insider and outsider voting data - 180 days, 2014-03-27

Conversation started Mar 27, 2014 at 22:05.

Shog9

Mar 27, 2014 22:05

Defining "outsider votes" as votes cast by someone who hasn't yet earned even 15 reputation on the site at the time the vote was cast

And looking at all votes cast during the past 180 days

We'll define "outsider agreement" as a case where outsider votes on a post are > 0 and insider (folks who've earned >= 15 rep on the site) upvotes - insider downvotes are also > 0

We'll define "outsider disagreement" as a case where outsider votes on a post are > 0 and insider votes are < 0

Cases of outsider agreement: 2,680

Cases of outsider disagreement: 277

Monica Cellio

@Shog9 excellent! Thank you so much for bringing some real data to this discussion!

Shog9

Wait, there's more:

Cases where the insiders' votes would've brought a post's score < 0, but outsider votes were present in sufficient quantity to make the post's score positive: 147

Total posts voted on by outsiders in the past 180 days: 3870

Total posts voted on by insiders in the past 180 days: 7186

Total posts voted on by both groups in the past 180 days: 3053

Draw your own conclusions from this

Monica Cellio

Digesting -- thanks so much!

What is the difference between outsider disagreement (277) and insider negative but for outside votes (147)?

enderland

thanks for posting this @Shog9

Shog9

@MonicaCellio So... Imagine you & I see an answer & we both downvote it. It's at -2. Then 3 people come in with nothing but the association bonus and up-vote it. It's at +1. There are 147 cases like that

enderland

Mar 27, 2014 22:16

I think it identifies that not 100% of the "lots of low quality crap" upvoted is from non-site regulars

Shog9

Now imagine @enderland and @RhysW both downvote the same answer, so it's at -1 again. There are 277 cases like that.

enderland

which means there are plenty of people HERE who upvote that crap too (I think that's a safe conclusion from this data)

Shog9

@enderland yes

enderland

which I guess should be a logical inference, from some of the low quality answers which still pick up upvotes even without hitting the hot questions list

hrmmm

Monica Cellio

@enderland sure looks that way to me. And while outsiders are contributing to crap-votes, they are a small part of the problem it appears.

enderland

Mar 27, 2014 22:19

it'd be interesting to see something like, for users whose average post is below say 200 words (this is arbitrary) how often users like that upvote similar content, vs people who's average post is say 400 words (again, arbitrary, I don't think you can only do this)

Shog9

Oh, shoot... I forgot a really critical one:

Total insider votes during the past 180 days: 29,479

Total outsider votes during the past 180 days: 12,837

enderland

wow, that's impressive, actually

so a very good percentage of voting here IS from non-"regulars"

Monica Cellio

@Shog9 am I reading this right -- there were ~700 posts that only outsiders voted on (insiders didn't)?

Shog9

@MonicaCellio something like that

enderland

@MonicaCellio that's fascinating

Shog9

Mar 27, 2014 22:22

I'm not breaking this down any further right now, but a really common case for that involves answers to questions being upvoted by the asker

Monica Cellio

@Shog9 ah.

enderland

thanks for this data @Shog9. I'm not sure how hard it is to generate but it's definitely interesting and very appreciated

Shog9

I doubt that's all of it, but at least on other sites you tend to get this really long tail where the only two people interested in voting are the ones asking and answering

Monica Cellio

Ok, so if I'm reading all this right, we have significant "outside" participation, but only in 5-10% of cases does that participation disagree with the community.

RhysW

oooh im a variable, serious note, thanks for taking the time to do this

Monica Cellio

Mar 27, 2014 22:25

@RhysW I think you're the value of a variable, technically. :-)

I've been wondering how much of the issue comes from within versus without, and it's great to have some data to look at instead of everybody guessing about causes and then moving straight to remedies. Thanks again @Shog9. This is very helpful.

RhysW

@MonicaCellio potato potato (this phrase does not translate well to the internet)

Monica Cellio

@RhysW I believe I get your reference.

Shog9

@MonicaCellio Right. And if you consider that even most of those 5-10% are "controversial" in the sense that they're getting both up-votes and down-votes from insiders, you can see there's a lot to be gained from community education.

RhysW

@MonicaCellio phew, that would have been difficult to explain otherwise

Monica Cellio

@RhysW tomato tomato, yes.

RhysW

Mar 27, 2014 22:28

Side note, im happy that disagreement in and out of the site is as low as that

Monica Cellio

@Shog9 it sure looks that way, yes.

Conversation ended Mar 27, 2014 at 22:28.

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