First, I’m not sure if I agree with the ban, but I would allow EN to post one last apologia at least.
Second, considering karma as a property of users rather than of comments is toxic. Let’s stop it. Let’s consider the sum of all comments and post that happen to be written by the same person no more meaningful than the sum of all comments and post that happen to be posted the same day.
If we must rank users, e.g. to decide whom to allow to post articles, let’s have a system where users can rate each other directly (but anonymously). Maybe make higher-ranked users’ ratings count more (i.e. each user’s score is proportional to the component of the eigenvector of the matrix of ratings with the largest eigenvalue).
A google on “Eugine Nier” for the past week brings up “Some results may have been removed under data protection law in Europe. Learn more” Well, that’s interesting.
And for me, with all of: my own name, “David Gerard”, “Eliezer Yudkowsky”, “Eugine Nier” and “Eliezer Arbuthnot” (a fake name I just made up, for which Google finds no results with the quotation marks, offers me results without them, and again gives the “data protection” warning).
So I think this is a bit like searching for “rat vomit” and getting “Buy Cheap Rat Vomit now” ads from eBay: it’s just an algorithmic thing that gets inserted into certain categories of search.
If we must rank users, e.g. to decide whom to allow to post articles, let’s have a system where users can rate each other directly (but anonymously).
A game I used to work on did something like this to gate content that was considered more advanced or more susceptible to balance problems. It caused an astonishing amount of drama between users and didn’t seem to work very well as a gatekeeping mechanism.
First, I’m not sure if I agree with the ban, but I would allow EN to post one last apologia at least.
What makes you think that Eugine has any desire to post one last apology? If that’s what I would have wanted to do, he could have acted differently if Kaj would have queried him.
I think (p~=0.7) you are interpreting “apologia” to mean “saying sorry”, and I think (p~=0.95) army1987 meant it in the sense “statement of self-justification”.
Yup, that’s what I thought. (I’m not sure that with the “apologia” spelling it even can mean “saying sorry”, but I was too lazy to check and of course for all I know you might have got it wrong, hence only p~=0.95. … I’ve now checked, and I think it can in principle mean “saying sorry” but I bet it basically never does. Because every path by which people come to know the word “apologia” goes back to Newman’s book where it’s very clear that the meaning is “self-justification” rather than “saying sorry”.)
First, I’m not sure if I agree with the ban, but I would allow EN to post one last apologia at least.
Second, considering karma as a property of users rather than of comments is toxic. Let’s stop it. Let’s consider the sum of all comments and post that happen to be written by the same person no more meaningful than the sum of all comments and post that happen to be posted the same day.
If we must rank users, e.g. to decide whom to allow to post articles, let’s have a system where users can rate each other directly (but anonymously). Maybe make higher-ranked users’ ratings count more (i.e. each user’s score is proportional to the component of the eigenvector of the matrix of ratings with the largest eigenvalue).
It may be interesting to have comment rank be the sum of positive and negative votes, while user rank counts only the positive votes.
I’d personally like that, and think it’s a great point.
Where we disagree is much more interesting than where we agree. That’s where we can really learn something.
If he sends it by e-mail to Kaj, I am sure Kaj would publish it (using Kaj’s account).
Let him whine somewhere else on the Internet if he wants a parting shot, if he’s not doing so already. He’s active enough elsewhere.
A google on “Eugine Nier” for the past week brings up “Some results may have been removed under data protection law in Europe. Learn more” Well, that’s interesting.
(In any event, that’s not his real name FWIW.)
It says that for most (it is supposed to be all) name searches, when you are googling from Europe, except when the name is too ubiquitous
Doesn’t show up for “David Gerard” or “Eliezer Yudkowsky”.
It does for me if I include the quotes.
And for me, with all of: my own name, “David Gerard”, “Eliezer Yudkowsky”, “Eugine Nier” and “Eliezer Arbuthnot” (a fake name I just made up, for which Google finds no results with the quotation marks, offers me results without them, and again gives the “data protection” warning).
So I think this is a bit like searching for “rat vomit” and getting “Buy Cheap Rat Vomit now” ads from eBay: it’s just an algorithmic thing that gets inserted into certain categories of search.
It shows up for me even with “Mencius Moldbug”, whether with or without the quotes.
A game I used to work on did something like this to gate content that was considered more advanced or more susceptible to balance problems. It caused an astonishing amount of drama between users and didn’t seem to work very well as a gatekeeping mechanism.
I’m against it, pending details.
What makes you think that Eugine has any desire to post one last apology? If that’s what I would have wanted to do, he could have acted differently if Kaj would have queried him.
I think (p~=0.7) you are interpreting “apologia” to mean “saying sorry”, and I think (p~=0.95) army1987 meant it in the sense “statement of self-justification”.
I did (otherwise I would have spelt it “apology”).
Yup, that’s what I thought. (I’m not sure that with the “apologia” spelling it even can mean “saying sorry”, but I was too lazy to check and of course for all I know you might have got it wrong, hence only p~=0.95. … I’ve now checked, and I think it can in principle mean “saying sorry” but I bet it basically never does. Because every path by which people come to know the word “apologia” goes back to Newman’s book where it’s very clear that the meaning is “self-justification” rather than “saying sorry”.)