I officially don’t understand how less wrong rates articles. I have done my best to write an intelligent, thought provoking post, and spent quite a few hours on it. As far as I can tell it is well written, well founded with references to other material, I don’t make any obvious logical errors as far as I can see… and yet I get zero karma for it. Why? Plenty of people have commented on it, so it is not as if the topic is uninteresting.
I mean, I get that it’s not a perfect post, I suppose I could work it out some more, but is Less Wrong really trying to tell me that they are indifferent as to whether I continue posting articles or not? As in, this article provides zero value? Because that seems… extremely harsh. I spent several hours doing my best on writing a high-level post and get zero points while a single off-handed post saying that Soviet Russia wasn’t a haven of critical thinking gets at least one point. Polymathwannabe writes a short comment on there being an illusion of design (interesting but nothing new) and gets seven points while I get zero for a well written article that took up a big chunk of my day… WHY? I don’t get it.
Am I missing something here? Is there some glaring flaw in my post that makes it useless and I am not seeing it? Or is Less Wrong just ridiculously negative about articles to the point where getting as many downvotes as I get upvotes is not unusual for what is surely a well written and at least somewhat thought provoking post?
I understand your frustration. It’s not fun being voted down.
is Less Wrong really trying to tell me that they are indifferent as to whether I continue posting articles or not? As in, this article provides zero value?
The baseline isn’t zero—it’s the the opportunity cost of reading the article. Would readers have preferred reading your article to another random article? If you don’t cross that threshold, many of your readers will suffer a net loss. It’s a high bar, especially with many great articles around.
Readers outnumber article writers hundreds to one. Optimizing for quality reading is more important than producing more articles.
it’s a bunch of weird speculation about nothing useful. I read it and was like, shrugs? You say you’re not trying to convince us that the devil actually exists, but What’s your actual point?
Your article isn’t actually well-written, however much time you may have put into it. It doesn’t convey whatever you think the point is effectively and it isn’t particularly relevant to most of what what we talk about here. You do indeed cherry-pick a lot (as you seem to have noticed.)
FWIW, I read your summary and the first paragraph, decided I wasn’t interested in the article, and moved on. Do you think I should have done something different? If so, why?
I won’t reply to everyone individually, since I don’t want to swarm the site with posts about me, so I’ll just reply to everyone here. Thanks to those people who took time to point out what they objected to in my post. I especially appreciate the posts in this thread by Ishaan, Solipsist and such who gave valuable commentary and criticism while still being respectful. I’ve also come to appreciate that my biggest fault was perhaps the length of the post, which caused people to expect more than a simple thought experiment could deliver. I will try to keep the information density higher in any future posts, if I ever feel up to it again.
I must admit I am still surprised by the reaction to that one line about Ayn Rand, which I thought was largely irrelevant to the main point of the post. I definitely don’t see my post as a political rant in any way, as politics itself was merely used as an example. I suspect my fault here was that I had underestimated the apparent libertarian sympathies on this forum, and so I had not couched the political reference with sufficient disclaimers (Ayn Rand is not necessarily responsible for the behaviour of her followers, much like Richard Dawkins wasn’t responsible for the reaction to The Selfish Gene, etc. This doesn’t change the fact that both were used for political ends.)
I still feel that the reaction to my post asking why the response was so negative, whereupon some people went and downvoted every one of my posts without saying why, is incredibly unhelpful. I suspect that these people are an immature minority who would rather “punish” people who disagree with their political affiliation than actually engage with others in reasonable discussion. Fortunately I am not too bothered by karma, I was just confused and frustrated as to what the heck was going on.
I’ve also come to appreciate that my biggest fault was perhaps the length of the post, which caused people to expect more than a simple thought experiment could deliver.
No, your biggest flaw is that the thought experiment amounts to little more than an excuse to attack hated enemies. Specifically it looks like: if [philosophy you don’t approve of] can be associated (however tenuously) with [bad thing X], I as the devil will promote said philosophy. If [philosophy I approve of] is widely associated with [bad thing Y], I as the devil will seek to discredit said philosophy by associating it with [bad thing Y].
I must admit I am still surprised by the reaction to that one line about Ayn Rand, which I thought was largely irrelevant to the main point of the post.
Then why did you include it? See this post by EY where he advises against using political examples to illustrate not political points.
(Ayn Rand is not necessarily responsible for the behaviour of her followers, much like Richard Dawkins wasn’t responsible for the reaction to The Selfish Gene, etc. This doesn’t change the fact that both were used for political ends.)
Notice your attempt at guilt by association there. You are trying to associate the behavior of Ayn Rand’s followers with some of the bad behavior of people who read The Selfish Gene, without explicitly calling said behaviour bad, or providing any examples of bad behavior. All you mention is that she was “used for political ends”, well, duh, she was explicitly trying to be political. Another example is here were you appear to be trying to implicate Paul Ryan with supporting crony capitalism, without explicitly saying that he supports it (which would be false).
