What a crock. I presented my reasoning clearly and showed how it seamlessly and correctly handles the various nuances of the situation, including partial knowledge. If I’m wrong, I’m wrong for a non-obvious reason, and no, Wei_Dai hasn’t shown what’s wrong with this specific handling of the problem.
Whoever’s been modding me down on this thread, kindly explain yourself. And if that person is Wei_Dai: shame on you. Modding is not a tool for helping you win arguments.
Downvoted for complaining about being downvoted and for needless speculation about the integrity of other commenters. (Some other contributions to this thread have been upvoted.)
I’m not complaining about being downvoted. I’m complaining about
a) being downvoted
b) on an articulate, relevant post
c) without an explanation
In the absence of any one of those, I wouldn’t complain. I would love to hear where I’m wrong, because it’s far from obvious. (Yes, the exchange seems tedious and repetitive, but I present new material here.)
And I wasn’t speculating; I was just reminding the community of the general lameness of downvoting someone you’re in an argument with, whether or not that’s Wei_Dai.
I’m not going by my beliefs. Take yours, or the proverbial “reasonable person’s” judgment. Would you or that person judge b) as being true?
Are a) and c) in dispute? Again, my concern is actually not with being downmodded (I would have dropped this long ago if it were); it’s with the lack of an explanation. If no one can be bothered to respond to such a post that spells out its reasoning so clearly and claims to have solved the dilemma—fine, but leave it alone. If you’re going to make the effort, try to make sense too.
And I wasn’t speculating; I was just reminding the community of the general lameness of downvoting someone you’re in an argument with, whether or not that’s Wei_Dai.
I’m far more likely to downvote someone I’m in an argument with. Mostly because I am actually reading their posts in detail and am far more likely to notice woo.
Then why not just vote up your own comments? After all, you must have even more insight into those, right? It’s not like you’re going to be swayed by personal investment in not losing face or anything.
Yeah, I know, there’s that pesky thing about how you can’t upvote your own comments. Pff. There’s no such thing as fair, right? Just use a different account. Sheesh.
In cases where I believe a post of mine has been unjustly downvoted the only thing stopping me from creating another account and upvoting myself is that I just don’t care enough to bother. Of course if there was any particular challenge involved in gaming the system in that way then that would perhaps be incentive enough...
Okay, so far that’s 3-4 people willing to mod me down, zero people willing to point out the errors in a clearly articulated post.
This seems like a non-sequitur to me. It’s your comment of 22 September 2009 09:56:05PM that’s sitting at −4; none of your clear and articulate responses to Dai have negative scores anymore.
No non-sequitur. That’s still, um, zero explanation for the errors in a post that resolves all the issues of the AMD problem, and still at least 4 people modding me down for requesting that a downmod for that kind of post come with some sort of explanation.
If there’s a non-sequitur, it’s the fact that the unjustified downmods were only corrected after I complained about them, and I got downmodded even more than before, and this sequence of events is used to justify the claim that my comments have gotten what they deserved.
1 or 2 people downmod you and you devote 6 posts to whining about it? This is a broadcast medium. Of course the 5 people who voted you down for wasting their time aren’t going to explain why the first 1 or 2 people didn’t like the first post.
a post that resolves all the issues of the AMD problem
It didn’t say that to me. So much for articulate.
If it’s oh so important, don’t leave it buried at the bottom a thread of context. Write something new. Why should we care about your parameter, rather than Wei Dai’s? Why should we care about any parameter?
If it’s oh so important, don’t leave it buried at the bottom a thread of context.
It may surprise you to note that I linked to the comment from a very visible place in the discussion.
Why should we care about your parameter, rather than Wei Dai’s? Why should we care about any parameter?
Because Wei Dai asked for how to generate a solution that makes epistemic sense, and mine was the only one that accurately incorporated the concept of “probability of being at a given intersection”.
And of course, Wei_Dai saw fit to use the p q r parameters just the same.
If it’s oh so important, don’t leave it buried at the bottom a thread of context.
