Out of curiosity, what exactly is it about this comment that is prompting people to upvote it. I ask because it is currently my most upvoted comment, whereas other comments that I put far more effort into languish at zero karrma?
My usual interpretation is that most users don’t read more than a fraction of the threads, and there’s a wide readership variance between threads, so a mildly interesting comment on a popular thread will get more upvotes than a very interesting comment on an unpopular thread. The karma score of all the comments in that thread encourages that interpretation.
More generally, I think you’ll do better to consider it evidence against the theory that karma actually measures anything particularly well, than to consider it evidence towards a theory that there’s some particular thing that comment particularly well exemplifies which LW users particularly want to see more of.
The Shakers managed to maintain a stable membership of over a thousand for almost a century despite a blanket prohibition on sex.
Are the FLDS folks planning to adopt kids?
They might have trouble doing it legally.
Out of curiosity, what exactly is it about this comment that is prompting people to upvote it. I ask because it is currently my most upvoted comment, whereas other comments that I put far more effort into languish at zero karrma?
That sort of thing happens.
My usual interpretation is that most users don’t read more than a fraction of the threads, and there’s a wide readership variance between threads, so a mildly interesting comment on a popular thread will get more upvotes than a very interesting comment on an unpopular thread. The karma score of all the comments in that thread encourages that interpretation.
More generally, I think you’ll do better to consider it evidence against the theory that karma actually measures anything particularly well, than to consider it evidence towards a theory that there’s some particular thing that comment particularly well exemplifies which LW users particularly want to see more of.