And thats why I don't care about getting more favorites for my comments.
August 9, 2013 8:20 PM Subscribe
Sinan Aral, a network scientist at MIT in Cambridge, has been secretly working with a popular website that aggregates news stories. Over the five-month period, the researchers randomly manipulated the ratings given to 101,281 comments to the site. He found that comments whose ratings were manipulated in a favorable direction saw their popularity snowball, receiving a 25 percent higher average rating from other site users.
The study suggests that many people are, in fact, heavily influenced by the positive opinions other people express online — but are much less swayed by negative opinions posted in the same venues. Certain topics, including politics, see much more of this “herding” effect than others.
The study suggests that many people are, in fact, heavily influenced by the positive opinions other people express online — but are much less swayed by negative opinions posted in the same venues. Certain topics, including politics, see much more of this “herding” effect than others.
This post was deleted for the following reason: Double. -- restless_nomad
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