nods I think in that case we don’t disagree at all about the intention of the feature (the feature is intended to point people at true/false, so in as much as you picked up something else from the wording, seems good to clarify that). I do think we disagree about what the median user will think. I do actually think we should definitely say the words “true” and “false” in the hover-over (or maybe “correct” and “incorrect”, though I feel a bit confused about that one). Does putting the thing in the hover-over just resolve your crux?
(As a sort of sad but seems-good-to-share datapoint, on reading this comment it has 2 karma and −10 agrees, and I felt I had to explicitly undo my “woah, status punch!” reaction. On mousing over the agrees, it turns out it was only 1 vote, and that seemed to make it easier to undo the reaction; it was just one person, not the social winds.)
I think so? Depending on the exact wording or phrasing, but yeah: if it’s clear that the agreement or disagreement requested is an evaluation of truth/accuracy, then that resolves it.
There are some specific edge-cases that we hit on in another thread. In particular, I would like to somehow have a more principled distinction on whether pressing agree on sentences like “I believe X” means “I think you accurately report your beliefs” vs. “I would also report the same belief”. I think we almost always want to do the latter (since it’s more useful information), but “true” feels like it points a bit more toward the former. Maybe we can somehow massage that into the hover-over, or at least the FAQ.
Curious about your takes here. My sense is we are mostly on the same page on this distinction being important (and confusion between them seems like it could pretty easily cause a bunch of hurt).
The second button is an assessment of truth or falsehood, and in order to make that happen, we generally don’t click it one way or the other on somebody saying “I believe X.”
If I want to note that I would also report the same belief, I do a karma upvote and leave a comment.
Hmm, I think this would get rid of ~80% of the value for me, and also produce a lot of voting inconsistency, since it’s kind of author-specific how much they insert “I think X” vs. just saying “X”, and take the “I think” implicit.
I much prefer getting data on whether people agree with X in that case, and would really value that information.
Button overall. Like, I think I approximately never make a comment that doesn’t preface almost all of my (edit: not obviously correct) beliefs with “I think”, so this would cause no agree/disagree voting to happen on my comments.
I think this is why this button will be a very strong pressure away from LW, for me.
If the button claims to be about evaluating the truth or falsehood of the content of a comment, and also my comment has said a bunch of true stuff, and has a −17 on it or something, I will absolutely find this emotionally relevant and be Sad about it and want to spend much much less time on LW.
And if the button is not about the truth or falsehood of the content, and is just a signal of … how Other I am, versus how much I am Like the rest of the monkeys reading it, I expect to very frequently be receiving blunt You Are Not Like Us signals, all the time, and to have those signals permanently inscribed on all of my commentary (“look at what the guy that everybody disagrees with thinks!”) and to find this sad and alienating.
Like, I really cannot overstate the strength of the deterrent of the -n numbers on my comments on this post, alone. I’m keeping my hand on the hot stove because this feels important, but it does not feel good.
If this change sticks as it currently is, it will be really really difficult and painful for me to be on LW. Or, to be more specific: it’s already quite difficult and painful for me to be on LW, and I try very hard anyway/it takes up a disproportionate number of my spoons, and this will make that much worse.
I think that might just end up being fine/the cost that’s worth paying/the least bad option. Like, +10 good for thousands of users while −1000 for just Duncan is an obvious choice. But I wanted to be unequivocal about hating it, in its current state.
EDIT: “very strong pressure” as in, am currently right this minute trying to figure out where I will start posting essays in the future in the hypothetical where this change sticks, since probably-not-LW. =(
So someone can make a statement: “X”. X might be indexical or not. Indexical statements refer to the speaker, like “I think that probabilities are cool” or “I see a parrot.”. Non-indexical statements don’t, like “Probabilities track priors + evidence” or “There are parrots in the world”. The line is blurry: is “Probabilities are cool” implicitly indexical? Agree/disagree with X could be taken to mean, “It would be true if I said X, with the index pointing to me”, while true/untrue means, “X is the case”. If X is non-indexical, asserting agree/disagree is the same as asserting true/untrue. If X is indexical, they’re not the same; disagreeing with “I see a parrot” means “I (the disagree-er) don’t (myself) see a parrot”, while saying ” ‘I (the original speaker) see a parrot’ is untrue” means “No, you don’t see a parrot”.
Duncan, what would you think about a button that means agree/disagree in that sense, i.e., “I could also say this truthfully”? (As opposed to, it would be good for me to say this, or I would actually say this.) Is there a way to make that meaning clear? habryka, would that button get the value for you?
I like the sentence “I could also say this truthfully”, and I feel like it points towards the right generator that I have for what I would like “agree/disagree” to mean.
The tooltip of “Agree: Do you agree with the statements in this comment? Would the statements in this comment ring true if you said them yourself?” feels possibly good, though sure is a bit awkward and am not fully sure how reliably it would get the point across.
I’m pretty cynical about the ability to encourage any nuanced interpretation of such a simple input. Enough people will just use their first impression based on the icons and a quick reading of the labels that you will never be sure what the votes ACTUALLY mean, regardless of how clear your text guidance is.
I hope that people will just not use the agree/disagree voting for comments where it’s ambiguous what an entry would mean. If it doesn’t provide useful information about my reaction to the comment, why wouldn’t I just let my karma vote stand alone?
nods I think in that case we don’t disagree at all about the intention of the feature (the feature is intended to point people at true/false, so in as much as you picked up something else from the wording, seems good to clarify that). I do think we disagree about what the median user will think. I do actually think we should definitely say the words “true” and “false” in the hover-over (or maybe “correct” and “incorrect”, though I feel a bit confused about that one). Does putting the thing in the hover-over just resolve your crux?