I officially don’t understand how less wrong rates articles. I have done my best to write an intelligent, thought provoking post, and spent quite a few hours on it. As far as I can tell it is well written, well founded with references to other material, I don’t make any obvious logical errors as far as I can see… and yet I get zero karma for it. Why? Plenty of people have commented on it, so it is not as if the topic is uninteresting.
I mean, I get that it’s not a perfect post, I suppose I could work it out some more, but is Less Wrong really trying to tell me that they are indifferent as to whether I continue posting articles or not? As in, this article provides zero value? Because that seems… extremely harsh. I spent several hours doing my best on writing a high-level post and get zero points while a single off-handed post saying that Soviet Russia wasn’t a haven of critical thinking gets at least one point. Polymathwannabe writes a short comment on there being an illusion of design (interesting but nothing new) and gets seven points while I get zero for a well written article that took up a big chunk of my day… WHY? I don’t get it.
Am I missing something here? Is there some glaring flaw in my post that makes it useless and I am not seeing it? Or is Less Wrong just ridiculously negative about articles to the point where getting as many downvotes as I get upvotes is not unusual for what is surely a well written and at least somewhat thought provoking post?
I understand your frustration. It’s not fun being voted down.
The baseline isn’t zero—it’s the the opportunity cost of reading the article. Would readers have preferred reading your article to another random article? If you don’t cross that threshold, many of your readers will suffer a net loss. It’s a high bar, especially with many great articles around.
Readers outnumber article writers hundreds to one. Optimizing for quality reading is more important than producing more articles.
I think some readers at least already take that into account when deciding how to vote.
You didn’t deliver on your thought experiment premise and ended up doing a political rant against your favorite unlikable targets instead.
it’s a bunch of weird speculation about nothing useful. I read it and was like, shrugs? You say you’re not trying to convince us that the devil actually exists, but What’s your actual point?
Your article isn’t actually well-written, however much time you may have put into it. It doesn’t convey whatever you think the point is effectively and it isn’t particularly relevant to most of what what we talk about here. You do indeed cherry-pick a lot (as you seem to have noticed.)
FWIW, I read your summary and the first paragraph, decided I wasn’t interested in the article, and moved on.
Do you think I should have done something different?
If so, why?
I won’t reply to everyone individually, since I don’t want to swarm the site with posts about me, so I’ll just reply to everyone here. Thanks to those people who took time to point out what they objected to in my post. I especially appreciate the posts in this thread by Ishaan, Solipsist and such who gave valuable commentary and criticism while still being respectful. I’ve also come to appreciate that my biggest fault was perhaps the length of the post, which caused people to expect more than a simple thought experiment could deliver. I will try to keep the information density higher in any future posts, if I ever feel up to it again.
I must admit I am still surprised by the reaction to that one line about Ayn Rand, which I thought was largely irrelevant to the main point of the post. I definitely don’t see my post as a political rant in any way, as politics itself was merely used as an example. I suspect my fault here was that I had underestimated the apparent libertarian sympathies on this forum, and so I had not couched the political reference with sufficient disclaimers (Ayn Rand is not necessarily responsible for the behaviour of her followers, much like Richard Dawkins wasn’t responsible for the reaction to The Selfish Gene, etc. This doesn’t change the fact that both were used for political ends.)
I still feel that the reaction to my post asking why the response was so negative, whereupon some people went and downvoted every one of my posts without saying why, is incredibly unhelpful. I suspect that these people are an immature minority who would rather “punish” people who disagree with their political affiliation than actually engage with others in reasonable discussion. Fortunately I am not too bothered by karma, I was just confused and frustrated as to what the heck was going on.
No, your biggest flaw is that the thought experiment amounts to little more than an excuse to attack hated enemies. Specifically it looks like: if [philosophy you don’t approve of] can be associated (however tenuously) with [bad thing X], I as the devil will promote said philosophy. If [philosophy I approve of] is widely associated with [bad thing Y], I as the devil will seek to discredit said philosophy by associating it with [bad thing Y].
Then why did you include it? See this post by EY where he advises against using political examples to illustrate not political points.
Notice your attempt at guilt by association there. You are trying to associate the behavior of Ayn Rand’s followers with some of the bad behavior of people who read The Selfish Gene, without explicitly calling said behaviour bad, or providing any examples of bad behavior. All you mention is that she was “used for political ends”, well, duh, she was explicitly trying to be political. Another example is here were you appear to be trying to implicate Paul Ryan with supporting crony capitalism, without explicitly saying that he supports it (which would be false).