I’ve long settled on interpreting the meaning of upvotes as “I like this post and want to see more like this”.
I vote on posts before knowing who authored them or what their current score is, using the Anti-Kibitz script. This is because I’ve become more aware of my own bias as a result of reading LW, which I believe was the intended result. (I liked Yvain’s post and voted it up, but not because I’m a “fan”, just because I thought it’d be nice to have more posts like it.)
After I vote a post up, I turn off the script to see who it was from. If I thought they deserved an upvote in the first place, my vote still means the same, and it’s natural to wish that my vote aggregates with others’ in giving the author feedback about their post. So, I don’t as a rule go back on a vote once I’ve given it.
So it kind of puzzles me why you seem to think there should be some kind of “vote ceiling”, or why you expect that your own evaluation of a post should be a good indicator of how others like it. What I’m saying, I guess, is that I don’t get the point of your parenthetical.
I’ve long settled on interpreting the meaning of upvotes as “I like this post and want to see more like this”.
I agree, though I still intuitively get “This post was worth more points” or “97 points? it was only as good as this other post, which has 30 points”.
So it kind of puzzles me why you … expect that your own evaluation of a post should be a good indicator of how others like it.
Really? That seems like a completely natural expectation to me. Like, I like strawberries dipped in chocolate, so I would assume (with no other info) that a random person would like strawberries dipped in chocolate. We are far more alike than not.
I liked Yvain’s post and voted it up, but not because I’m a “fan”,
Cheap shot detected here. I said I was a fan in order to soften the effect of saying that the post was overrated; without that disclaimer, my statement might have been interpreted as a criticism of Yvain or his post. Nothing I said implies that I make a habit of upvoting posts just because of who their author is.
What I’m saying, I guess, is that I don’t get the point of your parenthetical.
The point was that I don’t think that that post was as as outstanding relative to other posts as its score suggests.
I’ve long settled on interpreting the meaning of upvotes as “I like this post and want to see more like this”.
What would you want us to adopt as a voting norm?
That’s fine as a voting norm. Under that norm, the proper interpretation of my remark is that my eagerness to see more posts like Yvain’s “Eight short studies on excuses” is comparable to my eagerness to see more posts like those with scores in the 30-40 range; in particular, the first quantity is not 2-3 times the second.
Yes, and for that reason it may not be correct to interpret the score of a post as the “collective eagerness” to see more posts like it, and therefore not entirely appropriate to draw the kind of comparison you’re drawing.
Unless people upvote Yvain’s articles merely because they are Yvain’s (which was what I thought you were getting at, and all I was getting at, with the term “fan”), then we want to interpret high scores as marking posts that have broad appeal, rather than posts which have intense appeal.
Not, “people liked Studies On Excuses almost as much as they liked Generalizing from One Example”, but “almost as many people liked Studies as liked Generalizing”. It makes a difference to me to think of it that way, not sure if it will to you...
If post X has a score strictly less than post Y, then it follows that there are either people who upvoted Y and did not upvote X, or people who downvoted X and did not downvote Y. If I think the score of X should be equal to the score of Y, then I am disagreeing with the voting behavior of the persons in those sets, at least one of which (as I said) is nonempty.
I’ve long settled on interpreting the meaning of upvotes as “I like this post and want to see more like this”.
I vote on posts before knowing who authored them or what their current score is, using the Anti-Kibitz script. This is because I’ve become more aware of my own bias as a result of reading LW, which I believe was the intended result. (I liked Yvain’s post and voted it up, but not because I’m a “fan”, just because I thought it’d be nice to have more posts like it.)
After I vote a post up, I turn off the script to see who it was from. If I thought they deserved an upvote in the first place, my vote still means the same, and it’s natural to wish that my vote aggregates with others’ in giving the author feedback about their post. So, I don’t as a rule go back on a vote once I’ve given it.
So it kind of puzzles me why you seem to think there should be some kind of “vote ceiling”, or why you expect that your own evaluation of a post should be a good indicator of how others like it. What I’m saying, I guess, is that I don’t get the point of your parenthetical.
What would you want us to adopt as a voting norm?
I agree, though I still intuitively get “This post was worth more points” or “97 points? it was only as good as this other post, which has 30 points”.
Really? That seems like a completely natural expectation to me. Like, I like strawberries dipped in chocolate, so I would assume (with no other info) that a random person would like strawberries dipped in chocolate. We are far more alike than not.
Cheap shot detected here. I said I was a fan in order to soften the effect of saying that the post was overrated; without that disclaimer, my statement might have been interpreted as a criticism of Yvain or his post. Nothing I said implies that I make a habit of upvoting posts just because of who their author is.
The point was that I don’t think that that post was as as outstanding relative to other posts as its score suggests.
That’s fine as a voting norm. Under that norm, the proper interpretation of my remark is that my eagerness to see more posts like Yvain’s “Eight short studies on excuses” is comparable to my eagerness to see more posts like those with scores in the 30-40 range; in particular, the first quantity is not 2-3 times the second.
Yes, and for that reason it may not be correct to interpret the score of a post as the “collective eagerness” to see more posts like it, and therefore not entirely appropriate to draw the kind of comparison you’re drawing.
Unless people upvote Yvain’s articles merely because they are Yvain’s (which was what I thought you were getting at, and all I was getting at, with the term “fan”), then we want to interpret high scores as marking posts that have broad appeal, rather than posts which have intense appeal.
Not, “people liked Studies On Excuses almost as much as they liked Generalizing from One Example”, but “almost as many people liked Studies as liked Generalizing”. It makes a difference to me to think of it that way, not sure if it will to you...
If post X has a score strictly less than post Y, then it follows that there are either people who upvoted Y and did not upvote X, or people who downvoted X and did not downvote Y. If I think the score of X should be equal to the score of Y, then I am disagreeing with the voting behavior of the persons in those sets, at least one of which (as I said) is nonempty.