I’m joking, because I’m not going to oppose professionals and the “crowd”, but I just want to emphasize the value of mass experimentation in complex areas.