It may surprise you to note that I linked to the comment from a very visible place in the discussion.
Exhuming it and putting it on display doesn’t solve the problem of context. People who clicked through (I speak from experience) didn’t see how it did what the link said it did. It was plausible that if I reread the thread it would mean something, but my vague memory of the thread was that it went off in a boring direction.
My questions were not intended for you to answer here, yet further removed from the context where one might care about their answers. If you write something self-contained that explains why I should care about it, I’ll read it.
So you were interested in seeing the solution, but not looking at the context of the thread for anything that wasn’t familiar? Doesn’t sound like much of an interest to me. If I had repeated myself with a separate self-contained explanation, you would be whining that I’m spamming the same thing all over the place.
You weren’t aware that I put a prominent link to the discussion that resolves all the thread’s issues. That’s okay! Really! You don’t need to cover it up by acting like you knew about it all along. Wei_Dai cares about the new parameters q and r. The post I linked to explains what it accomplishes. Now, think up a new excuse.
If it’s oh so important, don’t leave it buried at the bottom a thread of context.
It may surprise you to note that I linked to the comment from a very visible place in the discussion.
Why should we care about your parameter, rather than Wei Dai’s? Why should we care about any parameter?
Because Wei Dai asked for how to generate a solution that makes epistemic sense, and mine was the only one that accurately incorporated the concept of “probability of being at a given intersection”.
And of course, Wei_Dai saw fit to use the p q r parameters just the same.
No ‘justification’ necessary. ‘Deserved’ is irrelevant and there is no such thing as ‘fair’.
If I didn’t accept that then LessWrong (and most of the universe) would be downright depressing. People are (often) stupid and votes here represent a very different thing than reward for insight.
Just hold the unknown down-voters in silent contempt briefly then go along with your life. Plenty more upvotes will come. And you know, the votes that my comments receive don’t seem to be all that correlated with the quality of the contributed insight. One reason for this is that the more elusive an insight is the less likely it is to agree with what people already think. This phenomenon more or less drives status assignment in academia. The significance of votes I get here rather pales in comparison.
Douglas makes a good suggestion. Want people to appreciate (or even just comprehend) what you are saying? Put in some effort to make a top level post. Express the problem, provide illustrations (verbal or otherwise) and explain your solution. You’ll get all sorts of status.
In the past, I took a comment seriously from you that was satire. Is this one of those, too? Sometimes it’s hard to tell.
If it’s serious, then my answer is that whatever “clutter” my comment here gave, it would give even more as a top level post, which probably can’t give more explanation than my post already did.
By the way, just a “heads-up”: I count 6+ comments from others on meta-talk, 8+ down-mods, and 0 explanations for the errors in my solution. Nice work, guys.
I count 6+ comments from others on meta-talk, 8+ down-mods, and 0 [sic] explanations for the errors in my solution. Nice work, guys.
If it is in fact the case that your complaints are legitimately judged a negative contribution, then you should expect to be downvoted and criticized on those particular comments, regardless of whether or not your solution is correct. There’s nothing contradictory about simultaneously believing both that your proposed solution is correct, and that your subsequent complaints are a negative contribution.
I don’t feel like taking the time to look over your solution. Maybe it’s perfect. Wonderful! Spectacular! This world becomes a little brighter every time someone solves a math problem. But could you please, please consider toning down the hostility just a bit? These swipes at other commenters’ competence and integrity are really unpleasant to read.
ADDENDUM: Re tone, consider the difference between “I wonder why this was downvoted, could someone please explain?” (which is polite) and “What a crock,” followed by shaming a counterfactual Wei Dai (which is rude).
If it is in fact the case that your complaints are legitimately judged a negative contribution, then you should expect to be downvoted and criticized on those particular comments, regardless of whether or not your solution is correct. There’s nothing contradictory about simultaneously believing both that your proposed solution is correct, and that your subsequent complaints are a negative contribution.
