xiongchiamiov's recent activity

  1. Comment on App? in ~tildes

    xiongchiamiov
    Link Parent
    I'm mobile-primarily for non-work things these days. For me, the big distinction is whether I'm consuming or creating content - media I'm reading is all browser-based, but if I'm signed in and...

    I'm mobile-primarily for non-work things these days. For me, the big distinction is whether I'm consuming or creating content - media I'm reading is all browser-based, but if I'm signed in and interacting with something on a regular basis I strongly prefer an app.

    Things apps provide that mobile websites don't:

    • notifications
    • "open with" abilities
    • better performance
    • more consistent UX with the platform (generally)
    • better integration with LastPass
    • show up in the Android app-switcher
    • if implemented correctly, loads back where I was when coming back to it after it got kicked out of memory (websites tend to reload the page)
    5 votes

  2. Comment on Looking for a nice pen suggestion in ~hobbies

  3. Comment on Submission gamification and the "karma" problem in ~tildes

    xiongchiamiov
    Link Parent
    I spent a while answering Ansible questions on Stack Overflow. But then eventually I realized that I was averaging 0.5 upvotes per answer (that is, most of the time not even the OP voted, even if...

    For example, on Stack Overflow, you get "points" for answering questions and having your answers voted up. Any vote on any answer is generally worth the same amount of points, so what's the best way to get points? It's certainly not by writing long, in-depth responses to difficult questions; it's by writing answers to extremely easy questions, as quickly as possible. They ended up inadvertently incentivizing people to post low-quality answers to low-quality questions. And then this also ended up encouraging people to post even more low-quality questions, because people learn that they can get easy questions answered extremely quickly by point-seekers.

    I spent a while answering Ansible questions on Stack Overflow. But then eventually I realized that I was averaging 0.5 upvotes per answer (that is, most of the time not even the OP voted, even if they left a comment saying it helped!), and that depressed me so much that I've stopped contributing to the site for the most part. I spent a much longer time helping people on the Ubuntu forums in years past, so my hypothesis is that it wasn't so much the lack of a (virtual) reward that turned me off, but the lack of a reward in a system that gives them out to other people. It's sorta like, if we're all volunteering it's fine, but if you start paying someone then you better pay everyone.

    3 votes