(As a sort of sad but seems-good-to-share datapoint, on reading this comment it has 2 karma and −10 agrees, and I felt I had to explicitly undo my “woah, status punch!” reaction. On mousing over the agrees, it turns out it was only 1 vote, and that seemed to make it easier to undo the reaction; it was just one person, not the social winds.)
(I feel like I should be clear that it wasn’t me.)
I think so? Depending on the exact wording or phrasing, but yeah: if it’s clear that the agreement or disagreement requested is an evaluation of truth/accuracy, then that resolves it.
There are some specific edge-cases that we hit on in another thread. In particular, I would like to somehow have a more principled distinction on whether pressing agree on sentences like “I believe X” means “I think you accurately report your beliefs” vs. “I would also report the same belief”. I think we almost always want to do the latter (since it’s more useful information), but “true” feels like it points a bit more toward the former. Maybe we can somehow massage that into the hover-over, or at least the FAQ.
Curious about your takes here. My sense is we are mostly on the same page on this distinction being important (and confusion between them seems like it could pretty easily cause a bunch of hurt).
I think that the correct norm is:
The second button is an assessment of truth or falsehood, and in order to make that happen, we generally don’t click it one way or the other on somebody saying “I believe X.”
If I want to note that I would also report the same belief, I do a karma upvote and leave a comment.
Hmm, I think this would get rid of ~80% of the value for me, and also produce a lot of voting inconsistency, since it’s kind of author-specific how much they insert “I think X” vs. just saying “X”, and take the “I think” implicit.
I much prefer getting data on whether people agree with X in that case, and would really value that information.
80% of the value in those cases, or of the button overall? ’Cos if the latter, it seems like that’s our real disagreement.
Button overall. Like, I think I approximately never make a comment that doesn’t preface almost all of my (edit: not obviously correct) beliefs with “I think”, so this would cause no agree/disagree voting to happen on my comments.
I think this is why this button will be a very strong pressure away from LW, for me.
If the button claims to be about evaluating the truth or falsehood of the content of a comment, and also my comment has said a bunch of true stuff, and has a −17 on it or something, I will absolutely find this emotionally relevant and be Sad about it and want to spend much much less time on LW.
And if the button is not about the truth or falsehood of the content, and is just a signal of … how Other I am, versus how much I am Like the rest of the monkeys reading it, I expect to very frequently be receiving blunt You Are Not Like Us signals, all the time, and to have those signals permanently inscribed on all of my commentary (“look at what the guy that everybody disagrees with thinks!”) and to find this sad and alienating.
Like, I really cannot overstate the strength of the deterrent of the -n numbers on my comments on this post, alone. I’m keeping my hand on the hot stove because this feels important, but it does not feel good.
If this change sticks as it currently is, it will be really really difficult and painful for me to be on LW. Or, to be more specific: it’s already quite difficult and painful for me to be on LW, and I try very hard anyway/it takes up a disproportionate number of my spoons, and this will make that much worse.
I think that might just end up being fine/the cost that’s worth paying/the least bad option. Like, +10 good for thousands of users while −1000 for just Duncan is an obvious choice. But I wanted to be unequivocal about hating it, in its current state.
EDIT: “very strong pressure” as in, am currently right this minute trying to figure out where I will start posting essays in the future in the hypothetical where this change sticks, since probably-not-LW. =(
So someone can make a statement: “X”. X might be indexical or not. Indexical statements refer to the speaker, like “I think that probabilities are cool” or “I see a parrot.”. Non-indexical statements don’t, like “Probabilities track priors + evidence” or “There are parrots in the world”. The line is blurry: is “Probabilities are cool” implicitly indexical? Agree/disagree with X could be taken to mean, “It would be true if I said X, with the index pointing to me”, while true/untrue means, “X is the case”. If X is non-indexical, asserting agree/disagree is the same as asserting true/untrue. If X is indexical, they’re not the same; disagreeing with “I see a parrot” means “I (the disagree-er) don’t (myself) see a parrot”, while saying ” ‘I (the original speaker) see a parrot’ is untrue” means “No, you don’t see a parrot”.
Duncan, what would you think about a button that means agree/disagree in that sense, i.e., “I could also say this truthfully”? (As opposed to, it would be good for me to say this, or I would actually say this.) Is there a way to make that meaning clear? habryka, would that button get the value for you?
I like the sentence “I could also say this truthfully”, and I feel like it points towards the right generator that I have for what I would like “agree/disagree” to mean.
The tooltip of “Agree: Do you agree with the statements in this comment? Would the statements in this comment ring true if you said them yourself?” feels possibly good, though sure is a bit awkward and am not fully sure how reliably it would get the point across.
I’m pretty cynical about the ability to encourage any nuanced interpretation of such a simple input. Enough people will just use their first impression based on the icons and a quick reading of the labels that you will never be sure what the votes ACTUALLY mean, regardless of how clear your text guidance is.
I hope that people will just not use the agree/disagree voting for comments where it’s ambiguous what an entry would mean. If it doesn’t provide useful information about my reaction to the comment, why wouldn’t I just let my karma vote stand alone?
I find the solution of “I could also say this truthfully” to be pretty clever and my gut sense is that it would resolve the distress.