I believe already have, primarily because it encouraged an influx of posters only interested in political advocacy of one kind of another. It significantly lowered the quality of conversation for some time.. I did, however, upvote Komponisto’s earlier survey style post, which was an excellent exercise in rationality.
I believe already have [downvoted “The Amanda Knox Test”], primarily because it encouraged an influx of posters only interested in political advocacy of one kind of another.
That is a shame. You indicated at the time that you enjoyed my post; it doesn’t seem right to downvote a post that meets the internal standards of LW simply because of the traffic it brings in. Yes, there were some low-quality comments, but they were downvoted to invisibility—just like it’s supposed to work. Meanwhile, we also managed to host what was and probably remains the highest-quality discussion of that particular controversial hot-topic on any Internet forum.
It may also be worth considering the new (legitimate) readers we may have picked up as a result of a post that received greater-than-usual outside exposure.
Finally, I don’t think we should go back and downvote old posts that we liked to be “fair” to recent posts that we don’t, just because they’re on the same topic. That seems silly.
I am convinced, on all counts and have reverted the change. In the context your post warranted a positive reception. On the other hand I do think new posts now made on other similar issues of contention are something to be wary of encouraging and I have little doubt that I’ll downvote similar posts in the future.
At the level of self awareness I notice my ethical instincts being pushed away from my usual consequentialist leanings and towards deontological thinking when engaged personally and in a positive manner. This seems to be a typical response and I know that I experience the reverse change strongly when met with aggressive or socially presumptive engagement.. Interesting.
People say things like this here something like ten to a hundred times more frequently than they do anywhere else I have ever frequented.
My hunch is that thinking style combined years of frustration at intellectual discourse being ruined by status considerations play a strong part there in many cases.
Sounds reasonable. I wonder if there should be more survey style posts then, but on topics that will have verifiable outcomes. For example, one could pick out a topic from one of the prediction markets and discuss that. This would have the advantage that, at the end of the day, if someone come to the wrong conclusion, they would eventually realize they came to the wrong conclusion and have an opportunity to learn something from the exercise.
I believe already have, primarily because it encouraged an influx of posters only interested in political advocacy of one kind of another. It significantly lowered the quality of conversation for some time.. I did, however, upvote Komponisto’s earlier survey style post, which was an excellent exercise in rationality.
That is a shame. You indicated at the time that you enjoyed my post; it doesn’t seem right to downvote a post that meets the internal standards of LW simply because of the traffic it brings in. Yes, there were some low-quality comments, but they were downvoted to invisibility—just like it’s supposed to work. Meanwhile, we also managed to host what was and probably remains the highest-quality discussion of that particular controversial hot-topic on any Internet forum.
It may also be worth considering the new (legitimate) readers we may have picked up as a result of a post that received greater-than-usual outside exposure.
Finally, I don’t think we should go back and downvote old posts that we liked to be “fair” to recent posts that we don’t, just because they’re on the same topic. That seems silly.
I am convinced, on all counts and have reverted the change. In the context your post warranted a positive reception. On the other hand I do think new posts now made on other similar issues of contention are something to be wary of encouraging and I have little doubt that I’ll downvote similar posts in the future.
At the level of self awareness I notice my ethical instincts being pushed away from my usual consequentialist leanings and towards deontological thinking when engaged personally and in a positive manner. This seems to be a typical response and I know that I experience the reverse change strongly when met with aggressive or socially presumptive engagement.. Interesting.
People say things like this here something like ten to a hundred times more frequently than they do anywhere else I have ever frequented.
That’s still not much.
My hunch is that thinking style combined years of frustration at intellectual discourse being ruined by status considerations play a strong part there in many cases.
Sounds reasonable. I wonder if there should be more survey style posts then, but on topics that will have verifiable outcomes. For example, one could pick out a topic from one of the prediction markets and discuss that. This would have the advantage that, at the end of the day, if someone come to the wrong conclusion, they would eventually realize they came to the wrong conclusion and have an opportunity to learn something from the exercise.
I totally agree (and made a similar suggestion in the recent games thread.)
War in Iran by 2016 might be a possible candidate.
Sounds like a good one. But I expect you to have a better estimate than I do on that topic so I’m not going to bet against you!