[HN Gopher] ELO Everything
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       ELO Everything
        
       Author : admp
       Score  : 102 points
       Date   : 2023-06-19 16:57 UTC (6 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (eloeverything.co)
 (TXT) w3m dump (eloeverything.co)
        
       | graypegg wrote:
       | Checking out the leaderboard, there's something so viscerally
       | funny about the best things ever being
       | 
       | 1) Milk 2) Toronto 3) React
       | 
       | Thanks for the laugh! Fun little app
        
       | tectec wrote:
       | I think you'd get a lot of cycles in this, so the rating won't be
       | very stable.
        
       | jaroniscaring wrote:
       | I got excited about this but then I realized it was about ranking
       | random things instead of self-ranking your own abilities on an
       | ELO scale
        
       | FrustratedMonky wrote:
       | Great Concept, would like to see this applied to many sub-
       | categories.
        
         | drexlspivey wrote:
         | Someone should do it just for people, they could call it
         | Facemash or something
        
       | echeese wrote:
       | Elo isn't an acronym/initialism.
        
         | nameistaken wrote:
         | Cool story bro.
        
         | bee_rider wrote:
         | It is better if you just imagine that we're ranking things in
         | order of similarity to ELO (electric light orchestra).
        
           | craz8 wrote:
           | Twitter: -100; Mastodon: zero; Bluesky: 5,000
           | 
           | Yup, this could work
        
             | bee_rider wrote:
             | Now I kinda want to hear a heavy metal remake of Mr Blue
             | Sky.
        
               | splatcollision wrote:
               | Weezer has you covered.
        
         | zuminator wrote:
         | No need to be coy; it's named after Arpad Elo, the chess player
         | who came up with this general ranking method.
        
         | TechBro8615 wrote:
         | While we're on the subject, neither is TOR.
        
           | xcdzvyn wrote:
           | Tor is an acronym for "The Onion Router", it just isn't
           | capitalised as such.
           | 
           | [0] https://support.torproject.org/about/why-is-it-called-
           | tor/
           | 
           | [1] https://www.britannica.com/technology/Tor-encryption-
           | network
        
         | ftxbro wrote:
         | at some point social media posts will put mistakes like this
         | just to bait engagement
        
       | Laremere wrote:
       | See also Tom Scott's video "1,204,986 Votes Decided: What Is The
       | Best Thing?" https://youtu.be/ALy6e7GbDRQ
       | 
       | In it he mentions that he kept the site up for only a short
       | amount of time, in part to prevent anyone from writing a bot
       | which could game it. Unfortunately, that has not been the case
       | with Elo Everything, which has a clearly gamed leader board.
        
         | graypegg wrote:
         | A gamed leaderboard is kind of interesting in the same way a
         | doping-only olympics would be interesting.
        
       | ArekDymalski wrote:
       | Sriracha sauce vs Electric chair?
       | 
       | For several reasons the choice isn't that obvious.
        
       | xd1936 wrote:
       | Reminds me of Tom Scott's similar project[1].
       | 
       | 1. https://youtu.be/ALy6e7GbDRQ
        
       | klysm wrote:
       | I want to see a graph of the rankings over time
        
       | chrischen wrote:
       | Idea would be great for product recommendations, as long as the
       | spam issue can be solved. Most people can make a reliable
       | comparison between two products but maybe not among many.
        
         | _Algernon_ wrote:
         | Considering this thing ranks Adolph Hitler as the best "thing"
         | currently, above other things such as sexual intercourse, the
         | entire Earth, and Oxygen, I don't think I would trust any
         | product recommendation such a system would spit out.
        
         | remram wrote:
         | Recommending the same popular things to everyone is a bad
         | recommendation system.
        
         | paulddraper wrote:
         | > as long as the spam issue can be solved
         | 
         | At the time of writing, Adolf Hitler is #1 on the leaderboard
         | with Elo 1754.
        
           | lbotos wrote:
           | 6 minutes later -- my leaderboard shows oxygen at the top,
           | and hitler is not in the top 100.
        
