(Upvoted.) … okay, maybe my comment was in poor taste. What I was trying to get at is that there’s something very—can I say odd?---about downvoting in order to avoid the appearance of having downvoted.
Well, the way I see it, votes are meant to convey information. When a comment is at −1, we (and the author of that comment) don’t know if it was downvoted by the opponent of the author, or by someone independent. When it’s at −2, we know at least one independent person downvoted it, so that’s much more useful information.
Not to dump this on you, but I’m getting a bit frustrated at how often my comments are interpreted in the worst possible light, instead of given the benefit of doubt. After your criticism, it took me tens of minutes to think of a reply that I could be sure wouldn’t gather further negative comments or downvotes.
If anyone has ideas what I could do about this, I’d really appreciate it. Otherwise I’m considering taking a break for a while. (ETA: I’ve decided to refrain from mentioning karma again, since that seems to be the main trigger, or to only do so with extreme caution.)
People don’t like mentioning karma because karma is our quantified status, and we don’t like to bring attention to our own status moves. They seem like legitimate points to me.
I’m sorry; I was being unfair. Downvote my first comment in this thread, please.
I also had a moment of self-awareness this morning—I just criticized you for voting for social-strategic reasons rather than solely the merit of the comment, but surely I was doing the same sort of thing that time when I upvoted Toby Ord even though I thought his comment was terrible because Toby Ord is a hotshot academic and I don’t want him to think poorly of this community! Although speaking of self-awareness, maybe I should also mention that from introspection I can’t tell if I would be having this same response if you weren’t the eminent Wei Dai …
Augh! Could it be that we at Less Wrong are smart enough to avoid all the ordinary status games, but not smart enough to avoid the meta recursive anti-status status games? O horror; O terrible humanity!
In further retrospect, it seems clear that what I called “frustration” contained a large element of being offended, i.e., thinking that I wasn’t given an amount of benefit of doubt befitting my status. Hopefully I gained enough control of my emotions to limit the damage this time. As you say, O horror; O terrible humanity!
BTW, the reason I used “strategically correct” was to reference the past game theory discussions. I thought it would be interesting to point out another counterintuitive advice given by game theory.
Augh! Could it be that we at Less Wrong are smart enough to avoid all the ordinary status games
Not even close. It takes a lot of intellectual effort to keep track of what is actually going on in the conversations, even if they are slightly less ‘Wrong’ here.
I upvoted Toby Ord even though I thought his comment was terrible because Toby Ord is a hotshot academic
Toby is a hot shot academic? Now that fits things together somewhat better.
Sometimes these labels don’t make a lot of sense to the people they’re applied to. I’ve in the past been called a “serious academic”, amongst other dubious things.
Thanks for the moral support, but I think what I need more is insights and ideas. :) Maybe I’ll just stay away from anything meta, or karma related. In retrospect that seems to be what got me into trouble recently.
So do you think I should have just ignored Zack’s comment, or fired off the first defense that came to mind (which probably would have gotten me deeper into trouble)? Or something else?
My general strategy is to say what I think, moderated slightly by the desire to avoid major negative karma (I hold back on the most offensive responses that occur to me). On average I get positive karma. If my karma started to trend downwards I’d consider revising my tone but I don’t think it is productive to worry about the occasional downvote. In fact, without the occasional downvote I would worry that I wasn’t adding anything to the conversation.
Here’s my reply, after some reflection. The reason I strive for having no comments with negative scores is so that when people see a comment from me that is confusing, controversial or just seems wrong (of course I try to prevent that if possible, but sometimes it isn’t), they’ll think “It’s not like Wei to write nonsense. Maybe I should think about this again” instead of just dismissing it. That kind of power seems worth the effort to me. (Except that it hasn’t been working well recently, hence the frustration.)
I don’t understand why lately my comments have been so often uncharitably interpreted. In this case, my “game” is:
not wanting to be falsely accused of unfair downvoting (either publicly or just in other people’s minds)
not wanting to see others being falsely accused of unfair downvoting
not wanting to see community members become enemies due to this kind of problem
(Upvoted.) … okay, maybe my comment was in poor taste. What I was trying to get at is that there’s something very—can I say odd?---about downvoting in order to avoid the appearance of having downvoted.
