No matter. You’ll start to question that preference
It’s convenient as you can surprise people positively if they underestimate you. And it’s actually to some extent true. After so long trying to avoid it I still frequently don’t think before talking. It might be that I assume other people to be a kind of feedback system that’ll just correct my ineffectual arguments so that I don’t have to think them through myself.
For most people it is very hard not to question your own judgement when it is subject to substantial disagreement.
I guess the reason for not seeing this is that I’m quite different. All my life I’ve been surrounded by substantial disagreement while sticking to questioning others rather than myself. It lead me from Jehovah’s Witnesses to Richard Dawkins to Eliezer Yudkowsky.
Nevertheless, “you being wrong” is not the only reason for other people to disagree with you.
Of course, something I haven’t thought about. I suppose I implicitly assumed that nobody would be foolish enough to vote on matters of taste. (Edit: Yet that is. My questioning of the system was actually based on the possibility of this happening.)
...without being a direct social challenge to those who voted
NancyLebovitz told me kind of the same recently. - “I am applying social pressure...”—Which I found quite amusing. Are you talking about it in the context of the LW community? I couldn’t care less. I’m the kind of person who never ever cared about social issues. I don’t have any real friends and I never felt I need any beyond being of instrumental utility. I guess that explains why I haven’t thought about this. You are right though.
A counter-example to a straw man.
I was too lazy and tired to parse your sentence and replied to the argument I would have liked to be refuted.
I’m still suspicious that this kind of voting system will stay being of much value once wisdom and the refinement of it is outnumbered by special interest groups.
I was too lazy and tired to parse your sentence and replied to the argument I would have liked to be refuted.
If I understand the point in question it seems we are in agreement—voting is evidence about the reasoning of the voter which can in turn be evidence about the comment itself. In the case of downvotes (and this is where we disagree), I actually think it is better that we don’t have access to that evidence. Mostly because down that road lies politics and partly because people don’t all have the same criteria for voting. There is a difference between “I think the comment should be at +4 but it is currently at +6”, “I think this comment contains bad reasoning”, “this comment is on the opposing side of the argument”, “this comment is of lesser quality than the parent and/or child” and “I am reciprocating voting behavior”. Down this road lies madness.
I’m still suspicious that this kind of voting system will stay being of much value once wisdom and the refinement of it is outnumbered by special interest groups.
I don’t think we disagree substantially on this.
We do seem to have have a different picture of the the likely influence of public voting if it were to replace anonymous voting. From what you are saying part of this difference would seem to be due to differences in the way we account for the social influence of negative (and even just different) social feedback. A high priority for me is minimising any undesirable effects of (social) politics on both the conversation in general and on me in particular.
Pardon me. I deleted the grandparent planning to move it to a meta thread. The comment, fresh from the clipboard in the form that I would have re-posted, is this:
I just love to do that.
Thats ok. For what it is worth, while I upvoted your comment this time I’ll probably downvote future instances of self-deprecation. I also tend to downvote people when they apologise for no reason. I just find wussy behaviors annoying. I actually stopped watching The Sorcerer’s Apprentice a couple of times before I got to the end—even Nicholas Cage as a millenia old vagabond shooting lightening balls from his hands can only balance out so much self-deprecation from his apprentice.
Note that some instances of self-deprecation are highly effective and quite the opposite of wussy, but it is a fairly advanced social move that only achieves useful ends if you know exactly what you are doing.
Overcoming bias? I would rapidly start to question my own judgment
For most people it is very hard not to question your own judgement when it is subject to substantial disagreement. Nevertheless, “you being wrong” is not the only reason for other people to disagree with you. Those biasses you mention are quite prolific.
and gain the ability to directly ask people why they downvoted a certain item.
We already have the ability to ask why a comment is up or down voted. Because we currently have anonymity such questions can be asked without being a direct social challenge to those who voted. This cuts out all sorts of biases and allows communication that would not be possible if votes were out there in the open.
Take EY, I doubt he has the time to actually comment on everything he reads. That does not imply the decision to downvote a certain item was due to poor reasoning.
A counter-example to a straw man. (I agree and maintain my previous claim.)
I don’t see how this system can stay useful if this site will become increasingly popular and attract a lot of people who vote based on non-rational criteria.
That could be considered a ‘high quality problem’. That many people wishing to explore concepts related to improving rational thinking and behavior would be remarkable!
I do actually agree that the karma system could be better implemented. The best karma system I have seen was one in which the weight of votes depended on the karma of the voter. The example I am thinking of allocated weight vote according to ‘rank’ but when plotted the vote/voter.karma relationship would look approximately logarithmic. That system would be farm more stable and probably more useful than the one we have, although it is somewhat less simple.
Another feature that some sites have is making only positive votes public. (This is something that I would support.)
The best karma system I have seen was one in which the weight of votes depended on the karma of the voter. The example I am thinking of allocated weight vote according to ‘rank’ but when plotted the vote/voter.karma relationship would look approximately logarithmic. That system would be farm more stable and probably more useful than the one we have, although it is somewhat less simple.
Where were the logarithmic karma system used?
