Darwin Prize or 10 ways to get under natural selection on Habré

(For those who read about the customs of behavior on Habré for the first time, explanations are needed. Habrasuitsid is the complication of publishing their comments and the impossibility of publishing their articles on Habré. Technically, this is achieved by “earning” negative karma with the user’s behavior, text, and illustrations my readers.)

It would seem easier to just not write or forget your password. But not everyone succeeds in this: some make more or less effort, perhaps trying to achieve the opposite effect - to like and find their readers. And then natural selection comes into play, the self-regulating role of which was described at the time by C. Darwin. Followers to experience the effects of patterns are found in a virtual environment. Particularly exciting are examples of ingenuity that should be known to those who do not wish to be on the other side of the blade.

How to start?

So, we know the goal of natural selection - getting negative karma. It is almost achievable at the very beginning of communication, when the initial karma is zero. We need at least one "minus", one negative attitude of any reader - and the goal is almost achieved. You will not be able to write articles. “Almost” - because well-wishers may appear, sympathizing and simply grateful people who will again increase your karma, moving it away from the cherished trait. Therefore, from the very beginning you should know the principles - what you should write about. And write so that as many readers as possible do not have a desire to see such messages again. Consider that getting just a “minus” for a comment or article is not enough; you need to have a dislike for your Personality (that which, in theory, karma is associated with), although it must be admitted that not everyone equally perceives the purpose of the buttons and can decide differently.
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In any case, no matter how easy it is to lose karma at the beginning, in order to succeed in business, we must understand the reasons prompting users to “minus”. Therefore, we turn to the facts, showing by examples what users do not like the most. To avoid possible surprises - remember that Habr is a resource, initially visited by a large number of specialists with education or work in the field of Internet technologies. Let's take into account that the Habr interface has some features (or inconveniences) associated with a limited number of news feeds. There are almost no opportunities to choose a stream “to taste” (the so-called Habralent 3.0 has an unknown mechanism of operation, therefore, apparently, it is not a success). At the same time, observations show that 95-98% of comments, and therefore attention, are left to visitors during the first days after publication (comment or article), which means they are watching one of several news flow options. And they do not like it very much when something unusual and useless is found in the stream that distracts their mediated valuable attention. By introducing this model - a community of reading visitors who value their time - one can understand why it behaves as it does.

News feeds

1. Feed from the main page. According to observations, it is viewed by many visitors (conventionally, 3,000 users per day who can vote; perhaps this figure is several times higher, but many do not manifest themselves). The disadvantage of this stream is that there are a lot of possibly useful articles: all of the personal blogs never appear on the main page, and the rest appear only after dialing a rating of 8. The less attention is paid to an article, the later visitors to it come from the main page. Who then comes at the very beginning and makes the same dropout that interests us? Options - two.

2. Feed: " new articles ". It contains all the articles, including the "garbage", which received a negative rating with the help of visitors' ratings. It is viewed conditionally 500-1000 voters per day. This number includes visitors from the 3rd stream - Habralenta.

3. Habralent ( 2.0 , 3.0 ). The flow of articles, adapting to the interests of the user. 3.0 - according to the list of selected articles, 2.0 - according to other criteria. If someone uses them, then there is a chance that a highly specialized article will get its readers immediately from the moment of publication and from this stream.

By the way, at the end of 2008, according to the authors of Habr , the question “How do you most often read Habr?” Was answered as follows: 50% - main, 22% - RSS (same as the main one, but there are also thematic RSS of the form habrahabr.ru / rss / blogs / diy - always type in small letters), 10% is for a habrant (then there was no 3.0 yet), 15% is everything.

