I’m not proposing a solution. I’m thinking about the problem for five minutes.
edit: Well, it didn’t even take five minutes!
We need a reliable predictor of troll-nature. I mean, I’m not even sure that P( troll comment | at −3 ) is above, say, 0.25 - much less anywhere high enough to be comfortable with a −5 penalty.
Of course, I’d be comfortable with asserting that P( noise comment | at −3 ) is pretty high, like 0.6 or something. Still not high enough to justify a penalty, in my opinion, but high enough that I can see how another’s opinion might be that it justifies a penalty. If that is the case, well, the discussion is being severely negatively impacted by conflating noise and trolling.
I might go and figure out how to get some data off of LessWrong commenting system, to try and determine a good indicator for troll-nature. (I don’t plan to try and figure out noise-nature. That’s the problem that the Internet has faced for the last 15 years, I’m not that hubristic.) That in turn would would put some numbers into this discussion. I don’t know that arguing over how many genuine comments can be inadvertently caught in a filter is any better than arguing over whether there should be a filter at all, but to my mind it’s more constructive.
Asking what has the troll-nature brings one closer to being a noisemaker. Asking what distinguishes troll-nature from noisemaker brings one closer to having the troll-nature.
Notes Ask not what separates noise from trolling; instead ask for that which makes a thing neither.
I’m not proposing a solution. I’m thinking about the problem for five minutes.
edit: Well, it didn’t even take five minutes!
We need a reliable predictor of troll-nature. I mean, I’m not even sure that P( troll comment | at −3 ) is above, say, 0.25 - much less anywhere high enough to be comfortable with a −5 penalty.
Of course, I’d be comfortable with asserting that P( noise comment | at −3 ) is pretty high, like 0.6 or something. Still not high enough to justify a penalty, in my opinion, but high enough that I can see how another’s opinion might be that it justifies a penalty. If that is the case, well, the discussion is being severely negatively impacted by conflating noise and trolling.
I might go and figure out how to get some data off of LessWrong commenting system, to try and determine a good indicator for troll-nature. (I don’t plan to try and figure out noise-nature. That’s the problem that the Internet has faced for the last 15 years, I’m not that hubristic.) That in turn would would put some numbers into this discussion. I don’t know that arguing over how many genuine comments can be inadvertently caught in a filter is any better than arguing over whether there should be a filter at all, but to my mind it’s more constructive.
Master, you have mediated on this for under five minutes, so I wish to ask two things:
Does not asking about what has the troll-nature bring one closer to the troll-nature?
If you meet a Socrates on the road does it have the troll-nature?
No—I know you aren’t serious, but… seriously?
If you meet a Socrates anywhere it has troll-nature. That’s why he got permabanned from the universe. It also has other less irritating natures.
I have often seen trolls trolling by discussing the troll-nature.
Trolls can troll on any topic at hand. Where there are trolls, trolling will often be a topic at hand.
That doesn’t make the nature of trolls a trollish topic. You’re going to have to do a lot better than a correlation.
Asking what has the troll-nature brings one closer to being a noisemaker. Asking what distinguishes troll-nature from noisemaker brings one closer to having the troll-nature.
Notes
Ask not what separates noise from trolling; instead ask for that which makes a thing neither.