Researchers Show How Easy It Is To Manipulate Online Opinions 115
jcatcw writes "A recent study shows that a single random up-vote, randomly chosen, created a herding behavior in ratings that resulted in a 25% increase in the ratings but the negative manipulation had no effect. An intuitive explanation for this asymmetry is that we tend to go along with the positive opinions of others, but we tend to be skeptical of the negative opinions of others, and so we go in and correct what we think is an injustice. The third major result was that these effects varied by topic. So in business and society, culture, politics, we found substantial susceptibility to positive herding, whereas in general news, economics, IT, we found no such herding effects in the positive or negative direction."
Re:OK (Score:5, Funny)
Re:OK (Score:5, Funny)
Re:SubjectsInCommentsAreStupid (Score:4, Funny)
Microsoft and SCO are Good! (Score:5, Funny)
just testing the theory...
Re:obvious (Score:4, Funny)
You have confused "idiots who can't grasp the math and instead accept Limbaugh's drivel as gospel" with "scientists". Easy mistake, apparently, since the majority of Americans make the same one.
Re:Slashdot members knows this (Score:2, Funny)
"... and several people have multiple accounts here. I've run across them and had my karma croppy-flop from excellent to neutral in just a few minutes because I told an Apple fanboy their god was dead."
Haha. (Not laughing at the karma thing, because I've run into it before, more than once.)
But just think about the KIND of person who does that.
First, sock-puppetry is generally considered to be a hangin' offense in online forums like Slashdot.
Second, they are SO upset by your "non-mainstream" comment that they risk (however slightly) ostracism for signing into a sock-puppet account (Anonymous Coward counts here) to mod you down. They could not argue with you honestly, so they backstabbed you instead.
While I agree that it's a shitty thing to do to somebody, and I probably get more such than most, I have learned to take it philosophically. The occasional down-mod doesn't hurt me that much, and I can only laugh at people who are so sad and pathetic that they have to hide around corners and shoot you in the back, rather than argue with you honestly.
Re:I'll disprove this theory (Score:4, Funny)
I predict this post will be forgotten quickly and accomplish nothing
This guy has balls of crystal, I tell you!