It’s more that RobinZ post is itself an example of the effect that very post describes (as does your post, in a way), and your post is an example of the effect at the other end of the spectrum. RobinZ seems to be making the prediction that your post will not gain as much karma.
It certainly will not, but do we know whether this will be because of the length, or because RobinZ’s post is simply better, or because it was posted sooner?
There are other effects as well, status of the commenter included. People are more likely to read longer comments if the author is known to make good comments. I guess that this effect is weaker for shorter comments where the evaluation of actual content is easier. So, low status karma maximisers should write a lot of brief comments, and as they reach high status, they should swap to longer “walls of text”.
Correct on every point. Indeed, prase’s comment appears to imply the same prediction.
Edit: I posted my comment primarily in order that, when timestamp “18 March 2010 09:55:55AM*” arrives, a reader can examine the two posts and observe the difference in karma corresponding to the same length of voting time. I would do so myself, but that timestamp is pretty early in my time zone.
I was editing that in while you were replying or at least before I saw the reply, ironically I hadn’t read prase’s post all that closely so it didn’t come to mind immediately.
It’s more that RobinZ post is itself an example of the effect that very post describes (as does your post, in a way), and your post is an example of the effect at the other end of the spectrum. RobinZ seems to be making the prediction that your post will not gain as much karma.
It certainly will not, but do we know whether this will be because of the length, or because RobinZ’s post is simply better, or because it was posted sooner?
It is not a well-controlled experiment—but ciphergoth’s top-level comment, which is later than prase’s, has already gotten more votes than prase’s. This would suggest that the delay was not an overwhelmingly strong effect.
(Actually, MrHen’s comment likewise, and MrHen’s is not short.)
There are other effects as well, status of the commenter included. People are more likely to read longer comments if the author is known to make good comments. I guess that this effect is weaker for shorter comments where the evaluation of actual content is easier. So, low status karma maximisers should write a lot of brief comments, and as they reach high status, they should swap to longer “walls of text”.
Correct on every point. Indeed, prase’s comment appears to imply the same prediction.
Edit: I posted my comment primarily in order that, when timestamp “18 March 2010 09:55:55AM*” arrives, a reader can examine the two posts and observe the difference in karma corresponding to the same length of voting time. I would do so myself, but that timestamp is pretty early in my time zone.
I was editing that in while you were replying or at least before I saw the reply, ironically I hadn’t read prase’s post all that closely so it didn’t come to mind immediately.