Karma is a mostly pointless number that doesn’t really provide you with any real information.
EDIT: To clarify, I was talking about total karma. I can’t really follow the details of the ensuing discussion because either one or both of the participants seem to have deleted parts of their comments—there are quotes that have no antecedent, for instance—and so I don’t know really what to do with it.
There are two main arguments I could formulate against using karma as a measure of relative contribution. The first is based on common experience here on LW. For instance, everything proximally close to a comment by Yudkowsky seems to receive far higher karma than similar comments in other places, an effect I termed “karmic wake” in one place. No, I don’t have data, but it seems that way nonetheless.
The second argument is that the more seriously people take karma, the more worthwhile it would be to exploit the system, c.f. Goodhart’s Law.
If I assign any meaning to the number of downvotes received by a particular comment, it would be something along the lines of, “Of the X people (essentially unknown) who viewed this comment and read it and the surrounding context, Y more people of some fraction of X were in a good enough mood to upvote (or a bad enough mood to downvote).” That’s a far cry from “Y more people who voted believed this comment was good for LW,” and it’s coherent with karma systems I’ve interacted with in other communities.
Since you (presumably) are incapable of extracting information from the negative karma of the parent allow me to translate it for you: “Dude, you’re wrong! STFU.”
You took it upon yourself to translate the downvotes paper-machine is getting into the most rude interpretation available… you’re being quite generous to yourself when defending that as a “non-exhaustive list”. Not sure if you think mass-downvoting me will make this look better.
You took it upon yourself to translate the downvotes paper-machine is getting into the most rude interpretation available… you’re being quite generous to yourself when defending that as a “non-exhaustive list”. Not sure if you think mass-downvoting me will make this look better.
My default interpretation of this blatant misrepresentation of the context is that you are being as disingenuous as you think you can get away with in order to make the person you are arguing with look bad. But it is probably better to dismiss that as paranoia and assume the conversation really did go completely over your head.
Either way the point is that comment karma really does convey useful information and that by denying that information with respect to negative votes paper-machine does himself a particular disservice. Not only does he lose out on understanding how people consider the comment, it necessitates people communicating with him overtly. Whether it be via body language or via ‘karma’, nonverbal communication allows us to avoid being overt and blunt when giving feedback—more pleasant and all round neater for everyone!
Not sure if you think mass-downvoting me will make this look better.
Two downvotes must be a record for the smallest “mass downvote” spree ever! It’s almost like they were two independent votes for comments which combined condescension with muddled thinking in a way I really would prefer not to see.
Either way the point is that comment karma really does convey useful information and that by denying that information with respect to negative votes paper-machine does himself a particular disservice. Not only does he lose out on understanding how people consider the comment, it necessitates people communicating with him overtly. Whether it be via body language or via ‘karma’, nonverbal communication allows us to avoid being overt and blunt when giving feedback—more pleasant and all round neater for everyone!
I understood this from the start, and for the most part I agree. However, did you literally think that paper-machine was blind to the disapproval his comment generated, as expressed through the negative karma it received? That without your post, he would stare at the negative number next to his post and have no idea what it meant? It seems more like you were just being “clever” in pointing out the irony. This was especially apparent while your comment only had that first paragraph.
In the process, you may have attacked a straw man, since it’s likely that paper-machine was talking about total karma, not single comment karma. Now, that other point would have been open to argument too, but this way you got to make him look like he walked into a punch...
More importantly to me, you certainly misrepresented the range of meanings that negative downvotes can have around here. This is what I objected to.
Why? Because it is valuable to me that LW comment votes often represent more sophisticated evaluations than “agree/disagree+STFU”. It’s an advantage over most other places on the Internet, something worth defending against the “bad money drives out good” tendency. And I feel that making it sound like a downvote basically means “shut up, I disagree with you” gives a wrong impression to future posters, both givers and receivers of comment votes.
EDIT: Okay, I see where we drove away in different directions. My whole objection is about your first response to paper-machine. If that “They do” in the next one was there from the start, I missed it, and misunderstood what the “non-exhausive list” referred to. Mea maxima.
At the time it didn’t seem relevant to what I was thinking about. I downvoted paper’s comment because, whether it referred to single-comment or total karma, I felt it was unhelpful as a response to ata’s question.
Since you (presumably) are incapable of extracting information from the negative karma of the parent allow me to translate it for you: “Dude, you’re wrong! STFU.”
One of the negative karma points was from me. It did not stand for “you’re wrong” or “STFU”. So it was misrepresented.
Karma is a mostly pointless number that doesn’t really provide you with any real information.
