You base your answer on only first study when I pasted four examples? And potentially there is more?
legolas
joined 1 year ago
I asked ChatGPT about existing experiments on this matter. Sheep behavious is real:
Key Studies: The "Hidden Votes" Experiment (Muchnik et al., 2013)
One of the most well-known studies on this topic was published in Science by Muchnik, Aral, and Taylor. Researchers manipulated upvotes and downvotes on a social news site (similar to Reddit) with 100,000+ users. When an initial upvote was artificially added to a post, it increased the likelihood that others would upvote it by 32%. Downvotes did not have the same effect—they were often corrected by other users. The experiment suggests strong social influence in voting behavior. "Bandwagon Effect in Online Voting" (Lorenz et al., 2011)
This study found that when people saw public votes before casting their own, they converged towards the majority opinion. The effect was particularly strong in subjective judgments, like ratings of art or music. YouTube and Social Proof (Salganik, Dodds, & Watts, 2006)
In a controlled music experiment, researchers manipulated download counts for different songs. Songs with high fake download numbers became even more popular, showing strong herding behavior. "Hidden Likes" Experiment on Instagram (2019)
Instagram conducted real-world A/B testing by removing visible like counts in several countries. Initial reports suggested reduced social pressure, but Meta has not released detailed statistics. What Happens When Votes Are Hidden? Some studies show that without visible votes, people rely more on personal judgment instead of following the herd. However, others found that herding still happens when other subtle signals (such as comments, engagement, or reposts) remain.
Yeah, I edited the answer forgot about case when user wants to vote on many comments, check it out now and see if your questions still hold.
TLDR from AI Chat about whats this all about:
This guy is deep in thought about existence, change, and the nature of reality. He reflects on how everything is in constant motion—our bodies, emotions, even the universe itself. He’s exploring mindfulness, non-attachment, and going with the flow instead of resisting life’s natural rhythms. He sees time as an illusion, emotions as energy, and life as an interconnected dance. Ultimately, he’s embracing presence, letting go of control, and finding beauty in the ever-changing now.
Yeah I saw that chart, but this data comes from reddit itself, which tells me to be sceptic about it. They are public company now and they have to look good to investors.
yup its what I was thinking as well. Reddit might deliberately run ai bots to fake traffic.
what? what happened?
Damn you sound like bot you know that? No typos, perfect answer. Seriously. Can you prove you're a human? xd
Well maybe. Apparntly some folks are already doing that but its not done yet. Let's wait for the results. If everything is legit we should have not one but plenty of similar and better models in near future. If Chinese did this with 100 chips imagine what can be done with 100000 chips that nvidia can sell to a us company
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RSr_vwZGF2k This is what I watched. I base my opinion on this. Im not saying this is true. It just sounded legit enough and I didnt have time to research more. I will gladly follow some links that lead me to content that destroys this guys arguments
Yeah, techical should have actually objectively best comments on top. I don't agree that in this category the earliest comment wins. Maybe sometimes, but usually I don't think so. It depends on the size of the thread if people go through the whole section or just small piece. But that's my opinion but to prove it we would need data.
The value in controversial category is that people dont upvote just because others upvote. It demands thought from a user.
I think ultimately it's about whether you want to seek the actual truth and getting somewhere with the discussion or not. Truth can only be discovered when thinking is turned on.