             | jmmcd wrote:
             | 5 minutes later, it's Hitler #1 again
             | 
             | And democracy - "I love democracy!" - at #15
        
               | nr11_bullseye wrote:
               | Now he has -700 Elo. Did good faith just win or did the
               | owner of the website intervene?
        
               | pph wrote:
               | #589 -12579 Vladimir Putin #588 149 Adolf Hitler #587 658
               | Satan
        
               | GloriousKoji wrote:
               | Something must have broke/exploited. Hitler is still #1
               | with over 2000 matches but Baseball is in #2 with over
               | 100M matches. The next 20 are 1000-2000 matches.
        
               | [deleted]
        
       | blowski wrote:
       | What's the practical application of this? It makes sense in chess
       | where you have two players using the same rules, so a comparison
       | makes sense. But is Postgres a better database than Redis? Is The
       | Godfather a better film than Lord of the Rings? These questions
       | make no sense. Political candidates can't get an increased value
       | simply for being less popular.
       | 
       | So is the idea that you use this in a very technical space for,
       | say, ranking jobs in a queue? Or is it intended for an e-commerce
       | site to order by product ratings?
        
         | jjfoooo4 wrote:
         | I think it is supposed to be fun
        
           | blowski wrote:
           | Oh so I'm just overthinking it? Sorry. I thought ELO was some
           | trendy new algorithm being used somewhere, and this was a
           | jokey application of it.
        
             | JohnFen wrote:
             | I suspect I'm overthinking it even more! I couldn't even
             | come up with an answer to the first matchup because I have
             | no idea what I'm supposed to base my ranking on.
        
       | lumb63 wrote:
       | Neat, but in the time I spent playing, Hitler surpassed curiosity
       | and bread, to hit number one.
        
         | shp0ngle wrote:
         | He also has the highest number of matches, so somebody is
         | clearly messing up with this.
         | 
         | Maybe the API is just very simple and somebody is just sending
         | upvotes to Hitler infinitely.
        
           | paulddraper wrote:
           | Now a good soul just needs to do the opposite.
        
           | jedberg wrote:
           | > Maybe the API is just very simple and somebody is just
           | sending upvotes to Hitler infinitely
           | 
           | Yep, it has no authentication. You can just keep posting to
           | the API with Hitler beating everything.
        
       | GaggiX wrote:
       | It's funny how Hitler is winning by a very large margin.
        
         | airstrike wrote:
         | His winrate is probably terrible, though
        
           | GaggiX wrote:
           | The winrate is terribly high or he wouldn't be first.
        
         | RektBoy wrote:
         | because people are spamming HTTP POST with payload and there is
         | no verification process, just use ID of the Hitler.
        
         | cheeze wrote:
         | Given that it's just "rank higher" - I think you have 2 reasons
         | for this
         | 
         | 1. People that think its funny and choose Hitler
         | 
         | 2. People who compare Hitler to something like "Ferrari" or
         | "Rome, Italy" and go "yeah he's had more impact (from my
         | perspective)"
         | 
         | In that same sense, Hitler is arguably one of the greatest
         | leaders the world has ever seen. He was just a horrible person
         | who did horrible things.
         | 
         | I am (obviously) not a fan at all of Hitler, Nazism, etc. but
         | it's had a profound impact on our world, regardless of whether
         | it was horrible impact :(
         | 
         | But yeah, it's obvious there is some gaming of the system. Hard
         | to rank Hitler higher than "earth" or "electricity"
        
           | GaggiX wrote:
           | Definitely it's for the meme.
           | 
           | (Also the history of Rome has definitely been more impactful
           | than Hitler.)
        
       | EscapeFromNY wrote:
       | My first question was Therapy vs Dwayne Johnson.
       | https://i.imgur.com/RIVw4JG.png
       | 
       | How could you ever choose?
        