EDIT: To clarify, I was talking about total karma. I can’t really follow the details of the ensuing discussion because either one or both of the participants seem to have deleted parts of their comments—there are quotes that have no antecedent, for instance—and so I don’t know really what to do with it.
There are two main arguments I could formulate against using karma as a measure of relative contribution. The first is based on common experience here on LW. For instance, everything proximally close to a comment by Yudkowsky seems to receive far higher karma than similar comments in other places, an effect I termed “karmic wake” in one place. No, I don’t have data, but it seems that way nonetheless.
The second argument is that the more seriously people take karma, the more worthwhile it would be to exploit the system, c.f. Goodhart’s Law.
If I assign any meaning to the number of downvotes received by a particular comment, it would be something along the lines of, “Of the X people (essentially unknown) who viewed this comment and read it and the surrounding context, Y more people of some fraction of X were in a good enough mood to upvote (or a bad enough mood to downvote).” That’s a far cry from “Y more people who voted believed this comment was good for LW,” and it’s coherent with karma systems I’ve interacted with in other communities.
For example, consider this somewhat recent Reddit post.
EDIT: Re-framing campaign successful. I no longer endorse the new meaning which has been attributed to this comment.
Funny. But I should hope upvoting and downvoting can mean more than “agree/disagree”, on Less Wrong of all places.
A long-requested feature has been to have separate buttons for “agree/disagree” and “good/bad” so as to have a way to mark comments that are either:
a) widely agreed to be correct, but stated poorly or rudely, or
b) widely agreed to be wrong, but make the point well and show familiarity with the topic and site conventions.
They do. And of the two meanings I mentioned “you are wrong” and “STFU” it is the latter that is the most significant.
What happened to “I might agree, but you’re not helpful/on topic?” Or, “I might agree, but your tone/quality of argument is below LW standards”?
Or did we turn into Youtube when I wasn’t looking.
They don’t get included in every non-exhaustive list. You will pleased to note that I just employed the latter criterion.
Uh.
You took it upon yourself to translate the downvotes paper-machine is getting into the most rude interpretation available… you’re being quite generous to yourself when defending that as a “non-exhaustive list”. Not sure if you think mass-downvoting me will make this look better.
My default interpretation of this blatant misrepresentation of the context is that you are being as disingenuous as you think you can get away with in order to make the person you are arguing with look bad. But it is probably better to dismiss that as paranoia and assume the conversation really did go completely over your head.
Either way the point is that comment karma really does convey useful information and that by denying that information with respect to negative votes paper-machine does himself a particular disservice. Not only does he lose out on understanding how people consider the comment, it necessitates people communicating with him overtly. Whether it be via body language or via ‘karma’, nonverbal communication allows us to avoid being overt and blunt when giving feedback—more pleasant and all round neater for everyone!
Two downvotes must be a record for the smallest “mass downvote” spree ever! It’s almost like they were two independent votes for comments which combined condescension with muddled thinking in a way I really would prefer not to see.
I understood this from the start, and for the most part I agree. However, did you literally think that paper-machine was blind to the disapproval his comment generated, as expressed through the negative karma it received? That without your post, he would stare at the negative number next to his post and have no idea what it meant? It seems more like you were just being “clever” in pointing out the irony. This was especially apparent while your comment only had that first paragraph.
In the process, you may have attacked a straw man, since it’s likely that paper-machine was talking about total karma, not single comment karma. Now, that other point would have been open to argument too, but this way you got to make him look like he walked into a punch...
More importantly to me, you certainly misrepresented the range of meanings that negative downvotes can have around here. This is what I objected to.
Why? Because it is valuable to me that LW comment votes often represent more sophisticated evaluations than “agree/disagree+STFU”. It’s an advantage over most other places on the Internet, something worth defending against the “bad money drives out good” tendency. And I feel that making it sound like a downvote basically means “shut up, I disagree with you” gives a wrong impression to future posters, both givers and receivers of comment votes.
EDIT: Okay, I see where we drove away in different directions. My whole objection is about your first response to paper-machine. If that “They do” in the next one was there from the start, I missed it, and misunderstood what the “non-exhausive list” referred to. Mea maxima.
Yes, it was. Your disagreement makes more sense in that case.
I think so too. Why didn’t you say so in the first place?
At the time it didn’t seem relevant to what I was thinking about. I downvoted paper’s comment because, whether it referred to single-comment or total karma, I felt it was unhelpful as a response to ata’s question.
I. Am. Talking. About. Your. First. Post.
One of the negative karma points was from me. It did not stand for “you’re wrong” or “STFU”. So it was misrepresented.