The stability could be a problem in the moderately unlikely event that the core group is going sour and new members have a better grasp. I grant that it’s more likely to have a lot of new members who don’t understand the core values of the group.
I don’t think it would be a problem to have a system which gives both the number and total karma-weight of votes.
It was a system that used VBulletin, which includes such a module. I have seen similar features available in other similar systems that I have made use of at various times.
The stability could be a problem in the moderately unlikely event that the core group is going sour and new members have a better grasp. I grant that it’s more likely to have a lot of new members who don’t understand the core values of the group.
True, and unfortunately most systems short of an AI with the ‘correct’ values will be vulnerable to human stupidity.
I don’t think it would be a problem to have a system which gives both the number and total karma-weight of votes.
No particular problem, but probably not necessary just yet!
It’s convenient as you can surprise people positively if they underestimate you. And it’s actually to some extent true. After so long trying to avoid it I still frequently don’t think before talking. It might be that I assume other people to be a kind of feedback system that’ll just correct my ineffectual arguments so that I don’t have to think them through myself.
I guess the reason for not seeing this is that I’m quite different. All my life I’ve been surrounded by substantial disagreement while sticking to questioning others rather than myself. It lead me from Jehovah’s Witnesses to Richard Dawkins to Eliezer Yudkowsky.
Of course, something I haven’t thought about. I suppose I implicitly assumed that nobody would be foolish enough to vote on matters of taste. (Edit: Yet that is. My questioning of the system was actually based on the possibility of this happening.)
NancyLebovitz told me kind of the same recently. - “I am applying social pressure...”—Which I found quite amusing. Are you talking about it in the context of the LW community? I couldn’t care less. I’m the kind of person who never ever cared about social issues. I don’t have any real friends and I never felt I need any beyond being of instrumental utility. I guess that explains why I haven’t thought about this. You are right though.
I was too lazy and tired to parse your sentence and replied to the argument I would have liked to be refuted.
I’m still suspicious that this kind of voting system will stay being of much value once wisdom and the refinement of it is outnumbered by special interest groups.
If I understand the point in question it seems we are in agreement—voting is evidence about the reasoning of the voter which can in turn be evidence about the comment itself. In the case of downvotes (and this is where we disagree), I actually think it is better that we don’t have access to that evidence. Mostly because down that road lies politics and partly because people don’t all have the same criteria for voting. There is a difference between “I think the comment should be at +4 but it is currently at +6”, “I think this comment contains bad reasoning”, “this comment is on the opposing side of the argument”, “this comment is of lesser quality than the parent and/or child” and “I am reciprocating voting behavior”. Down this road lies madness.
I don’t think we disagree substantially on this.
We do seem to have have a different picture of the the likely influence of public voting if it were to replace anonymous voting. From what you are saying part of this difference would seem to be due to differences in the way we account for the social influence of negative (and even just different) social feedback. A high priority for me is minimising any undesirable effects of (social) politics on both the conversation in general and on me in particular.
Pardon me. I deleted the grandparent planning to move it to a meta thread. The comment, fresh from the clipboard in the form that I would have re-posted, is this:
Thats ok. For what it is worth, while I upvoted your comment this time I’ll probably downvote future instances of self-deprecation. I also tend to downvote people when they apologise for no reason. I just find wussy behaviors annoying. I actually stopped watching The Sorcerer’s Apprentice a couple of times before I got to the end—even Nicholas Cage as a millenia old vagabond shooting lightening balls from his hands can only balance out so much self-deprecation from his apprentice.
Note that some instances of self-deprecation are highly effective and quite the opposite of wussy, but it is a fairly advanced social move that only achieves useful ends if you know exactly what you are doing.
For most people it is very hard not to question your own judgement when it is subject to substantial disagreement. Nevertheless, “you being wrong” is not the only reason for other people to disagree with you. Those biasses you mention are quite prolific.
We already have the ability to ask why a comment is up or down voted. Because we currently have anonymity such questions can be asked without being a direct social challenge to those who voted. This cuts out all sorts of biases and allows communication that would not be possible if votes were out there in the open.
A counter-example to a straw man. (I agree and maintain my previous claim.)
That could be considered a ‘high quality problem’. That many people wishing to explore concepts related to improving rational thinking and behavior would be remarkable!
I do actually agree that the karma system could be better implemented. The best karma system I have seen was one in which the weight of votes depended on the karma of the voter. The example I am thinking of allocated weight vote according to ‘rank’ but when plotted the vote/voter.karma relationship would look approximately logarithmic. That system would be farm more stable and probably more useful than the one we have, although it is somewhat less simple.
Another feature that some sites have is making only positive votes public. (This is something that I would support.)
Where were the logarithmic karma system used?
The stability could be a problem in the moderately unlikely event that the core group is going sour and new members have a better grasp. I grant that it’s more likely to have a lot of new members who don’t understand the core values of the group.
I don’t think it would be a problem to have a system which gives both the number and total karma-weight of votes.
It was a system that used VBulletin, which includes such a module. I have seen similar features available in other similar systems that I have made use of at various times.
True, and unfortunately most systems short of an AI with the ‘correct’ values will be vulnerable to human stupidity.
No particular problem, but probably not necessary just yet!