       | Sholmesy wrote:
       | Hitler is currently rank 1, so, that's an interesting application
       | of Godwin's Law
        
         | RobotToaster wrote:
         | I had no idea he was that good at chess.
        
         | shp0ngle wrote:
         | https://eloeverything.co/leaderboard
         | 
         | Yeah I think someone gamed this
        
       | kthejoker2 wrote:
       | I'm not gonna lie, I cackled at the first comparison ("reddit" vs
       | "The Garden of Earthly Delights")
       | 
       | This feels like retro Internet, I love it.
        
       | kylewatson wrote:
       | Lol, I made it until it asked me to choose between Elon Musk and
       | Torture.
        
       | GaggiX wrote:
       | Baseball has beaten Hitler with 100000001 matches, surely no one
       | is writing bots for the site, surely.
        
       | RektBoy wrote:
       | Rofl, who is spamming these POST requests to Hitler? :D
        
       | kdmccormick wrote:
       | Unironically, I want this, but for restaurants/stores/etc,
       | essentially a replacement for Google Maps' helpful but deeply
       | flawed one-to-five-star (but actually 4.0-4.9-star) rating
       | system.
        
         | SkyPuncher wrote:
         | At least the 5 star scale has become exceedingly clear that
         | anything below 4.0 is hot trash.
        
         | baobabKoodaa wrote:
         | You want restaurants to be rated by random people who have
         | never been to them?
        
           | joeframbach wrote:
           | When you search for something on Yelp and you get 10 results,
           | to places you've never been to before, and despite not
           | visiting any of them beforehand, you choose one. That's
           | what's happening here, and that's what's happening in Google
           | search results. No difference.
        
             | Aachen wrote:
             | ... but that doesn't help informing another person's
             | decision. _Someone_ should track all of everyone 's
             | restaurant visits and quiz them in this style and publish
             | the data for everyone's benefit
        
       | Underphil wrote:
       | Hitler #1 of course, because the Internet.
        
       | 7373737373 wrote:
       | Would be great to include all aesthetics from the aesthetics
       | wiki:
       | https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/aesthetics/images/d/dd/Aes...
        
       | montroser wrote:
       | Ruiners of all good things incoming...
       | 
       | It's cool, but dealing with bad-faith participants is what is
       | really difficult about these types of exercises. It works great
       | until the hurt people find it, and then the hurt people hurt
       | people -- perpetuating their sadness unto others by upvoting the
       | bad things.
        
         | mellonaut wrote:
         | within 15min of you posting this, hitler has become the #1
         | ranked thing on the leaderboard
        
           | [deleted]
        
         | chungy wrote:
         | It's a silly web site that means nothing. If you attribute hurt
         | or sadness to the result on it, that's not the fault of anyone
         | else.
        
           | [deleted]
        
         | screye wrote:
         | Naah, it's simple things like these that are fun. Choosing Rice
         | instead of Einstein was the highlight of my day.
        
           | dr_pyser wrote:
           | I mean, billions of people have lived because of rice, so I
           | don't think it's necessarily even a bad take.
        
           | berbec wrote:
           | The girl with a pearl earring vs kidney stone disease tripped
           | me up for a ms or three.
        
           | bombcar wrote:
           | Golden State Warriors or Covid-19? Easy choice.
        
             | screye wrote:
             | I am glad that Hitler isn't #1 on this list anymore.
             | Because Hitler, despite his best efforts, could only be a
             | distant 2nd when pitted again the true #1 best human being
             | : Rupert Murdoch.
        
             | tnecniv wrote:
             | I got The Bosnian Genocide and the Dallas Cowboys and that
             | one was a tough call...
        