Actually, there is something contradictory when those whiny comments were necessary for the previous, relevant comments to get their deserved karma. Your position here is basically: “Yeah, we were wrong to accuse you of those crimes, but you were still a jerk for pulling all that crap about ‘I plead not guilty!’ and ‘I didn’t do it!’, wah, wah, wah...”
At the very least, it should buy me more leeway than get for such a tone in isolation.
But could you please, please consider toning down the hostility just a bit?
Sure thing.
I trust that other posters will be more judicious with their voting and responses as well.
No satire. I just don’t find expecting the universe to ‘behave itself’ according to my ideals to be particularly pleasant so I don’t wast my emotional energy on it.
I have upvoted your comment because it appears to be a useful (albeit somewhat information dense) contribution. I personally chose not to downvote your complaints because I do empathise with your frustration even if I don’t think your complaints are a useful way to get you what you want.
I was the one who downvoted the parent, because you criticized Wei Dai’s correct solution by arguing about a different problem than the one you agreed to several comments upstream.
Yes, you’d get a different solution if you assumed that the random variable for information gave independent readings at X and Y, instead of being engineered for maximum correlation. But that’s not the problem Wei Dai originally stated, and his solution to the original problem is unambiguously correct. (I suspect, but haven’t checked, that a mixed strategy beats the pure one on your problem setup as well.)
I simply downvoted rather than commented, because (a) I was feeling tired and (b) your mistake seemed pretty clear to me. I don’t think that was a violation of LW custom.
I was the one who downvoted the parent, because you criticized Wei Dai’s correct solution by arguing about a different problem than the one you agreed to several comments upstream
I didn’t change the problem; I pointed out that he hadn’t been appropriately representing the existing problem when trying to generalize it to partial information. Having previously agreed with his (incorrect) assumptions in no way obligates me to persist in my error, especially when the exchange makes it clear!
his solution to the original problem is unambiguously correct. (I suspect, but haven’t checked, that a mixed strategy beats the pure one on your problem setup as well.)
Which original problem? (If the ABM problem as stated, then my solution is gives the same p=2/3 result. If it’s the partial knowledge variant, Wei_Dei doesn’t have an unambiguously correct solution when he fails to include the possibility of picking Y at X and X at Y like he did for the reverse.) Further, I do have the mixed strategy dominating—but only up to r = 61%. Feel free to find an optimum where one of p and q is not 1 or 0 while r is greater than 61%.
Yes, you’d get a different solution if you assumed that the random variable for information gave independent readings at X and Y, instead of being engineered for maximum correlation.
That wasn’t the reason for our different solutions.
I simply downvoted rather than commented, because (a) I was feeling tired and (b) your mistake seemed pretty clear to me.
Well, I hope you’re no longer tired, and you can check my approach one more time.
What a crock. I presented my reasoning clearly and showed how it seamlessly and correctly handles the various nuances of the situation, including partial knowledge. If I’m wrong, I’m wrong for a non-obvious reason, and no, Wei_Dai hasn’t shown what’s wrong with this specific handling of the problem.
Whoever’s been modding me down on this thread, kindly explain yourself. And if that person is Wei_Dai: shame on you. Modding is not a tool for helping you win arguments.
Downvoted for complaining about being downvoted and for needless speculation about the integrity of other commenters. (Some other contributions to this thread have been upvoted.)
I’m not complaining about being downvoted. I’m complaining about
a) being downvoted
b) on an articulate, relevant post
c) without an explanation
In the absence of any one of those, I wouldn’t complain. I would love to hear where I’m wrong, because it’s far from obvious. (Yes, the exchange seems tedious and repetitive, but I present new material here.)
And I wasn’t speculating; I was just reminding the community of the general lameness of downvoting someone you’re in an argument with, whether or not that’s Wei_Dai.
Imagine the noise if everybody complained whenever they were downvoted and believed that all 3 of your criteria were applicable.
I’m not going by my beliefs. Take yours, or the proverbial “reasonable person’s” judgment. Would you or that person judge b) as being true?
