Eliezer’s posts are always very thoughful, thought provoquing and mind expanding—and I’m not the only one to think this, seeing the vast amounts of karma he’s accumulated.
However, reviewing some of the weaker posts (such as high status and stupidity and two aces ), and rereading them as if they hadn’t been written by Eliezer, I saw them differently—still good, but not really deserving superlative status.
So I was wondering if Eliezer could write a few of his posts under another name, if this was reasonable, to see if the Karma reaped was very different.
This is a reasonable justification for using a sockpuppet, and I’ll try to keep it in mind the next time I have something to write that would not be instantaneously identifiable as me.
But you’ll have to build up the sockpuppet to 50 points before it can make a top post. Can you write that many comments that aren’t identifiable as yours?
That is an interesting concept to toy with user expectations. I don’t know how well it would be received but I’d love to see data from such an experimentation.
I wouldn’t, it’s not going to be meaningful after one or two tries.
I suppose it could be interesting if it was announced in advance that Eliezer was going to try it and then we could spend the next few months accusing each other of being Eliezer witch-hunt style, except with Bayesian priors. Seriously, I am in favor of doing it that way.
I think it would be acceptable for him, as a site administrator, to doctor the scores of his own comments behind the scenes to make his sockpuppet pass that threshold.
It’s easy if you have a few co-conspirators. Find five quotes, post them on the quotes thread, ask 9 people to vote each one up (and vote them up as Eliezer Yudkowsky). It probably wouldn’t even take that many, since some would certainly be voted up on their own.
But perhaps it would be better, if possible, to hide (or least offer the option to hide) the author of a top-level post. Anyone who cared enough to closely track karma could tell who posted it, but it would weed out a lot of knee-jerk EY upvotes.
It has seemed to me that some of Eliezer’s recent post scores have been inflated by around 5-10 points due to his being Eliezer; it would be interesting to test this hypothesis.
There is a depth to “this is an Eliezer agument, part of a rich and complicated mental world with many different coherent aspects to it” that is lacking in “this is a random post on a random subject”. In the first case, you are seeing a facet of larger wisdom; in the second, just an argument to evaluate on merits.
Eliezer’s posts are always very thoughful, thought provoquing and mind expanding—and I’m not the only one to think this, seeing the vast amounts of karma he’s accumulated.
However, reviewing some of the weaker posts (such as high status and stupidity and two aces ), and rereading them as if they hadn’t been written by Eliezer, I saw them differently—still good, but not really deserving superlative status.
So I was wondering if Eliezer could write a few of his posts under another name, if this was reasonable, to see if the Karma reaped was very different.
This is a reasonable justification for using a sockpuppet, and I’ll try to keep it in mind the next time I have something to write that would not be instantaneously identifiable as me.
But you’ll have to build up the sockpuppet to 50 points before it can make a top post. Can you write that many comments that aren’t identifiable as yours?
Perhaps, contact someone likely and ask them to paraphrase the post in their words and submit it as their own?
Now we’ll be getting all kinds of posts with, “Eliezer did not write this..or maybe he did!” …
That is an interesting concept to toy with user expectations. I don’t know how well it would be received but I’d love to see data from such an experimentation.
I wouldn’t, it’s not going to be meaningful after one or two tries.
I suppose it could be interesting if it was announced in advance that Eliezer was going to try it and then we could spend the next few months accusing each other of being Eliezer witch-hunt style, except with Bayesian priors. Seriously, I am in favor of doing it that way.
Thinking of the recent art threadjack I was party to recently—I wish the art community would do that! Without the paraphrasing, though.
And then, of course, be sure to get independent evaluations of a work before discussing it with anyone to prevent information cascades.
I think it would be acceptable for him, as a site administrator, to doctor the scores of his own comments behind the scenes to make his sockpuppet pass that threshold.
It’s easy if you have a few co-conspirators. Find five quotes, post them on the quotes thread, ask 9 people to vote each one up (and vote them up as Eliezer Yudkowsky). It probably wouldn’t even take that many, since some would certainly be voted up on their own.
But perhaps it would be better, if possible, to hide (or least offer the option to hide) the author of a top-level post. Anyone who cared enough to closely track karma could tell who posted it, but it would weed out a lot of knee-jerk EY upvotes.
I was about to mention your distinctive writing style. :)
Yvain writes in a consciously similar style, and gets even more karma than Eliezer per post, I think.
It has seemed to me that some of Eliezer’s recent post scores have been inflated by around 5-10 points due to his being Eliezer; it would be interesting to test this hypothesis.
I wonder if, if the hypothesis were tested and confirmed, anyone would admit to being one of the 5-10 persons who upvote for that reason?
I’m one of the 5-10.
There is a depth to “this is an Eliezer agument, part of a rich and complicated mental world with many different coherent aspects to it” that is lacking in “this is a random post on a random subject”. In the first case, you are seeing a facet of larger wisdom; in the second, just an argument to evaluate on merits.