I don’t follow: he’s getting positive net karma from this discussion, just not as much as other posters. Very few of his comments, if any, actually went negative. In what sense in the karma system discouraging him?
Yes, slightly positive. Whether something encourages or discourages a person is a fact, not about the thing considered in itself, but about its effect on the person. The fact that the karma is slightly net positive is a fact about the thing considered in itself. The fact that he himself wrote:
But judging by the relatively low karma levels of my recent comments, going into further detail would not be of sufficient value to the LW community to be worth the time.
tells us something about its effect on the person.
Yes, he’s taking that as evidence that his posts are not valued. And indeed, like most posts that don’t (as komponisto and I noted) clearly articulate what their argument is, his posts aren’t valued (relative to others in the discussion). And he is correctly reading the evidence.
I was interpreting the concerns about “low karma being discouraging” as saying that if your karma goes negative, you actually get posting restrictions. But that’s not happening here; it’s just that Richard Chappell is being informed that his posts aren’t as valued as the others on this topic. Still positive value, mind you—just not as high as others.
In the absence of a karma system, he would either be less informed about his unhelpfulness in articulating his position, or be informed through other means. I don’t understand what your complaint is.
Yes, people who cannot articulate their position rigorously are going to have their feelings hurt at some level when people aren’t satisfied with their explanations. What does that have to do with the merits of the karma system?
Yes, people who cannot articulate their position rigorously are going to have their feelings hurt at some level when people aren’t satisfied with their explanations
You are speculating about possible reasons that people might have had for faling to award karma points.
What does that have to do with the merits of the karma system?
The position of your sentence implies that “that” refers to your speculation about the reasons that people might have had for withholding karma points. But my statement concerning the merits of the karma system had not referred to that speculation. Here is my statement again:
You would probably have had more opportunity to draw it out of him if it weren’t for the karma system discouraging him from posting further on the topic.
I am pointing out that had he not been discouraged as early as he was in the exchange, then you would probably have had more opportunity to draw him out. Do you dispute this? And then I wrote:
Remember that next time you’re tallying the positives and negatives of the karma system.
I have left it up to you to decide whether your loss of this opportunity is on the whole a positive or a negative.
You are speculating about possible reasons that people might have had for faling to award karma points.
Kind of. I was drawing on my observations about how the karma system is used. I’ve generally noticed (as have others) that people with outlier views do get modded up very highly, so long as they articulate their position clearly. For example: Mitchell Porter on QM, pjeby on PCT, lukeprog on certain matters of mainstream philosophy, Alicorn on deontology and (some) feminism, byrnema on theism, XiXiDu on LW groupthink.
Given that history, I felt safe in chalking up his “insufficiently” high karma to inscrutability rather than “He’s deviating from the party line—get him!” And you don’t get to ignore that factor (of controversial, well-articulated positions being voted up) by saying you “weren’t referring to that speculation”.
I am pointing out that had he not been discouraged as early as he was in the exchange, then you would probably have had more opportunity to draw him out. Do you dispute this?
My response is that, to the extent that convoluted, error-obscuring posting is discouraged, I’m perfectly fine with such discouragement, and I don’t want to change the karma system to be more favoring of that kind of posting.
If Richard couldn’t communicate his insight about “p-zombies being so easy to conceive of” on the first three tries, we’re probably not missing out on much by him being discouraged to post the fifty-third.
My most recent comment directed toward him was not saying, “No! Please don’t leave us! I love your deep insights!” Rather, it was saying, “Hold on—there’s an easy way to dig yourself out of this hole, as there has been the whole time. Just tell us why [...].”
Moreover, to the extent that the karma system doesn’t communicate to him what it did, that just means we’d have to do it another way, or fail to communicate it at all, neither of which is particularly appealing to me.
I don’t follow: he’s getting positive net karma from this discussion, just not as much as other posters. Very few of his comments, if any, actually went negative. In what sense in the karma system discouraging him?
Yes, slightly positive. Whether something encourages or discourages a person is a fact, not about the thing considered in itself, but about its effect on the person. The fact that the karma is slightly net positive is a fact about the thing considered in itself. The fact that he himself wrote:
tells us something about its effect on the person.
Yes, he’s taking that as evidence that his posts are not valued. And indeed, like most posts that don’t (as komponisto and I noted) clearly articulate what their argument is, his posts aren’t valued (relative to others in the discussion). And he is correctly reading the evidence.
I was interpreting the concerns about “low karma being discouraging” as saying that if your karma goes negative, you actually get posting restrictions. But that’s not happening here; it’s just that Richard Chappell is being informed that his posts aren’t as valued as the others on this topic. Still positive value, mind you—just not as high as others.
In the absence of a karma system, he would either be less informed about his unhelpfulness in articulating his position, or be informed through other means. I don’t understand what your complaint is.
Yes, people who cannot articulate their position rigorously are going to have their feelings hurt at some level when people aren’t satisfied with their explanations. What does that have to do with the merits of the karma system?
You are speculating about possible reasons that people might have had for faling to award karma points.
The position of your sentence implies that “that” refers to your speculation about the reasons that people might have had for withholding karma points. But my statement concerning the merits of the karma system had not referred to that speculation. Here is my statement again:
I am pointing out that had he not been discouraged as early as he was in the exchange, then you would probably have had more opportunity to draw him out. Do you dispute this? And then I wrote:
I have left it up to you to decide whether your loss of this opportunity is on the whole a positive or a negative.
Kind of. I was drawing on my observations about how the karma system is used. I’ve generally noticed (as have others) that people with outlier views do get modded up very highly, so long as they articulate their position clearly. For example: Mitchell Porter on QM, pjeby on PCT, lukeprog on certain matters of mainstream philosophy, Alicorn on deontology and (some) feminism, byrnema on theism, XiXiDu on LW groupthink.
Given that history, I felt safe in chalking up his “insufficiently” high karma to inscrutability rather than “He’s deviating from the party line—get him!” And you don’t get to ignore that factor (of controversial, well-articulated positions being voted up) by saying you “weren’t referring to that speculation”.
My response is that, to the extent that convoluted, error-obscuring posting is discouraged, I’m perfectly fine with such discouragement, and I don’t want to change the karma system to be more favoring of that kind of posting.
If Richard couldn’t communicate his insight about “p-zombies being so easy to conceive of” on the first three tries, we’re probably not missing out on much by him being discouraged to post the fifty-third.
My most recent comment directed toward him was not saying, “No! Please don’t leave us! I love your deep insights!” Rather, it was saying, “Hold on—there’s an easy way to dig yourself out of this hole, as there has been the whole time. Just tell us why [...].”
Moreover, to the extent that the karma system doesn’t communicate to him what it did, that just means we’d have to do it another way, or fail to communicate it at all, neither of which is particularly appealing to me.