And if you follow some of the links in that conversation to even earlier conversations, you see that at one point the target of my accusation got caught in it himself. This isn’t just a matter of a single person being naughty; this is a failure of the karma system. Of COURSE human minds are going to use tools in this way, even if it is not rational or communally beneficial to do so; I’d rather have a system that wasn’t so easy to abuse, than be constantly vigilant in calling out abusers.
While that may be useful, I suspect that the set of people who will do this are so actively mindkilled that having them here is unlikely to be a net positive. And it is unlikely for the foreseeable future that the mods are going to o anything.
When the mass downvoting started, it very nearly mindkilled me. There’s something deep-set that gets triggered when you KNOW you’re being fucked with, and you KNOW you can’t do anything about it but retaliate in kind. I had to put up a few hasty new Schelling fences to not descend to the same level of bullshit.
The downvote-stalker process is memetically contagious.
The downvote-stalker process is memetically contagious.
That’s an interesting hypothesis. But if so, that doesn’t then mean that changing the system isn’t going to cause infected people to now stop being infected. (This may be stretching the metaphor more too much.)
So you are basically saying that you had a downvoting war with another person and while you stopped downvoting them, they didn’t stop downvoting you?
No, I’m saying I had a very, VERY strong impulse to respond to a perceived downvoting spat by turning it into a downvoting war. I did not actually retaliate.
I’ve contributed to threads where my discussion partner’s every comment was downvoted, but it wasn’t me. The damage isn’t done just to the one being downvoted, it’s pretty annoying to be part of such conversations.
The more common retributive downvoting is, the likelier false positives for “downvoting spats” become, and that will lead to a vicious downward spiral if everyone decides to play tit for tat after someone started it.
So, I’m curious: did you actually misinterpret what ialdabaoth said as meaning that, or did you understand the literal meaning of his words but assume the underlying reality had been different, or did what ialdabaoth said actually mean that under an interpretive frame you still endorse, or something else/some combination?
I don’t think that he intended to say that. On the other hand I don’t have full information of what’s happening and there are multiple theories that would explain the reality I observe.
I ask myself, what did ialdabaoth do, to provoke such a response? I myself think that I wrote plenty of controversial post in the past. I sometimes experienced someone downvoting 20 or 30 posts but never a really substantial amount, so that I would be worried about the affair.
The thread title is about negotiating peace. In general the notion of peace negotiations is about two sides who are at war with each other.
This information produces certain priors. ialdabaoth saying that he thinks it memetically contagious was then enough to voice that hypothesis.
And it is unlikely for the foreseeable future that the mods are going to o anything.
Just pointing out that this IS a problem that is temporarily solvable by collective action. If about five people decided to karmassassinate the user in question, they could keep his karma at 0, which I believe would stop him from being able to downvote (until he set up a sock).
(Interestingly, I’m quite fine with losing a significant amount of karma if this post gets heavily downvoted because people don’t like the idea of mob rule. I really don’t care about my karma number. But there’s a big difference between losing magic internet points because people disagree with what you say, versus someone following you around downvoting you, which feels stalkery/predatory.)
Rather than saying that this is a problem that is temporarily solvable by collective action, I would say that this is a problem which is currently ONLY solvable by collective action. The offenders clearly don’t care; the admins clearly aren’t going to do anything. It even appears as though the karma assassination has begun, as the user in question’s karma has dropped quite a bit in the last few days.
Frankly, having read through a number of the user in question’s posts, I’m ok with that, but I don’t think it’ll work. He seems to get his karma from rationality quote posting, which is a powerful karma generator. His actual comments are IMHO rarely worthy of an upvote and often deserving of a downvote, but he gains much karma from posting other people’s brilliance.
Perhaps this is another distortion in the karma system that would be worth looking at. Copy/pasting a rationality quote every few days from last years threads can easily keep your karma at a reasonable level even if the bulk of your other posts are crap or mildly offensive. Perhaps karma from those threads could be configured to not accumulate, or perhaps karma could be ‘number of posts upvoted minus number of posts downvoted’, instead of a vote total.
Frankly, having read through a number of the user in question’s posts, I’m ok with that, but I don’t think it’ll work. He seems to get his karma from rationality quote posting, which is a powerful karma generator. His actual comments are IMHO rarely worthy of an upvote and often deserving of a downvote, but he gains much karma from posting other people’s brilliance.
This is in general problem. There are other users who seem to do this also, but they don’t post as frequently so it hasn’t created as much of a problem. But in this particular case, it may also be instructive to look at where the quotes are coming from. A fundamental idea behind the rationality quotes is that rational thinking should be taken from wherever one finds it. And in the past there have been well-received quotes even from Jack Chick and the Unabomber. But, in this particular instance, a large section of the quotes come from people involved in a specific end of American politics. That may indicate further problems given the consistent nature of who is being quoted. It looks like they may see the quote threads as further opportunity to advertise their preferred politics an political writers.
There’ s a less controversial way potentially of having the same result at least at a temporary level: go through the user in question’s posts and remove your upvotes.
Well, that (plus a few similar anecdotes relayed via private message) make me feel a little less uncomfortable calling them out publicly.
