Of course, one of the reasons LW and the EA Forum use karma scores as they do is so for the discourse on these fora to be shaped in a way satisfying to most users, without us all having to get bogged down in endless debates about the state of the discourse itself.
I think this topic was discussed a lot in the early days of LW (around 10 years ago, I guess!) but I haven’t seen much discussion recently. So it’s probably worth discussing again, at least a little bit. Here are some exploratory ramblings...
I think it’s human nature to be much more sensitive to negative feedback than positive feedback. But it’s probably better to consider the aggregate scores your posts are getting when deciding whether you are adding value or not. In other words, I suspect if your contributions receive more upvotes than downvotes by a comfortable margin, you should interpret that as: the aggregate view of the people reading the forum is that your contributions are valuable on net.
I also think social rewards are generally a little bit sparse in any sort of online discussion context, and you should adjust for that accordingly. Like, I’m sure I’ve had conversations with EAs where we talk about nothing at all for hours, and I don’t feel bad about wasting their time. And I don’t think I should feel bad, because it is valuable for people to connect with each other, it strengthens the EA movement, etc. And furthermore, when I talk to people in person about conversations I’ve had online, I typically find the in-person discussion far more rewarding than the online conversation. I’m not totally sure what I’m trying to get at here with this, but I guess one way of looking at it is that the voting system could be seen as capturing a purely informational dimension of your comment’s value, which is useful for sorting/filtering/attention conservation/etc. But just because it is voted down (meaning in the judgement of others, people should not be reading it or considering it reliable) doesn’t necessarily mean it was harmful for you to write. It could have been helpful if only to clarify your own understanding, or state an incorrect position in a way someone else could clearly dismantle, or even just signal based on the downvotes that many people disagree with the view you expressed. Like, the entire point of the voting system is to decrease the amount of harm that low-value contributions cause! The exception would be if your comment was itself destroying social capital, e.g. by being nasty for no reason. In that case you are bad and you should feel bad.
I guess one reason a contribution could be harmful is if it makes a bad argument for a position which is incorrect, and if this bad argument is left un-refuted, many people will read it and adjust their behavior based on it? It would appear that downvoting mostly mitigates the harms in this case because people are going to be less willing to adjust their behavior based on a downvoted comment? It could also waste the time of people who feel the need to refute your bad argument? But if the bad argument gets upvoted then it’s plausibly worthwhile for someone to write a refutation anyway since apparently people are agreeing with it.
BTW, it might be worth separating out the case where controversial topics are being discussed vs boring everyday stuff. If you say something on a controversial topic, you are likely to get downvotes regardless of your position. “strong, consistent, vocal support” for a position which is controversial in society at large typically only happens if the forum has become an echo chamber, in my observation.
BTW, it might be worth separating out the case where controversial topics are being discussed vs boring everyday stuff. If you say something on a controversial topic, you are likely to get downvotes regardless of your position. “strong, consistent, vocal support” for a position which is controversial in society at large typically only happens if the forum has become an echo chamber, in my observation.
On a society-wide scale, “boring everyday stuff” is uncontroversial by definition. Conversely, articles that have a high total number of votes, but a close-to-even upvote:downvote ratio, are by definition controversial to at least several people. If wrong-headed views of boring everyday stuff aren’t heavily downvoted, and are “controversial” to the point half or more of the readers supported someone spreading supposedly universally recognizable nonsense, that’s a serious problem.
Also, regarding the EA Forum and LW, at least, “controversial topics” vs. “boring everyday stuff” is a false dichotomy. These fora are fora for all kinds of “weird” stuff, by societal standards. Some of popular positions on the EA Forum and LW are also controversial, but that’s normal for EA and LW. What going by societal standards doesn’t reflect is why different positions are or aren’t controversial on the EA Forum or LW, and why. There are heated disagreements in EA, or on LW, for when most people outside those fora don’t care about any side of those debates. For the examples I have in mind, some of the articles were on topics that were controversial in society at large, and then some that were only controversial disagreements in a more limited sense on the EA Forum or LW.
I think this topic was discussed a lot in the early days of LW (around 10 years ago, I guess!) but I haven’t seen much discussion recently. So it’s probably worth discussing again, at least a little bit. Here are some exploratory ramblings...
I think it’s human nature to be much more sensitive to negative feedback than positive feedback. But it’s probably better to consider the aggregate scores your posts are getting when deciding whether you are adding value or not. In other words, I suspect if your contributions receive more upvotes than downvotes by a comfortable margin, you should interpret that as: the aggregate view of the people reading the forum is that your contributions are valuable on net.
I also think social rewards are generally a little bit sparse in any sort of online discussion context, and you should adjust for that accordingly. Like, I’m sure I’ve had conversations with EAs where we talk about nothing at all for hours, and I don’t feel bad about wasting their time. And I don’t think I should feel bad, because it is valuable for people to connect with each other, it strengthens the EA movement, etc. And furthermore, when I talk to people in person about conversations I’ve had online, I typically find the in-person discussion far more rewarding than the online conversation. I’m not totally sure what I’m trying to get at here with this, but I guess one way of looking at it is that the voting system could be seen as capturing a purely informational dimension of your comment’s value, which is useful for sorting/filtering/attention conservation/etc. But just because it is voted down (meaning in the judgement of others, people should not be reading it or considering it reliable) doesn’t necessarily mean it was harmful for you to write. It could have been helpful if only to clarify your own understanding, or state an incorrect position in a way someone else could clearly dismantle, or even just signal based on the downvotes that many people disagree with the view you expressed. Like, the entire point of the voting system is to decrease the amount of harm that low-value contributions cause! The exception would be if your comment was itself destroying social capital, e.g. by being nasty for no reason. In that case you are bad and you should feel bad.
I guess one reason a contribution could be harmful is if it makes a bad argument for a position which is incorrect, and if this bad argument is left un-refuted, many people will read it and adjust their behavior based on it? It would appear that downvoting mostly mitigates the harms in this case because people are going to be less willing to adjust their behavior based on a downvoted comment? It could also waste the time of people who feel the need to refute your bad argument? But if the bad argument gets upvoted then it’s plausibly worthwhile for someone to write a refutation anyway since apparently people are agreeing with it.
BTW, it might be worth separating out the case where controversial topics are being discussed vs boring everyday stuff. If you say something on a controversial topic, you are likely to get downvotes regardless of your position. “strong, consistent, vocal support” for a position which is controversial in society at large typically only happens if the forum has become an echo chamber, in my observation.
On a society-wide scale, “boring everyday stuff” is uncontroversial by definition. Conversely, articles that have a high total number of votes, but a close-to-even upvote:downvote ratio, are by definition controversial to at least several people. If wrong-headed views of boring everyday stuff aren’t heavily downvoted, and are “controversial” to the point half or more of the readers supported someone spreading supposedly universally recognizable nonsense, that’s a serious problem.
Also, regarding the EA Forum and LW, at least, “controversial topics” vs. “boring everyday stuff” is a false dichotomy. These fora are fora for all kinds of “weird” stuff, by societal standards. Some of popular positions on the EA Forum and LW are also controversial, but that’s normal for EA and LW. What going by societal standards doesn’t reflect is why different positions are or aren’t controversial on the EA Forum or LW, and why. There are heated disagreements in EA, or on LW, for when most people outside those fora don’t care about any side of those debates. For the examples I have in mind, some of the articles were on topics that were controversial in society at large, and then some that were only controversial disagreements in a more limited sense on the EA Forum or LW.