Well, the way I see it, votes are meant to convey information. When a comment is at −1, we (and the author of that comment) don’t know if it was downvoted by the opponent of the author, or by someone independent. When it’s at −2, we know at least one independent person downvoted it, so that’s much more useful information.
Not to dump this on you, but I’m getting a bit frustrated at how often my comments are interpreted in the worst possible light, instead of given the benefit of doubt. After your criticism, it took me tens of minutes to think of a reply that I could be sure wouldn’t gather further negative comments or downvotes.
If anyone has ideas what I could do about this, I’d really appreciate it. Otherwise I’m considering taking a break for a while. (ETA: I’ve decided to refrain from mentioning karma again, since that seems to be the main trigger, or to only do so with extreme caution.)
People don’t like mentioning karma because karma is our quantified status, and we don’t like to bring attention to our own status moves. They seem like legitimate points to me.
I’m sorry; I was being unfair. Downvote my first comment in this thread, please.
I also had a moment of self-awareness this morning—I just criticized you for voting for social-strategic reasons rather than solely the merit of the comment, but surely I was doing the same sort of thing that time when I upvoted Toby Ord even though I thought his comment was terrible because Toby Ord is a hotshot academic and I don’t want him to think poorly of this community! Although speaking of self-awareness, maybe I should also mention that from introspection I can’t tell if I would be having this same response if you weren’t the eminent Wei Dai …
Augh! Could it be that we at Less Wrong are smart enough to avoid all the ordinary status games, but not smart enough to avoid the meta recursive anti-status status games? O horror; O terrible humanity!
In further retrospect, it seems clear that what I called “frustration” contained a large element of being offended, i.e., thinking that I wasn’t given an amount of benefit of doubt befitting my status. Hopefully I gained enough control of my emotions to limit the damage this time. As you say, O horror; O terrible humanity!
BTW, the reason I used “strategically correct” was to reference the past game theory discussions. I thought it would be interesting to point out another counterintuitive advice given by game theory.
Not even close. It takes a lot of intellectual effort to keep track of what is actually going on in the conversations, even if they are slightly less ‘Wrong’ here.
Toby is a hot shot academic? Now that fits things together somewhat better.
Sometimes these labels don’t make a lot of sense to the people they’re applied to. I’ve in the past been called a “serious academic”, amongst other dubious things.
FWIW I hope the result is that you don’t feel forced away.
Thanks for the moral support, but I think what I need more is insights and ideas. :) Maybe I’ll just stay away from anything meta, or karma related. In retrospect that seems to be what got me into trouble recently.
Your karma is currently 6218. If you are worrying about downvotes at that level I think perhaps you are placing undue weight on karma.
So do you think I should have just ignored Zack’s comment, or fired off the first defense that came to mind (which probably would have gotten me deeper into trouble)? Or something else?
My general strategy is to say what I think, moderated slightly by the desire to avoid major negative karma (I hold back on the most offensive responses that occur to me). On average I get positive karma. If my karma started to trend downwards I’d consider revising my tone but I don’t think it is productive to worry about the occasional downvote. In fact, without the occasional downvote I would worry that I wasn’t adding anything to the conversation.
In this case it wasn’t just a downvote, it was a downvote backed up by a reason from someone that I respect. That’s pretty hard to ignore...
I’m not sure I can give you useful advice because I don’t seem to ascribe the same meaning to karma.
Here’s my reply, after some reflection. The reason I strive for having no comments with negative scores is so that when people see a comment from me that is confusing, controversial or just seems wrong (of course I try to prevent that if possible, but sometimes it isn’t), they’ll think “It’s not like Wei to write nonsense. Maybe I should think about this again” instead of just dismissing it. That kind of power seems worth the effort to me. (Except that it hasn’t been working well recently, hence the frustration.)