Are a) and c) in dispute? Again, my concern is actually not with being downmodded (I would have dropped this long ago if it were); it’s with the lack of an explanation. If no one can be bothered to respond to such a post that spells out its reasoning so clearly and claims to have solved the dilemma—fine, but leave it alone. If you’re going to make the effort, try to make sense too.
I’m far more likely to downvote someone I’m in an argument with. Mostly because I am actually reading their posts in detail and am far more likely to notice woo.
Then why not just vote up your own comments? After all, you must have even more insight into those, right? It’s not like you’re going to be swayed by personal investment in not losing face or anything.
Yeah, I know, there’s that pesky thing about how you can’t upvote your own comments. Pff. There’s no such thing as fair, right? Just use a different account. Sheesh.
You must be an inherently angry person. Or an evil mutant. Something like that =)
In cases where I believe a post of mine has been unjustly downvoted the only thing stopping me from creating another account and upvoting myself is that I just don’t care enough to bother. Of course if there was any particular challenge involved in gaming the system in that way then that would perhaps be incentive enough...
Okay, so far that’s 3-4 people willing to mod me down, zero people willing to point out the errors in a clearly articulated post.
I’m sure we can do better than that, can’t we, LW?
If it’s that bad, I’m sure one of you can type the two or three sentences necessary to effortlessly demolish it.
ETA: Or not.
This seems like a non-sequitur to me. It’s your comment of 22 September 2009 09:56:05PM that’s sitting at −4; none of your clear and articulate responses to Dai have negative scores anymore.
No non-sequitur. That’s still, um, zero explanation for the errors in a post that resolves all the issues of the AMD problem, and still at least 4 people modding me down for requesting that a downmod for that kind of post come with some sort of explanation.
If there’s a non-sequitur, it’s the fact that the unjustified downmods were only corrected after I complained about them, and I got downmodded even more than before, and this sequence of events is used to justify the claim that my comments have gotten what they deserved.
1 or 2 people downmod you and you devote 6 posts to whining about it? This is a broadcast medium. Of course the 5 people who voted you down for wasting their time aren’t going to explain why the first 1 or 2 people didn’t like the first post.
It didn’t say that to me. So much for articulate.
If it’s oh so important, don’t leave it buried at the bottom a thread of context. Write something new. Why should we care about your parameter, rather than Wei Dai’s? Why should we care about any parameter?
It may surprise you to note that I linked to the comment from a very visible place in the discussion.
Because Wei Dai asked for how to generate a solution that makes epistemic sense, and mine was the only one that accurately incorporated the concept of “probability of being at a given intersection”.
And of course, Wei_Dai saw fit to use the p q r parameters just the same.
Exhuming it and putting it on display doesn’t solve the problem of context. People who clicked through (I speak from experience) didn’t see how it did what the link said it did. It was plausible that if I reread the thread it would mean something, but my vague memory of the thread was that it went off in a boring direction.
My questions were not intended for you to answer here, yet further removed from the context where one might care about their answers. If you write something self-contained that explains why I should care about it, I’ll read it.
So you were interested in seeing the solution, but not looking at the context of the thread for anything that wasn’t familiar? Doesn’t sound like much of an interest to me. If I had repeated myself with a separate self-contained explanation, you would be whining that I’m spamming the same thing all over the place.
You weren’t aware that I put a prominent link to the discussion that resolves all the thread’s issues. That’s okay! Really! You don’t need to cover it up by acting like you knew about it all along. Wei_Dai cares about the new parameters q and r. The post I linked to explains what it accomplishes. Now, think up a new excuse.
It may surprise you to note that I linked to the comment from a very visible place in the discussion.
Because Wei Dai asked for how to generate a solution that makes epistemic sense, and mine was the only one that accurately incorporated the concept of “probability of being at a given intersection”.
And of course, Wei_Dai saw fit to use the p q r parameters just the same.
No ‘justification’ necessary. ‘Deserved’ is irrelevant and there is no such thing as ‘fair’.
If I didn’t accept that then LessWrong (and most of the universe) would be downright depressing. People are (often) stupid and votes here represent a very different thing than reward for insight.
