Even though it might not be the perfect way to estimate topicality for a comment/submission, karma is the best thing we have.
I don't think so. "Topicality" matches "lack of flagging", not "many upvotes". Or at least, it should -- there should be some standardized way, used by most HN members, of marking that they don't think a submission is good HN content.
This actually brings us to a very common problem on HN caused by the fact that you can't downvote links. It works like this:
Suppose you have two links, Link A and Link B. Link A is stupid TechCrunch linkbait, and Link B is an interesting scientific article. Link A is something everyone on the site understands, and 100 people upvote it. But in reality, suppose 2/3 of the people on HN actually would have downvoted it for being a terrible article -- but couldn't -- because there's no downvote.
Link B doesn't have as wide an appeal and gets only 20 upvotes, but nobody thinks it's a bad link. Yet despite 2/3 of the people on HN thinking that the TechCrunch article is terrible, Link A rates way higher than Link B.
While downvotes have their downsides, the fact that HN has no link downvotes basically guarantees that stupid linkbait industry buzz fills the top stories constantly. This is basically the HN equivalent of the Bikeshed problem.
It also gives people an incentive to submit the most linkbaity, overdramatized links possible, because the goal is not to submit good links: it's to submit links that get lots of upvotes. And when there's no downvotes, the best way to get upvotes is to get as much attention as humanly possible.
I don't think so. "Topicality" matches "lack of flagging", not "many upvotes". Or at least, it should -- there should be some standardized way, used by most HN members, of marking that they don't think a submission is good HN content.
This actually brings us to a very common problem on HN caused by the fact that you can't downvote links. It works like this:
Suppose you have two links, Link A and Link B. Link A is stupid TechCrunch linkbait, and Link B is an interesting scientific article. Link A is something everyone on the site understands, and 100 people upvote it. But in reality, suppose 2/3 of the people on HN actually would have downvoted it for being a terrible article -- but couldn't -- because there's no downvote.
Link B doesn't have as wide an appeal and gets only 20 upvotes, but nobody thinks it's a bad link. Yet despite 2/3 of the people on HN thinking that the TechCrunch article is terrible, Link A rates way higher than Link B.
While downvotes have their downsides, the fact that HN has no link downvotes basically guarantees that stupid linkbait industry buzz fills the top stories constantly. This is basically the HN equivalent of the Bikeshed problem.
It also gives people an incentive to submit the most linkbaity, overdramatized links possible, because the goal is not to submit good links: it's to submit links that get lots of upvotes. And when there's no downvotes, the best way to get upvotes is to get as much attention as humanly possible.