I also just ran across this interesting old conversation which may indicate this problem has been going on for some time.
And if you follow some of the links in that conversation to even earlier conversations, you see that at one point the target of my accusation got caught in it himself. This isn’t just a matter of a single person being naughty; this is a failure of the karma system. Of COURSE human minds are going to use tools in this way, even if it is not rational or communally beneficial to do so; I’d rather have a system that wasn’t so easy to abuse, than be constantly vigilant in calling out abusers.
While that may be useful, I suspect that the set of people who will do this are so actively mindkilled that having them here is unlikely to be a net positive. And it is unlikely for the foreseeable future that the mods are going to o anything.
When the mass downvoting started, it very nearly mindkilled me. There’s something deep-set that gets triggered when you KNOW you’re being fucked with, and you KNOW you can’t do anything about it but retaliate in kind. I had to put up a few hasty new Schelling fences to not descend to the same level of bullshit.
The downvote-stalker process is memetically contagious.
Sure, it fits the pattern of defection. We’re better off if nobody does it.
That’s an interesting hypothesis. But if so, that doesn’t then mean that changing the system isn’t going to cause infected people to now stop being infected. (This may be stretching the metaphor more too much.)
So you are basically saying that you had a downvoting war with another person and while you stopped downvoting them, they didn’t stop downvoting you?
No, I’m saying I had a very, VERY strong impulse to respond to a perceived downvoting spat by turning it into a downvoting war. I did not actually retaliate.
In case someone hasn’t mentioned it, thank you for not participating in this nasty feedback loop.
I’ve contributed to threads where my discussion partner’s every comment was downvoted, but it wasn’t me. The damage isn’t done just to the one being downvoted, it’s pretty annoying to be part of such conversations.
The more common retributive downvoting is, the likelier false positives for “downvoting spats” become, and that will lead to a vicious downward spiral if everyone decides to play tit for tat after someone started it.
So, I’m curious: did you actually misinterpret what ialdabaoth said as meaning that, or did you understand the literal meaning of his words but assume the underlying reality had been different, or did what ialdabaoth said actually mean that under an interpretive frame you still endorse, or something else/some combination?
I don’t think that he intended to say that. On the other hand I don’t have full information of what’s happening and there are multiple theories that would explain the reality I observe.
I ask myself, what did ialdabaoth do, to provoke such a response? I myself think that I wrote plenty of controversial post in the past. I sometimes experienced someone downvoting 20 or 30 posts but never a really substantial amount, so that I would be worried about the affair.
The thread title is about negotiating peace. In general the notion of peace negotiations is about two sides who are at war with each other.
This information produces certain priors. ialdabaoth saying that he thinks it memetically contagious was then enough to voice that hypothesis.
(nods) OK, I think I understood that. Thanks for answering my question.
Just pointing out that this IS a problem that is temporarily solvable by collective action. If about five people decided to karmassassinate the user in question, they could keep his karma at 0, which I believe would stop him from being able to downvote (until he set up a sock).
(Interestingly, I’m quite fine with losing a significant amount of karma if this post gets heavily downvoted because people don’t like the idea of mob rule. I really don’t care about my karma number. But there’s a big difference between losing magic internet points because people disagree with what you say, versus someone following you around downvoting you, which feels stalkery/predatory.)
Rather than saying that this is a problem that is temporarily solvable by collective action, I would say that this is a problem which is currently ONLY solvable by collective action. The offenders clearly don’t care; the admins clearly aren’t going to do anything. It even appears as though the karma assassination has begun, as the user in question’s karma has dropped quite a bit in the last few days.
Frankly, having read through a number of the user in question’s posts, I’m ok with that, but I don’t think it’ll work. He seems to get his karma from rationality quote posting, which is a powerful karma generator. His actual comments are IMHO rarely worthy of an upvote and often deserving of a downvote, but he gains much karma from posting other people’s brilliance.
Perhaps this is another distortion in the karma system that would be worth looking at. Copy/pasting a rationality quote every few days from last years threads can easily keep your karma at a reasonable level even if the bulk of your other posts are crap or mildly offensive. Perhaps karma from those threads could be configured to not accumulate, or perhaps karma could be ‘number of posts upvoted minus number of posts downvoted’, instead of a vote total.
This is in general problem. There are other users who seem to do this also, but they don’t post as frequently so it hasn’t created as much of a problem. But in this particular case, it may also be instructive to look at where the quotes are coming from. A fundamental idea behind the rationality quotes is that rational thinking should be taken from wherever one finds it. And in the past there have been well-received quotes even from Jack Chick and the Unabomber. But, in this particular instance, a large section of the quotes come from people involved in a specific end of American politics. That may indicate further problems given the consistent nature of who is being quoted. It looks like they may see the quote threads as further opportunity to advertise their preferred politics an political writers.
There’ s a less controversial way potentially of having the same result at least at a temporary level: go through the user in question’s posts and remove your upvotes.
Do you also expect that non-net-positive set of contributors to reliably amass large amounts of net positive karma?
No, and that’s a valid point which argues against my earlier statement.
I would expect their downvote-dumping behavior, since it is anonymous, to be uncorrelated with their karma score.