I think a single vote system baaasically boils down to approve/disapprove already. People do some weighted sum of how true and how useful/productive they find a comment is, and vote accordingly.
I think a single vote already conveys a bunch of information about agreement. Very very few people upvote things they disagree with, even on LW, and most of the time they do, they leave a disambiguating comment (I’ve seen Rob and philh and Daystar do this, for instance).
So making the second vote “agree/disagree” feels like adding a redundant feature; the single vote was already highly correlated with agree/disagree. (Claim.)
What I want, and have bid for every single time (with those bids basically being ignored every time, as far as I can tell) is a distinction between “this was a good contribution” and “I endorse the claims or reasoning therein.”
The thing I would find most useful is the ability to separate things out into “[More like this] and also [endorsed as true],” “[More like this] but [sketchy on truth],” “[Less like this] though [endorsed as true],” and “[Less like this] and [sketchy on truth].”
I think that’s a fascinatingly different breakdown than the usual approve/disapprove that karma represents, and would make LessWrong discussions a more interesting and useful place.
I don’t want these as two separate buttons; I have argued vociferously each time that there should be a single click that gives you two bits.
Given a two-click solution, though, I think that there are better/more interesting questions to pose to the user than like-versus-agree, especially because (as I’ve mentioned each time) I don’t trust the LW userbase to meaningfully distinguish those two. I trust some users to do so most of the time, but that’s worse than nothing when it comes to interpreting e.g. a contextless −5 on one of my posts, which means something very different if it was put there by users I trust than by users I do not trust.
On your #2, the solution I’ve endorsed in a few places is “I could truthfully say this or something close to it from my own beliefs and experience,” which captures both truth and agreement very nicely.
On your #4, this button is no worse than the current implementation.
Basically, I would like us to be setting out to do a useful and reasonable thing in the first place. I don’t think “agree/disagree” is a useful or reasonable thing; I think it is adding a new motte-and-bailey to the site. I think the “I could truthfully say this myself” is useful and reasonable and hits the goods that e.g. Oli wants, while avoiding the cost that I see (that others are reluctant to credit as existing or being important, imo because they are colorblind).
Very very few people upvote things they disagree with, even on LW, and most of the time they do, they leave a disambiguating comment (I’ve seen Rob and philh and Daystar do this, for instance).
I was surprised by this because I don’t remember doing it. After a quick look:
I didn’t find any instances where I said I upvoted something I disagreed with.
But I did find two comments that I upvoted (without saying so) despite disagreeing, because I’d asked what someone thought and they’d answered and I didn’t want to punish that.
I feel like I have more often given “verbal upvotes” for things I disagree with, things like “I’m glad you said this but”, without actually voting? I don’t vote very much for whatever reason.
I think a single vote already conveys a bunch of information about agreement. Very very few people upvote things they disagree with, even on LW, and most of the time they do, they leave a disambiguating comment (I’ve seen Rob and philh and Daystar do this, for instance)...So making the second vote “agree/disagree” feels like adding a redundant feature; the single vote was already highly correlated with agree/disagree. (Claim.)
I am not very knowledgeable about a lot of things people post about on LW, so my median upvote is on a post or comment which is thought-provoking but which I don’t have a strong opinion about. I don’t know if I am typical, but I bet there are at least many people like me.
I think a single vote system baaasically boils down to approve/disapprove already. People do some weighted sum of how true and how useful/productive they find a comment is, and vote accordingly.
I think a single vote already conveys a bunch of information about agreement. Very very few people upvote things they disagree with, even on LW, and most of the time they do, they leave a disambiguating comment (I’ve seen Rob and philh and Daystar do this, for instance).
So making the second vote “agree/disagree” feels like adding a redundant feature; the single vote was already highly correlated with agree/disagree. (Claim.)
What I want, and have bid for every single time (with those bids basically being ignored every time, as far as I can tell) is a distinction between “this was a good contribution” and “I endorse the claims or reasoning therein.”
The thing I would find most useful is the ability to separate things out into “[More like this] and also [endorsed as true],” “[More like this] but [sketchy on truth],” “[Less like this] though [endorsed as true],” and “[Less like this] and [sketchy on truth].”
I think that’s a fascinatingly different breakdown than the usual approve/disapprove that karma represents, and would make LessWrong discussions a more interesting and useful place.
I don’t want these as two separate buttons; I have argued vociferously each time that there should be a single click that gives you two bits.
Given a two-click solution, though, I think that there are better/more interesting questions to pose to the user than like-versus-agree, especially because (as I’ve mentioned each time) I don’t trust the LW userbase to meaningfully distinguish those two. I trust some users to do so most of the time, but that’s worse than nothing when it comes to interpreting e.g. a contextless −5 on one of my posts, which means something very different if it was put there by users I trust than by users I do not trust.
On your #2, the solution I’ve endorsed in a few places is “I could truthfully say this or something close to it from my own beliefs and experience,” which captures both truth and agreement very nicely.
On your #4, this button is no worse than the current implementation.
Basically, I would like us to be setting out to do a useful and reasonable thing in the first place. I don’t think “agree/disagree” is a useful or reasonable thing; I think it is adding a new motte-and-bailey to the site. I think the “I could truthfully say this myself” is useful and reasonable and hits the goods that e.g. Oli wants, while avoiding the cost that I see (that others are reluctant to credit as existing or being important, imo because they are colorblind).
I was surprised by this because I don’t remember doing it. After a quick look:
I didn’t find any instances where I said I upvoted something I disagreed with.
But I did find two comments that I upvoted (without saying so) despite disagreeing, because I’d asked what someone thought and they’d answered and I didn’t want to punish that.
I feel like I have more often given “verbal upvotes” for things I disagree with, things like “I’m glad you said this but”, without actually voting? I don’t vote very much for whatever reason.
I must’ve swapped in a memory of some other LWer I’ve been repeatedly grateful for at various points.
<3
I am not very knowledgeable about a lot of things people post about on LW, so my median upvote is on a post or comment which is thought-provoking but which I don’t have a strong opinion about. I don’t know if I am typical, but I bet there are at least many people like me.