Just hold the unknown down-voters in silent contempt briefly then go along with your life. Plenty more upvotes will come. And you know, the votes that my comments receive don’t seem to be all that correlated with the quality of the contributed insight. One reason for this is that the more elusive an insight is the less likely it is to agree with what people already think. This phenomenon more or less drives status assignment in academia. The significance of votes I get here rather pales in comparison.
Douglas makes a good suggestion. Want people to appreciate (or even just comprehend) what you are saying? Put in some effort to make a top level post. Express the problem, provide illustrations (verbal or otherwise) and explain your solution. You’ll get all sorts of status.
In the past, I took a comment seriously from you that was satire. Is this one of those, too? Sometimes it’s hard to tell.
If it’s serious, then my answer is that whatever “clutter” my comment here gave, it would give even more as a top level post, which probably can’t give more explanation than my post already did.
By the way, just a “heads-up”: I count 6+ comments from others on meta-talk, 8+ down-mods, and 0 explanations for the errors in my solution. Nice work, guys.
If it is in fact the case that your complaints are legitimately judged a negative contribution, then you should expect to be downvoted and criticized on those particular comments, regardless of whether or not your solution is correct. There’s nothing contradictory about simultaneously believing both that your proposed solution is correct, and that your subsequent complaints are a negative contribution.
I don’t feel like taking the time to look over your solution. Maybe it’s perfect. Wonderful! Spectacular! This world becomes a little brighter every time someone solves a math problem. But could you please, please consider toning down the hostility just a bit? These swipes at other commenters’ competence and integrity are really unpleasant to read.
ADDENDUM: Re tone, consider the difference between “I wonder why this was downvoted, could someone please explain?” (which is polite) and “What a crock,” followed by shaming a counterfactual Wei Dai (which is rude).
Actually, there is something contradictory when those whiny comments were necessary for the previous, relevant comments to get their deserved karma. Your position here is basically: “Yeah, we were wrong to accuse you of those crimes, but you were still a jerk for pulling all that crap about ‘I plead not guilty!’ and ‘I didn’t do it!’, wah, wah, wah...”
At the very least, it should buy me more leeway than get for such a tone in isolation.
Sure thing.
I trust that other posters will be more judicious with their voting and responses as well.
No satire. I just don’t find expecting the universe to ‘behave itself’ according to my ideals to be particularly pleasant so I don’t wast my emotional energy on it.
I have upvoted your comment because it appears to be a useful (albeit somewhat information dense) contribution. I personally chose not to downvote your complaints because I do empathise with your frustration even if I don’t think your complaints are a useful way to get you what you want.
I was the one who downvoted the parent, because you criticized Wei Dai’s correct solution by arguing about a different problem than the one you agreed to several comments upstream.
Yes, you’d get a different solution if you assumed that the random variable for information gave independent readings at X and Y, instead of being engineered for maximum correlation. But that’s not the problem Wei Dai originally stated, and his solution to the original problem is unambiguously correct. (I suspect, but haven’t checked, that a mixed strategy beats the pure one on your problem setup as well.)
I simply downvoted rather than commented, because (a) I was feeling tired and (b) your mistake seemed pretty clear to me. I don’t think that was a violation of LW custom.
I didn’t change the problem; I pointed out that he hadn’t been appropriately representing the existing problem when trying to generalize it to partial information. Having previously agreed with his (incorrect) assumptions in no way obligates me to persist in my error, especially when the exchange makes it clear!
Which original problem? (If the ABM problem as stated, then my solution is gives the same p=2/3 result. If it’s the partial knowledge variant, Wei_Dei doesn’t have an unambiguously correct solution when he fails to include the possibility of picking Y at X and X at Y like he did for the reverse.) Further, I do have the mixed strategy dominating—but only up to r = 61%. Feel free to find an optimum where one of p and q is not 1 or 0 while r is greater than 61%.
That wasn’t the reason for our different solutions.
Well, I hope you’re no longer tired, and you can check my approach one more time.