This is a suggestion for Reddit, Hacker News (ycombinator’s), and other Digg clones.
- Only count up-votes from people who have clicked through to the article.
The flourishing of voting communities is a blessing to the Internet. Members post links and everyone gets to vote up or down. It’s an improvement on Google’s PageRank, which has been maliciously exploited by spammers for a decade now.
In my brief time watching these communities, I’ve seen snappy titles with terrible content get up-voted. Things like:
- 7 Ways to Amp Up Your Productivity
- FOX News Has Done It Again…
- Resources for Busy Professionals
- Books You Should Read But Aren’t Really Going To But You’ll Upvote This Anyway Because You Feel Guilty For Not Reading Them
I’ve even sinned myself — up-voting or down-voting before I read the content. Sometimes I feel bad once I realize I’ve done it and go skim the article. But that’s not the point. Somebody should have stopped me before I voted on something I knew nothing about.
I diluted the votes of the informed people and that’s bad for the site.
PS I don’t think many people would game the system, do you?