Pain points

We list that a user with the right to vote does not like to know what to specialize in getting it.
1. As already explained - does not like wasting time . Surprisingly, on this resource, this dislike is close in strength to the usual dominant factor - insult. Despite the fact that, nevertheless, it remains 2-3 times weaker. But it gives typical unexpected effects: “I’m going, I don’t touch anyone, I enjoy life - and here you have a minus”. In other words, the user in the comments forgets that he is on Habré and expresses in words his joy at something different from the topic of the article (or even on the topic, but nothing more useful). So society acts no worse than a moderator, following the pithiness of speeches. And it is right - why flooding, if there are assessments or nothing to say.
2. Does not like belittling the dignity of the reader. This is usually. Unusually, in essence, this is the same flood, but in the format of flame and trolling.
3. Let's not talk about simple insults, everything is clear with them, so there are practically none.
4. Does not like incompetent statements or requests to clarify the situation. In fact, this is a consequence of paragraph 1: everyone values ​​their time, and requests to clarify - the selection of someone else's time. This moment is also not immediately understood and it is far from being found on all resources (try to find analogues).
5. Sometimes "does not like" unspent "cons." Therefore, rarely, but you can see that someone passed and prominus all comments in a row. Do not be surprised enough cranks.
6. He doesn’t like requests, he also doesn’t like polls ( example ): very rare polls complete evolution in “pluses”, and even more so go to the main page (therefore, they should be paid attention to as exemplary - for example, the only one on the main tape in the last 2 weeks).
7. Apparently, they do not like podcasts for the same reason: they need to be listened to, and this time.
8. Almost not welcome links to news. You need to know the interests of the audience very well in order to accurately guess whether this is the expected news. What is good news ( example ) is a separate topic, but generally speaking - it is very easy to make minuses on the news.
9. Do not welcome non-thematic messages. (However, with “very thematic”, complicated articles - the same story, with only one difference: there are almost no drawbacks for them.) It’s also true that, in addition to the IT subject, the “thematic” sections included: mobile network operators, problems with the sellers of equipment when solving problems and similar other rudeness, problems, defaults. SEO, some social networks, in particular, are not very well suited, despite the fact that both are IT.
10. Articles with the expression of personal “selfish” interests (unless in a special blog) are very welcome: buy our goods, go to see, support me, our company, my girlfriend's cat. The difference from simple complaints is this: if the solution of complaints against operators helps others, it will give a method of struggle - here is a case where the request helps only them - the authors or the resources promoted.
11. Flood articles. This - the crown numbers habrassytsidnikov. They can contain 1-2 lines and score 50-70 minuses in the rating, and they can be long and have a smaller effect. Where they come from is a separate topic, but it is they (along with paragraph 10) who break the main prizes of the Darwinian competition. If you try to formulate all the principles here in one paragraph, then the article or commentary should include negative factors from all the above 10 points: 1) flood, 2) humiliation and arrogance, 3) rudeness, 4) incompetence, 5) (minus you can get randomly), 6) a survey or a request to do something for yourself, 7) shove the content into a podcast, 8) refer to the news, 9) write off-topic Habra, 10) advertise something without thinking about the interests of readers ( successful advertising is and is supported by readers).

Thus, the user-writer has many ways to end the literary life on Habré, not just “abandoning” the account, but much more sophisticatedly.

Specific Recommendations

I. Use comments to collect negative ratings. Let not all the “minuses” of comments turn into minuses of karma, but on average there will be one not very lazy user going to karma for 20 minuses of comments. By the way, numerous testimonies say that it is much more difficult to obtain the addition of karma in this way, and this is not the goal of our consideration. So start with comments - the cons will be provided;

*) speak non-literary (not necessarily obscene) - quite a sure way, but its simplicity is so obvious that it does not deserve close study;

*) speak out literally, but demeaning one's merits ( trolling ). Also a very good way of collecting minuses, but also obvious;
One example: habrahabr.ru/blogs/google_chrome/98366/#comment_3027785

*) Speak off topic , showing a misunderstanding of the topic. A good way to get disadvantages, and probably a good effect on karma, because it speaks as if about the “insanity” of the author, so you want to remove it;

*) Comment on the topic, but show incompetence in it. It works even better (in terms of minus). This, by the way, is a significant plus for the Habra-community, because far from being so demanding are the quality of answers.

*) Get into the thicket of like-minded people ( an example from Alles_gut ) and speak out about disagreement with their views. Even a correct statement will cause cons at least to the commentary, but every 10th-20th will express an attitude in karma.

