I think that the interesting part of these things is the actual posts and the responses to them, not the votes. I think it should work more similarly to CMV (Change My View) on Reddit. Have a thread (maybe just the open thread) where people are encouraged to post where the say something that the expect many people on Lesswrong might disagree with, and people try to convince them.
I also think that the value of the votes is much better if there are upvotes and downvotes. Unfortunately this could be bad for karma. Perhaps each post should have a poll in it, and people upvote just based on how interesting the conversation is.
I also think there was a problem with people posting underspecified claims. Words like “feminism” and “can” have many sometimes contradictory definitions.
I am puzzled by the downvote on Azathoth123′s comment here. I think it’s not the only mysterious downvote I’ve seen on his comments recently. If this is because someone who doesn’t like his opinions on race and sex and suchlike thinks he should be punished for it: Please stop; you will not do anyone any good this way.
Maybe. But another possibility is that this kind of thing is because we try to avoid talking about that stuff on Less Wrong. In other words, that it’s not that some politically motivated people are punishing others for having Incorrect Views—but that someone who thinks LW is an inappropriate venue for discussions involving race and gender and so forth is hitting everyone involved with punitive downvotes in the hope of making them shut up.
It would be particularly ironic if it turned out that (1) this is happening and (2) the motivation is to try to make LW a more reasonable and less angry place and (3) the actual effect is simply to make more people on LW feel attacked cross, which will doubtless tend to make them less reasonable and more angry.
(Some weak evidence for this hypothesis—I mean just #1, not the further elaborations #2 and #3 -- is that I’m seeing what look like obviously unreasonable downvotes aimed at (at least) both me and Azathoth123, and I think we’ve been the most active participants in the recent discussion of (alleged) sexist bias. ChristianKI has also been a frequent participant and has also had a bunch of downvotes, but I happen not to have noticed any as obviously unreasonable as some of the ones Azathoth123 and I have received so I can’t rule out the possibility that he came by his downvotes honestly, so to speak. I should perhaps mention for the avoidance of doubt that whoever’s throwing a lot of gratuitous downvotes at Azathoth123, it isn’t me. I downvote rather little on LW and in the recent sexism discussions I think I have downvoted one comment. It might possibly be two.)
I like the suggestion of using a poll, but that is even harder on the poster than adding the special notice. Also: The karma-incentive on contrarian ideas is beneficial.
I think that the interesting part of these things is the actual posts and the responses to them, not the votes. I think it should work more similarly to CMV (Change My View) on Reddit. Have a thread (maybe just the open thread) where people are encouraged to post where the say something that the expect many people on Lesswrong might disagree with, and people try to convince them.
I also think that the value of the votes is much better if there are upvotes and downvotes. Unfortunately this could be bad for karma. Perhaps each post should have a poll in it, and people upvote just based on how interesting the conversation is.
I also think there was a problem with people posting underspecified claims. Words like “feminism” and “can” have many sometimes contradictory definitions.
Disagree, I think the main benefit of the thread is defeating Asch Conformity type effects. Hence the voting system is useful.
I am puzzled by the downvote on Azathoth123′s comment here. I think it’s not the only mysterious downvote I’ve seen on his comments recently. If this is because someone who doesn’t like his opinions on race and sex and suchlike thinks he should be punished for it: Please stop; you will not do anyone any good this way.
I guess this kind of thing is why we try to avoid talking about that stuff on Less Wrong.
Maybe. But another possibility is that this kind of thing is because we try to avoid talking about that stuff on Less Wrong. In other words, that it’s not that some politically motivated people are punishing others for having Incorrect Views—but that someone who thinks LW is an inappropriate venue for discussions involving race and gender and so forth is hitting everyone involved with punitive downvotes in the hope of making them shut up.
It would be particularly ironic if it turned out that (1) this is happening and (2) the motivation is to try to make LW a more reasonable and less angry place and (3) the actual effect is simply to make more people on LW feel attacked cross, which will doubtless tend to make them less reasonable and more angry.
(Some weak evidence for this hypothesis—I mean just #1, not the further elaborations #2 and #3 -- is that I’m seeing what look like obviously unreasonable downvotes aimed at (at least) both me and Azathoth123, and I think we’ve been the most active participants in the recent discussion of (alleged) sexist bias. ChristianKI has also been a frequent participant and has also had a bunch of downvotes, but I happen not to have noticed any as obviously unreasonable as some of the ones Azathoth123 and I have received so I can’t rule out the possibility that he came by his downvotes honestly, so to speak. I should perhaps mention for the avoidance of doubt that whoever’s throwing a lot of gratuitous downvotes at Azathoth123, it isn’t me. I downvote rather little on LW and in the recent sexism discussions I think I have downvoted one comment. It might possibly be two.)
I like the suggestion of using a poll, but that is even harder on the poster than adding the special notice. Also: The karma-incentive on contrarian ideas is beneficial.