Well, I am guilty of proposing a solution soon, too. But it’s interesting to see (ignoring the minor details), where we agree, and where our proposals differ. This is a quick comparision:
Common points:
software change is necessary;
creating a personalized “bubble” is not the direction we want to go, because we want to create commons;
but a democracy where all randos from internet have an equal vote is also not the way (even ignoring the issue of sockpuppets);
so we needs a group of people with trusted opinion;
a binary decision of what content is “really in” could help people who only want to spend short time online (and we should optimize for these, or at least not actively against them);
a lot of good new content is likely to appear in the “experimental” part (that’s where all the new talents are), from where it should be promited to the “in” part;
this promotion of content should be done only by the people who are already “in” (but the opinion of others can be used as a hint).
Differences:
scalable N-tiered system (reflecting familiarity and compatibility with the existing commons); or
just a “user tier” and “admin tier” with quite different rules;
content filtered by a slider (“in” or “in + somewhat less in” etc.); or
the “in” content and the “experimental / debate” content separated from each other as much as possible;
a voting system where votes from higher tiers can override the votes from lower tiers; or
probably something pretty similar, except that the “promote or not” decision would be “two or three admins say yes, and either no admin says no, or the dictator overrides”.
The summary of our differences seems to be that you want to generalize to N tiers, which all use the same algorithm; while I assume two groups using dramatically different rules. (Most of the other differences are just further consequences of this one.)
The reason for my side is that I assume that the “trusted group” will be relatively small and busy, for various reasons. (Being instrumentally rational correlates with “having a lot of high-priority work other than voting in LW debates”. Some of the trusted users will also be coders who will be busy fixing and contributing to LW code. And they will have to solve other problems that appear.) I imagine something like about 20 people, of whom only about 5 will actually be active at any given week, and 3 of those will be solving some technical or other problem. In other words, a group too small to need have their mutual communication solved by an algorithm. (And in case of admin conflict, we have the dictator anyway.)
Hi Villiam, your idea sounds like an academic community around rationality. You can think of the discussions as like the events at a conference or workshop where half-baked ideas are thrown about. And you can think of the “final” tome of knowledge as the proceedings of the journal: when an idea has been workshopped enough, it is revised and then published in the journal as Currently Definitive Knowledge.
This framing suggests having a rotating board of editors and a formal peer review system as is common in academic journals.
This is a really great summary. Maybe we should Skype or something to drill down further on our disagreement? Maybe when I’m in London, and so closer to you in timezone?
Well, I am guilty of proposing a solution soon, too. But it’s interesting to see (ignoring the minor details), where we agree, and where our proposals differ. This is a quick comparision:
Common points:
software change is necessary;
creating a personalized “bubble” is not the direction we want to go, because we want to create commons;
but a democracy where all randos from internet have an equal vote is also not the way (even ignoring the issue of sockpuppets);
so we needs a group of people with trusted opinion;
a binary decision of what content is “really in” could help people who only want to spend short time online (and we should optimize for these, or at least not actively against them);
a lot of good new content is likely to appear in the “experimental” part (that’s where all the new talents are), from where it should be promited to the “in” part;
this promotion of content should be done only by the people who are already “in” (but the opinion of others can be used as a hint).
Differences:
scalable N-tiered system (reflecting familiarity and compatibility with the existing commons); or
just a “user tier” and “admin tier” with quite different rules;
content filtered by a slider (“in” or “in + somewhat less in” etc.); or
the “in” content and the “experimental / debate” content separated from each other as much as possible;
a voting system where votes from higher tiers can override the votes from lower tiers; or
probably something pretty similar, except that the “promote or not” decision would be “two or three admins say yes, and either no admin says no, or the dictator overrides”.
The summary of our differences seems to be that you want to generalize to N tiers, which all use the same algorithm; while I assume two groups using dramatically different rules. (Most of the other differences are just further consequences of this one.)
The reason for my side is that I assume that the “trusted group” will be relatively small and busy, for various reasons. (Being instrumentally rational correlates with “having a lot of high-priority work other than voting in LW debates”. Some of the trusted users will also be coders who will be busy fixing and contributing to LW code. And they will have to solve other problems that appear.) I imagine something like about 20 people, of whom only about 5 will actually be active at any given week, and 3 of those will be solving some technical or other problem. In other words, a group too small to need have their mutual communication solved by an algorithm. (And in case of admin conflict, we have the dictator anyway.)
Hi Villiam, your idea sounds like an academic community around rationality. You can think of the discussions as like the events at a conference or workshop where half-baked ideas are thrown about. And you can think of the “final” tome of knowledge as the proceedings of the journal: when an idea has been workshopped enough, it is revised and then published in the journal as Currently Definitive Knowledge.
This framing suggests having a rotating board of editors and a formal peer review system as is common in academic journals.
Seems like a “covergent evolution” of ideas. Many people faced similar problems, and devised similar solutions.
This is a really great summary. Maybe we should Skype or something to drill down further on our disagreement? Maybe when I’m in London, and so closer to you in timezone?
Generally yes; details in PM.