On my ZDNet blog, I discuss social news site reddit.com with co-founder Alexis Ohanian and compare their collaborative filtering system with Digg's.
Reddit may have a jump on Digg when it comes to avoiding groupthink and spam, via a user reputation system it calls 'karma'. Check out the full story on ZDNet and tell me what you think: is Reddit's karma system a better - more honest - way to rank stories and users than Digg's populist approach of ranking by homepage hits? Or do you think Digg has the right approach, but just needs to address the groupthink and spam issues that come with scaling to thousands of users?
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Seems to me karma will reinforce groupthink, not defeat it. Thought it should help with "spam", provided it's clear what's spam and what isn't.
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Posted by: Gabe | January 16, 2006 11:19 PM
Hey Gabe, thanks for the comment. Can you explain a bit more how you think the karma system will reinforce groupthink?
Posted by: Richard MacManus | January 17, 2006 2:17 AM
A karma system is what Slashdot uses. Considering the comment filtering and after I think the system worked without creating group think. It will be interesting to see how these systems go. I have a feeling that if Digg doesn't change then it will loose it's importance. The same goes for any of these sites including the venerable Slashdot. Slashdot could easily do with a community editorial process.
Posted by: simon | January 17, 2006 3:46 AM
Well, assume groupthink is already in effect to some extent. Then group votes will cause people who vote against the group to lose Karma, reinforcing groupthink.
It's a common criticism that pro-Microsoft comments get modded down on Slashdot, causing their authors to lose Karma, thus visibility. It's even mentioned here (search for "Groupthink"): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slashdot_subculture
Posted by: Gabe | January 17, 2006 10:31 AM