XP inflation

created by Sylvar
(idea) by Sylvar (3.5 mon) (print)   (I like it!) 1 C! Mon May 01 2000 at 16:55:10
As more people participate in E2, more votes become available every day. As established noders get higher up in the Voting/Experience System, more votes become available. Since there's an incentive to use all of your votes, more available votes are cast. And since downvoting is frowned upon (and because many folks concentrate on voting up good contributions), most of the new votes being cast are positive.

The net effect, as I think we'll soon see, is that a writeup with a reputation of 25 or higher will no longer be extraordinary. Everything's Best Writeups will have reputations of 100, and then 1000. It'll be like pinball, where a score of 10,000 used to mean something at the end of a game. Now it means you hit a bumper.

As the value of one vote disappears into the background radiation of infinite monkeys voting randomly, people will be discouraged to realize that their vote doesn't even mean much anymore. They'll stay away from the polls in record numbers. And then, my friend, the infinite monkeys will have won.

Addenda: There is now a level 11 in the Voting/Experience System, and moJoe's I will REMOVE the fucking toilet seat if you don't shut up has become the first writeup with a reputation above 100.

Y'know, if you log in, you can write something here, or contact authors directly on the site. Create a New User if you don't already have an account.