i call BS on this story

mrgoldenbrown 4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

If you've never seen this level of perverse incentive, you have been lucky. The creation of and subsequent exploitation of them aren't new. For pre computer examples: https://freakonomics.com/podcast/the-cobra-effect-2/

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runako 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I can't find the reference right now, but I remember reading literature about studies done at large programming organizations (like IBM, government) who used LOCs as a performance metric. Programmers could earn more money by including more lines of code in their work. This went exactly the way you'd expect.

Edit: I think it may have been from Capers Jones's _Programming Productivity_[1]. Published in 1986, based on research covering the prior 30 years(!) or so. We have known that bad incentives specifically distort the performance of programming teams for a long time.

1 - https://archive.org/details/programmingprodu0000jone/page/n1...

	▲	ascagnel_ an hour ago \| parent [-]
		And then there was Bill Atkinson. https://www.folklore.org/Negative_2000_Lines_Of_Code.html

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breppp 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

The worse example I know is the time the Belgians forced the Congolese to harvest more rubber by cutting their hands if they haven't reached the correct quota, ensuing a cross-tribe hands trading economy

	▲	wayeq 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		> cross-tribe hands trading sounds like they had some cross cutting concerns </dad>

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phainopepla2 an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

While it is good story for illustrating perverse incentives, there is no good historical evidence that the cobra bounty program actually existed.

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mrandish 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodhart%27s_law

	▲	aspensmonster 4 hours ago \| parent [-]
		>This article is about statistics and government policy. For Nazi analogies in internet discussions, see Godwin's law.

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zeroonetwothree 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I have seen similar at my company so it is highly plausible.

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bensyverson 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I call unintended consequences on this KPI culture

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elictronic 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

They polished the turd more than stating, but the bones are real.

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DANmode 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I don’t.