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Rate Your IM Popularity
aicrules writes "The internet has long been a safe haven, and thus a play-field-leveling force, for the less socially adept to create a network of friends to share in fun, games, and conversation. However, it appears as if the influence of the social ladder is creeping its way in. While it will certainly lend itself to the abuse that any online scoring system faces, AimFight is the new place where people can go to check their popularity against others." From the article: "Your popularity is based on who has you on their buddy list. There's a complicated algorithm at work here. Your score is measured to the third degree, in the sense of the 'six degrees of separation' game that seeks to link anybody on Earth to any other person through no more than five friends. Say a couple of your friends, A and B, have you on their buddy lists. A, who has three people on her buddy list, doesn't add much to your score. That's because she doesn't have as many people on her buddy list as does B, who has 16. Your friend A is clearly not as well-connected as your friend B. Not unlike life."
So if we're supposed to be getting away from this, what's with the Friends thing on /. ??
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Outside of 13 year olds, Who the hell gives a flying fuck about their IM popularity?
"not unlike life"?
Yes it is! It's on a damn computer. You can't see, hear, smell, or touch the other person.
This is just another nerdy pissing contest.
This fight is for people who aren't technical and are in the US. I score very low because most of my friends (and their friends) are on ICQ.
I read the internet for the articles.
It's to prove that the younger you are, the truly more 'hip' you are. For instance, my younger brother by 4 years is a *little* more popular than I am, while my sister who is 10 years younger (18yrs old and on her way to college) ranked in the top 5% of AIM users! Yikes! She blew me out of the water. But c'mon, we all had more friends during high school and/or college than we do as we grow older. Grandma and grandpa's all over the US would score in the bottom 0.1% of AIM users simply because a bunch of people from their generation are dead now.
Still, it's a fun use of an interesting algorithm.
Similarly, I noticed that all the girls I'm friends with are vastly more popular than the guys I'm friends with. And it seems that as breast size increases, popularity also does. The sad thing here is that I'm not even trolling, try it for yourself.