           | incahoots wrote:
           | It was rice or Elon for me lol
        
             | Maxion wrote:
             | Taiwan vs international trade and Taiwan vs Twitter
             | verification were both wild thought experiments
        
         | schappim wrote:
         | What? You're telling me that Rupert Murdoch #1 with 1337
         | matches is not a coincidence[1]?
         | 
         | [1] https://imgur.com/a/mQFsg7x
        
           | [deleted]
        
         | mjamesaustin wrote:
         | Went to the Leaderboard and Hitler is currently in 10th place.
         | So yeah, that happened quickly. :/
        
           | ralphstodomingo wrote:
           | Currently in first now
        
           | LeifCarrotson wrote:
           | Aaand now he's in first, with over 2000 ELO, far above the
           | Earth, oxygen, or sex, which each have barely 1500.
        
           | lwansbrough wrote:
           | I don't think higher rating is an endorsement. The question
           | is only: which do you rank higher? I think Adolf Hitler ranks
           | quite highly on notoriety, especially if the comparison is
           | inherently notorious (ie. Hitler vs. Jeffrey Epstein.) So I'm
           | not sure Hitler ranking highly is in bad faith.
        
             | ctvo wrote:
             | > So I'm not sure Hitler ranking highly is in bad faith.
             | 
             | I think they may be ranking Hitler the artist or Hitler the
             | leader surely. It can't possibly be the more simple
             | explanation of the internet being full of trolls who think
             | anonymous graffiti is funny.
             | 
             | Why is it only on HN that this sort of contortion happens?
        
             | bee_rider wrote:
             | I think a more likely answer is that people are not taking
             | it very seriously, and are just picking Hitler as a troll
             | answer.
        
           | jedberg wrote:
           | It's moving around a lot, because Hitler was in first place
           | about 90 seconds before you posted this.
        
             | mkagenius wrote:
             | Its at 2031 elo now, while the closest to it is 1500 elo.
             | Lot of catching up to do but I think there is still good
             | chance to catch it before it becomes much harder.
        
               | alecco wrote:
               | I could see this as real-life version of The Office
               | episode where they stop working to decide if Hilary Swank
               | is hot or not. Busy Monday, I guess.
               | 
               | [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prince_Family_Paper
        
       | cstross wrote:
       | So not to be confused with 70s pomp rock band ELO, aka the
       | Electric Light Orchestra!
       | 
       | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_Light_Orchestra
        
       | smlacy wrote:
       | Reminds me of '00s whatsbetter.com!
        
         | zaps wrote:
         | Or 90s hotornot.com
        
       | shp0ngle wrote:
       | While the idea is good, the API is gameable, as the POST request
       | is just whoever you vote for vs who are you not, instead of some
       | session ID.
       | 
       | Predictably, someone is gaming it and spamming Adolf Hitler.
        
       | paulddraper wrote:
       | "The Elo rating system is a method for calculating the relative
       | skill levels of players in zero-sum games such as chess." [1]
       | 
       | Each outcome adjusts the winner's and loser's Elo ratings
       | according based on the current difference.
       | 
       | For example:
       | 
       | - A 1500 elo beats a 1300 elo. The winner gains 5 and the loser
       | loses 5.
       | 
       | - A 1300 elo beats a 1500 elo. The winner gains 15 and the lower
       | loses 15.
       | 
       | The math is such that a 100 point difference is 2:1 advantage. A
       | 400 difference is 9:1 advantage.
       | 
       | [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elo_rating_system
        
         | yowzadave wrote:
         | I wonder if ELO makes sense for something like this that is so
         | inherently unstable/not-normally distributed? I.e., in chess,
         | if you're playing an opponent whose rating is +800, you have
         | less than 1% chance of beating them. But in this case, we have
         | Peppa Pig currently at 1875, vs. the BMW 3 series at 1072. Can
         | we really say with any confidence that Peppa would beat the BMW
         | 99 times out of 100? It seems unlikely that increasing the
         | number of matches will change the instability of this rating.
        
           | Tenoke wrote:
           | Yes, it makes sense except that the rating will be
           | provisional and the variance really high until you have a lot
           | of comparisons.
        
           | paulddraper wrote:
           | It makes sense, unless the comparison is non-transitive.
           | 
           | I.e. a scissors-paper-rock scenario.
        
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       (page generated 2023-06-19 23:02 UTC)