Sunday, December 24, 2006
JSH: Perspective is weird
One of the odder things that has emerged recently as I have expressed my opinion of posts with ratings on Google Groups as they give that option is that people who replied to me so obsessively actually care about getting an honest assessment of the reality of how much their posting is valued by both the number of ratings they get—few—and the reality that there are maybe 3 or 4 other people who try to combat my low ratings.
It gives them some perspective on their real social ranking on the newsgroup.
Before, they must have just looked at replies, where as I've noted, maybe 3 or 4 people can make it look like there is a LOT of support for them by replying a lot in a thread, but the ratings tell you how many people are rating and give you some idea of how it goes.
I am highly critical, not surprisingly, so I mostly give out 1 star, as I see a lot of crap posts and rate them accordingly.
Their supporters, all three or four of them, come back to give them 5 stars, an outlandish overrating as their posts ARE crap, but still it seems to settle in that hey, they are not the newsgroup celebrities they thought they were.
These people didn't know where they actually stood.
But my guess is they thought they were very popular with most of the newsgroup, of which they seem to believe there are a few hundred readers with a few dozen regular readers based on the posts they notice.
Weird, but from what I've read from these people in the past, consistent with their gut feeling of the size of the sci.math newsgroup.
In contrast I measure my impact off of the newsgroup and don't count replies to my posts because I know there are a few very obsessive people who skew things to the negative because they think they are some kind of stars or something posting negatives the newsgroup wants to see.
But they are actually minor hanger's on, drawing attention to themselves at the expense of my research which I can measure as having an ever growing worldwide impact by using a lot of tools, which yes are mostly as a result of Google, that tell me what the real impact is, versus the skewed view you'd get from posts on the newsgroup.
Perspective is weird that way. Most people have no clue about their worldwide impact and in a situation where there is worldwide attention—like here—they just screw up figuring out where they stand as they don't take the proper view that it takes work to figure out what is going on.
Especially in a world like ours does it take work.
Like how many of you have the slightest hint of a clue how many people are likely to read this post in the next 24 hours?
Dozens? Hundreds? Thousands?
Or in how many countries?
1? 2 or 3? 20 or more?
If you accept that your answer is you do not know, then maybe you are on the path to realizing that unlike me, you have no clue what is actually going on.
It gives them some perspective on their real social ranking on the newsgroup.
Before, they must have just looked at replies, where as I've noted, maybe 3 or 4 people can make it look like there is a LOT of support for them by replying a lot in a thread, but the ratings tell you how many people are rating and give you some idea of how it goes.
I am highly critical, not surprisingly, so I mostly give out 1 star, as I see a lot of crap posts and rate them accordingly.
Their supporters, all three or four of them, come back to give them 5 stars, an outlandish overrating as their posts ARE crap, but still it seems to settle in that hey, they are not the newsgroup celebrities they thought they were.
These people didn't know where they actually stood.
But my guess is they thought they were very popular with most of the newsgroup, of which they seem to believe there are a few hundred readers with a few dozen regular readers based on the posts they notice.
Weird, but from what I've read from these people in the past, consistent with their gut feeling of the size of the sci.math newsgroup.
In contrast I measure my impact off of the newsgroup and don't count replies to my posts because I know there are a few very obsessive people who skew things to the negative because they think they are some kind of stars or something posting negatives the newsgroup wants to see.
But they are actually minor hanger's on, drawing attention to themselves at the expense of my research which I can measure as having an ever growing worldwide impact by using a lot of tools, which yes are mostly as a result of Google, that tell me what the real impact is, versus the skewed view you'd get from posts on the newsgroup.
Perspective is weird that way. Most people have no clue about their worldwide impact and in a situation where there is worldwide attention—like here—they just screw up figuring out where they stand as they don't take the proper view that it takes work to figure out what is going on.
Especially in a world like ours does it take work.
Like how many of you have the slightest hint of a clue how many people are likely to read this post in the next 24 hours?
Dozens? Hundreds? Thousands?
Or in how many countries?
1? 2 or 3? 20 or more?
If you accept that your answer is you do not know, then maybe you are on the path to realizing that unlike me, you have no clue what is actually going on.
# posted by James Harris @ 11:48 
