How could you possibly know this is what is happening? Your long comment and this one have four critical comments and five downvotes apiece at the time of my viewing. The critical comments are by six different people, the downvotes are from five to ten people.
Obviously, were there no comments and a hundred downvotes you still couldn’t conclude LW had the habit of downvoting without reading.
How could you possibly know this is what is happening?
Bayesian inference. Given what I know of human behaviour and past exposure to lesswrong I assigned greater than 80% confidence that the comment was downvoted without being read. Will has even more information about the specifics of the conversation so his conclusion does not seem at all unfounded.
ie. I reject the rhetorical implication of your question. That particular inference of Will’s was reasonable. (Everything else he has said recently… less so.)
I didn’t mean to imply the full force what another might have meant to imply with my words. Granted framework for inferring that probably had happened was available, the pattern of downvotes and negative comments didn’t seem to match what the framework would require to reach the conclusion.
He gave a good answer insofar as the first downvote was concerned. A better answer would have gone on to explain that the individuals who left critical comments wouldn’t have downvoted him, but he didn’t say that, perhaps because he couldn’t have justified it even well short of it being a firm conclusion.
If he had evidence that, say, the people who left critical comments him upvoted him without reading, or that many upvoted him immediately with or without reading, he would have better reason to think many others downvoted him without reading. He didn’t say that. If you are implying now, then fine.
Considering the critical comment/downvote ratio, I remain unimpressed with the complaint, as well as with its implication that downvoting a wall of text in which the words quantum/God is Math/Him/Jesus pop out upon scanning is an unjustified thing.
Before I commented, I thought it unlikely it was justified, insofar as since commenting, he has justified thinking it true for one downvote, I think it even less likely he can justify it for the others, which enervates the claim that it is a “habit” of LW.
I downvoted the comment in question without reading it beyond confirming that by keyword it is at least as insane as the other things he has said recently. He seems to have completely lost his grasp of reality to the extent that I am concerned for his mental health and would recommend seeking urgent medical attention.
So I don’t necessarily agree that downvoting without reading is necessarily a bad thing. But Will certainly has strong evidence that it was occurring in this thread. I had noticed it before Will made the complaint himself.
I don’t think people who downvote before reading count as something to legitimately complain about, as they can change their vote after reading. “People who downvote without reading are bad” is a fine enough statement for conversation and making one’s point, but the argument against downvoting is that one shouldn’t be judged by those who fail to gain information about what they judge, which isn’t so applicable here (except to the extent the voters are biased to keep their initial vote).
In fact, if people who downvote without reading are often people who downvote before reading, the evidence that a few voted before the submission could have been read and judged on its merits is even less impressive.
At this point it really doesn’t matter much what you write. Voting patterns for the thread (and the related thread) are entrenched and you will be voted on by name not content. It is usually best to write the conversation (or the people) off and move on. There is little to be gained by trying to fight the death spiral.
Agreed. It’s always that few seconds of utter despair that make me write stupid things. It’s not long after the despair algorithm that the automatic “this isn’t the should world, it’s reality, any suffering you are experiencing is the result of samsaric delusion” algorithms kick in, at least for a little while.
How could you possibly know this is what is happening? Your long comment and this one have four critical comments and five downvotes apiece at the time of my viewing. The critical comments are by six different people, the downvotes are from five to ten people.
Obviously, were there no comments and a hundred downvotes you still couldn’t conclude LW had the habit of downvoting without reading.
Bayesian inference. Given what I know of human behaviour and past exposure to lesswrong I assigned greater than 80% confidence that the comment was downvoted without being read. Will has even more information about the specifics of the conversation so his conclusion does not seem at all unfounded.
ie. I reject the rhetorical implication of your question. That particular inference of Will’s was reasonable. (Everything else he has said recently… less so.)
I didn’t mean to imply the full force what another might have meant to imply with my words. Granted framework for inferring that probably had happened was available, the pattern of downvotes and negative comments didn’t seem to match what the framework would require to reach the conclusion.
He gave a good answer insofar as the first downvote was concerned. A better answer would have gone on to explain that the individuals who left critical comments wouldn’t have downvoted him, but he didn’t say that, perhaps because he couldn’t have justified it even well short of it being a firm conclusion.
If he had evidence that, say, the people who left critical comments him upvoted him without reading, or that many upvoted him immediately with or without reading, he would have better reason to think many others downvoted him without reading. He didn’t say that. If you are implying now, then fine.
Considering the critical comment/downvote ratio, I remain unimpressed with the complaint, as well as with its implication that downvoting a wall of text in which the words quantum/God is Math/Him/Jesus pop out upon scanning is an unjustified thing.
Before I commented, I thought it unlikely it was justified, insofar as since commenting, he has justified thinking it true for one downvote, I think it even less likely he can justify it for the others, which enervates the claim that it is a “habit” of LW.
I downvoted the comment in question without reading it beyond confirming that by keyword it is at least as insane as the other things he has said recently. He seems to have completely lost his grasp of reality to the extent that I am concerned for his mental health and would recommend seeking urgent medical attention.
So I don’t necessarily agree that downvoting without reading is necessarily a bad thing. But Will certainly has strong evidence that it was occurring in this thread. I had noticed it before Will made the complaint himself.
I don’t think people who downvote before reading count as something to legitimately complain about, as they can change their vote after reading. “People who downvote without reading are bad” is a fine enough statement for conversation and making one’s point, but the argument against downvoting is that one shouldn’t be judged by those who fail to gain information about what they judge, which isn’t so applicable here (except to the extent the voters are biased to keep their initial vote).
In fact, if people who downvote without reading are often people who downvote before reading, the evidence that a few voted before the submission could have been read and judged on its merits is even less impressive.
I got a downvote within about 10 seconds.
At this point it really doesn’t matter much what you write. Voting patterns for the thread (and the related thread) are entrenched and you will be voted on by name not content. It is usually best to write the conversation (or the people) off and move on. There is little to be gained by trying to fight the death spiral.
Agreed. It’s always that few seconds of utter despair that make me write stupid things. It’s not long after the despair algorithm that the automatic “this isn’t the should world, it’s reality, any suffering you are experiencing is the result of samsaric delusion” algorithms kick in, at least for a little while.