Should there be more people on the leaderboard?

casebash

I'm wondering what the optimal number of people on the leaderboard would be. I suspect that people who appear on the leaderboard post more often because they want to remain on it. The other advantage, is that if the leaderboard seems in reach, more people will compete to get on it.On the other hand, if too many people were added to the leaderboard, then "being on the leaderboard" would be worthless and people would only care if they had a high position.

There are currently 15 people on the leaderboard. I suspect that if there were 20 people on the leaderboard, that would increase the motivation effect, without significantly devaluing being on the leaderboard itself.

What do people think?

I pay loads of attention to my positive karma percentage

I've seen a suggestion in a comment here that you don't want your positive karma percentage to be near 100%, because it indicates you are being consumed by the hive mind.

That's something you might want to go by. Not me. I don't thrive in controversy nearly as much as you. The topics on which LessWrongers go hivemind-y about can very easily be sidestepped without incurring downvotes; medium to low karma percentages more often indicate that the poster has a penchant for getting himself into every controversial shit the site has to offer.

4Vaniver11y

I think there are aspects of posting where one most certainly wants to be 'consumed by the hivemind'--if your posts are never so poorly reasoned that you get a downvote for that reason, then more power to you! And if one is polite, clear, and kind, one can weigh in on controversial topics with a different view than the hivemind and still not get downvoted.