Re:Show HN: Choose a Word
by phailhaus on Monday September 16, 2019 @12:19AM
(#20981061)
I think that's the core reason why it works, actually. If you don't show the votes then all three tribes will end up being functionally the same: x people choosing more or less randomly between n options. The chances that you vote on the winner is very low, which means that you never feel like part of a tribe. But when you have vote counts, you can see the kinds of people in your tribe and each tribe can develop a personality. The rise and fall of a word over the course of a day is more interesting than voting on a word and then waiting until tomorrow to see what the most voted word was.
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Re:Show HN: Choose a Word
by mellosouls on Monday September 16, 2019 @01:40AM
(#20981398)
X people who've favoured a particular word out of n words in the first list.
So n (possibly) different base perspectives. And are the secondary word lists the same in each case?
I agree with the parent comment - the values will bias the decision on next word, but then I don't understand the point of the exercise yet.
I'm not saying that the values don't bias decisions, I'm saying that they _must_ bias decisions for this to be an interesting experiment. Without vote values there is no sense of a tribe, no reason to check in during the day, it's just a daily random voting exercise with no purpose.
Once you add vote counts there is an actual narrative that plays out over the course of a day (as words rise and fall relative to each other), and each tribe will actually develop a personality independent from the others.
If you're concerned about early votes being disproportionately influential, then you can use Reddit's approach and hide vote counts until enough people vote.