Friends Voting on HHR | Hao Hao Report

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Sat, 02/06/2010 - 00:40

chengduliving

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Joined: 01/04/2010

Gold Stars: 2535

Friends Voting on HHR

I'm a new member to HHR and I just want clarification on some of the rules - specifically those related to referring friends and colleagues to the site.

As I submit articles to the site, I tell people about the site and encourage them to take part in it. Naturally I'm not surprised when they vote up articles that they authored, contributed to, or were written by personal friends. However, four recently submitted stories were all voted down by a particular user (NFX) who I assume was under the impression that I'm trying to game the system because the same two users voted up stories submitted by me.

Is it against the rules to refer new users to the site if they vote up stories submitted by you? My site is a collaborative effort and the people who are involved naturally take interest in sharing their work with others. Each vote comes from a different person.

Thanks! I look forward to reading, commenting, and contributing more in the future.

Sat, 02/06/2010 - 05:45

NFX

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Joined: 12/29/2009

Gold Stars: 944

First, let me make one thing clear, I like the stories from your site and certainly did not want to create animosity. The reason I voted the stories down as a set, something I must say I never otherwise do, is that you put 4 stories together from your own source (which it clearly mentions in the guidelines/faq not to do), then I noted they were all voted for by the same new users. That was it. The nuances of friends and fellow contributors voting for ones own friends/ sites stories others here can clarify. My own take on that is that friends votes/ fellow same site contributors' votes is a bit uncool, let the wider community here decide. I do recognise though it's not that clear. Anyway, again, good articles and no animosity meant.

Sat, 02/06/2010 - 11:59

Ryan

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Joined: 06/01/2006

Gold Stars: 0

To chime in with my 2-cents, and to answer ChengduLiving's question -- yes, absolutely invite friends and colleagues to join the site!

The more quality people who join the HHR community the better it is for all of us.

That said, joining specifically to only vote a story up that you are connected with is bad form and defeats the principle of Hao Hao Report -- which isn't to promote stories, it's to promote good stories.

Obviously what is "good" is subjective, and that is why we use votes. So, if a pool of users join the site with their only objective being to vote up stories from a site they are connected with, that goes against this principle.

However, if a bunch of friends join the site and just happen to always vote up stories they are connected with (as obviously they think they're good) but ALSO are active members of the site (submitting stories from multiple sources, taking part in conversations, voting on other people's stories, etc.) then their bias is somewhat negated.

The thing to remember is that getting your stories on the front page isn't a competition -- it's a reward from the HHR community for having a good story.

-- The four stories in a row though was a violation, and so I've deleted two of them. Technically still a violation, but those two stories both had active comment threads, so I left them.