Well, I agree, of course, it's hard to say that we don't do better than Billboard. That was a little bit of hyperbole. But consider: People upvote things for a zillion reasons.
Because it made them chuckle.
Because they agree with it.
Because it shoots down another submission they really disagree with.
Because the post wasn't very good but it had a link and the link was really good.
Because the author came and posted in the comment thread and said something interesting about it.
Because their buddy posted it.
Because a minor HN celebrity posted it.
Because it's all about banana-flavored threadsafe data structures in Erlang and they did their Ph.D. thesis on banana-flavored data structures and nobody ever posts about them anymore.
Most of those barely correlate to what we mean when we say "quality" at all. The people who upvote only things that are "high quality" probably upvote much less, in fact, than people who upvote for other reasons. So that's why I would not expect upvotes to correlate with quality.
At the moment, everyone upvotes anything containing the word 'iPad'. So boring. I think editorial control usually works far better than voting up/down by users. Democracy absolutely sucks.
Because it made them chuckle. Because they agree with it. Because it shoots down another submission they really disagree with. Because the post wasn't very good but it had a link and the link was really good. Because the author came and posted in the comment thread and said something interesting about it. Because their buddy posted it. Because a minor HN celebrity posted it. Because it's all about banana-flavored threadsafe data structures in Erlang and they did their Ph.D. thesis on banana-flavored data structures and nobody ever posts about them anymore.
Most of those barely correlate to what we mean when we say "quality" at all. The people who upvote only things that are "high quality" probably upvote much less, in fact, than people who upvote for other reasons. So that's why I would not expect upvotes to correlate with quality.