*) one more positive phenomenon of Habr - to make a simple “thank you” and joy about publishing is also a good way to pass for the “insane” and get your long-awaited “minuses”. This is often not understood by beginners, for whom the words of support - in some small blog - are a natural reaction and flattery to the author. Here the situation is reversed: there are hundreds and thousands of readers, and they are not waiting for flattery, but for practical, substantial comments; everything else is flooding and taking away their personal time; for example, “thank you” with an example from your life on the topic of the article is no longer a flood and will not give the desired one;

*) (upd by linkr ) writing a joke on a topic that everyone is tired of: an example .

All these are good ways, but the fastest and most effective is publishing an article.

Ii. Write articles (or even an article) - the best way to level karma.

*) Prepend the article with the words “Hello, dear% username%, I'm glad to see you! This is my first post on Habré, so do not judge strictly and please give karma so that I can put the post on the main page and write the second part. ”Here are a number of violations of the principles mentioned above. We will analyze the phrase lexically.

, //
% username %, // , .2
! //
, // , .1
//
, , , // :
// ,
. // -


The classic is here: iidsp.habrahabr.ru/blog/91967 (“Who are you, Mr.Noob?”).

*) think and express your emotions, not taking into account that at least 1000 relatively busy people are viewing you.
Example: habrahabr.ru/blogs/eCommerce/93937

*) perhaps, “for the sake of fun”, it is worth adding slang and swearing - there will be more minus ones than they laughed approvingly (they will laugh again, seeing the result);

(Example: I remember an outstanding and rather serious opus about Google Buzz , but how it started!)

*) survey is the same article, only minus stronger, almost regardless of quality;

*) It is difficult to write a good technical article and stay in the minuses, but it is possible if the described techniques are used more often. Basic advice: write a little, incomprehensible and unclaimed, it is better that which could be expressed in the commentary. That the article "did not pull" on the article;

Examples: habrahabr.ru/blogs/powershell/92238 (short and incomprehensible topic), habrahabr.ru/blogs/webdev/95889 (non-application).

Finally,

... I must say (even if it contradicts the topic of the other recommendations, but can be used) that even if he has gone into deep minuses, a person has more than one way to go back. In moments of weakness or aggravation of the Sisyphus complex, he can take advantage of them, and then everything will happen again from the beginning. Accordingly, we must know these pitfalls.

1) reset karma . With only one careless movement, the user can return the karma to zero. Fortunately, this is possible only once in an account, but from zero to “minus”, as we know, is one step, so we don’t lose anything;

2) if karma is not too negative, you can prepare a (positive thematic) article and ask (through a comment in a similar article, for example) some community to add a little karma. We know that this, of course, flood is not welcome, but they can respond to the request (here we need to know how and where to ask); having come to the pros, without delay, the user has a chance to aggravate his “plus position” or not to justify his own hopes - everything depends on the prepared article;

2.a) (addition) An example of how, even without an article, in the process of commenting on this article, StrangeAttractor complained three times about the fall of karma (you need to know how to complain so that it does not look like a direct request and a request at all - see its texts: the story about yourself , generalizations, no offense). Initially, his karma was noticed at the level of -9, after half a day it became 0. A couple of other commentators also noticed a rise in karma from -3 to about 0. Thus, this article at least helped several visitors to get rid of negative karma through comments.

3) ask to publish an article through a person with positive karma. Which is somehow not very welcome administration, I must say that "the article is not mine, express thanks to such a user." If the article is well demanded, you can surprisingly get out of rather deep minuses.

An example that, apparently, will be a textbook. (traffic!) " Frosted for one hundred percent! " Here the topic of the article (those who are aware of the inconvenience of glossy surfaces on laptops - knows) are very much in demand. And the mediator-publisher was also chosen surprisingly well. And this article is not inferior in quality to the articles by the well-known author who acted as an intermediary. As a result, I witnessed how in 20 minutes his karma rose from -9 (and was, apparently, around -30) to +10, and at the end was about 60.

4) ask for a new invite from a friend or not a very familiar person.

5) write an article in the Sandbox and wait for the invite.

... It's so interesting - once again go through all the adventures, but in an even faster way.