Another issue that I don’t know if you’ve thought of: strong votes from people with high karma are not very anonymous. If I’m talking with someone and I strong up/down vote them (like here recently), it’s pretty obvious who did it, yet not fully common knowledge, which makes the situation even more taxing on the social part of my brain than just straightforward non-anonymous voting (like on Facebook).
Yeah, that is something we’ve thought about, and aren’t sure how to think about. We’ve considered straight-up requiring Strong Upvotes to be an actual endorsement that comes with a name attached. (We’ve also considered actually just making all votes public).
Most of the options come with some pros and cons that weigh together in subtle ways.
My subjective experience in the first 2 weeks has generally been to not know who is voting on what – theoretically I could keep track of everyone’s strong-upvote strength. Maybe over time I’d come to know them well enough that I’d start to track that automatically, for now it just feels lossy enough that I don’t notice.
Having a high amount of voting power basically feels like a disadvantage to me instead of a benefit, because it makes me more reluctant to exercise strong voting power. Maybe other people won’t be able to tell who voted on something, but the part of my brain that worries about this kind of thing isn’t really mollified by your data point.
Maybe as a compromise that ameliorates both of the problems I mentioned, consider capping the strong voting power of everyone at some low amount, like 5?
Good to know. (I do want to stay in explore-options and gather data mode rather than leap towards any particular solution but want you know I’m taking this pretty seriously).
I’m curious how you feel about solutions that are more in the direction of “make karma more illegible?” – possibly literally just randomizing +/- a few points?
There’s also the option of “you can upvote UP TO your max-karma, but can choose any amount”. The two reasons we didn’t go with this was that it felt like asking people to making too-granular a choice every time they voted, and didn’t let us move in the direction of eigenkarma. But it’s still one of the more obvious things to try.
I do want to stay in explore-options and gather data mode
What kind of analysis are you thinking of doing on the data that you’re gathering? I’m curious, and also pre-registration may be a good idea in situations like this to reduce bias.
I’m curious how you feel about solutions that are more in the direction of ″make karma more illegible?″ – possibly literally just randomizing +/- a few points?
Doesn’t seem like it helps as much as other possibilities and the cost seems substantial (in implementation, user education, getting used to it psychologically, maybe other unforeseen consequences).
There’s also the option of “you can upvote UP TO your max-karma, but can choose any amount”. The two reasons we didn’t go with this was that it felt like asking people to making too-granular a choice every time they voted
Another issue that I don’t know if you’ve thought of: strong votes from people with high karma are not very anonymous. If I’m talking with someone and I strong up/down vote them (like here recently), it’s pretty obvious who did it, yet not fully common knowledge, which makes the situation even more taxing on the social part of my brain than just straightforward non-anonymous voting (like on Facebook).
Yeah, that is something we’ve thought about, and aren’t sure how to think about. We’ve considered straight-up requiring Strong Upvotes to be an actual endorsement that comes with a name attached. (We’ve also considered actually just making all votes public).
Most of the options come with some pros and cons that weigh together in subtle ways.
My subjective experience in the first 2 weeks has generally been to not know who is voting on what – theoretically I could keep track of everyone’s strong-upvote strength. Maybe over time I’d come to know them well enough that I’d start to track that automatically, for now it just feels lossy enough that I don’t notice.
Having a high amount of voting power basically feels like a disadvantage to me instead of a benefit, because it makes me more reluctant to exercise strong voting power. Maybe other people won’t be able to tell who voted on something, but the part of my brain that worries about this kind of thing isn’t really mollified by your data point.
Maybe as a compromise that ameliorates both of the problems I mentioned, consider capping the strong voting power of everyone at some low amount, like 5?
Good to know. (I do want to stay in explore-options and gather data mode rather than leap towards any particular solution but want you know I’m taking this pretty seriously).
I’m curious how you feel about solutions that are more in the direction of “make karma more illegible?” – possibly literally just randomizing +/- a few points?
There’s also the option of “you can upvote UP TO your max-karma, but can choose any amount”. The two reasons we didn’t go with this was that it felt like asking people to making too-granular a choice every time they voted, and didn’t let us move in the direction of eigenkarma. But it’s still one of the more obvious things to try.
What kind of analysis are you thinking of doing on the data that you’re gathering? I’m curious, and also pre-registration may be a good idea in situations like this to reduce bias.
Doesn’t seem like it helps as much as other possibilities and the cost seems substantial (in implementation, user education, getting used to it psychologically, maybe other unforeseen consequences).
I agree with this.