Economic interdependence is what drives the niceness here. Anyone who seriously cares about startups or hacking and wants to benefit from this crowd is likely to follow the guidelines as best they can.
But people lacking the same incentives will probably unknowingly slide into some form of bad behavior even if they've been active on the site for years - it will just happen naturally, because their economic equation is "amuse myself" with no mitigating factors. But most of the time it probably doesn't cause overt vandalism, just poor commenting hygiene.
>But people lacking the same incentives will probably unknowingly slide into some form of bad behavior even if they've been active on the site for years - it will just happen naturally, because their economic equation is "amuse myself" with no mitigating factors. But most of the time it probably doesn't cause overt vandalism, just poor commenting hygiene.
I am not so sure about that - I come here and post comments in the hope that people will like them (doesn't work that well) because I derive my sense of worth from how much karma I have
I personally feel a tiny amount of satisfaction in contributing something meaningful to a conversation, and I like to try and keep overall contributions to a community posative because if everyone did that it would make the community a better place for me.
Arguably selfish motivations, but they work out well for everyone.
But people lacking the same incentives will probably unknowingly slide into some form of bad behavior even if they've been active on the site for years - it will just happen naturally, because their economic equation is "amuse myself" with no mitigating factors. But most of the time it probably doesn't cause overt vandalism, just poor commenting hygiene.