If you’re interested in concrete feedback, I found your engagement in discussions with hopeless cases a negative contribution, which is a consideration unrelated to the quality of your own contributions (including in those discussions). Basically, a violation of “Don’t feed the clueless (just downvote them)” (this post suggests widening the sense of “clueless”), which is one policy that could help with improving the signal/noise ratio. Perhaps this policy should be publicized more.
I support not feeding the clueless, but I would like to emphasize that that policy should not bleed into a lack of explaining downvotes of otherwise clueful people. There aren’t many things more aggravating than participating in a discussion where most of my comments get upvoted, but one gets downvoted and I never find out what the problem was—or seeing some comment I upvoted be at −2, and not knowing what I’m missing. So I’d like to ask everyone: if you downvote one comment for being wrong, but think the poster isn’t hopeless, please explain your downvote. It’s the only way to make the person stop being wrong.
Case in point: this discussion currently includes 30 comments, an argument with a certain Clueless, most of whose contributions are downvoted-to-hidden. That discussion shouldn’t have taken place, its existence is a Bad Thing. I just went through it and downvoted most of those who participated, except for the Clueless, who was already downvoted Sufficiently.
I expect a tradition of discouraging both sides of such discussions would significantly reduce their impact.
People explaining things to the Clueless is useful. Both to the person doing the explaining and anyone curious enough to read along. This is conditional on the people in the interaction having the patience to try to decipher the nature of the inferential distance try to break down the ideas into effective explanations of the concepts—including links to relevant resources. (This precludes cases where the conversation degenerates into bickering and excessive expressions of frustration.)
Trying to explain what is usually simply assumed—to a listener who is at least willing to communicate in good faith—can be a valuable experience to the one doing the explaining. It can encourage the re-examination of cached thoughts and force the tracing of the ideas back to the reasoning from first principles that caused you to believe them in the first place.
There are many conversations where downvoting both sides of a discussion is advisable, yet it isn’t conversations with the “Clueless” that are the problem. It is conversations with Trolls, Dickheads and Debaters of Perfect Emptiness that need to go.
Sorry, I wasn’t clear. I understood perfectly well what you meant by the phrase and was delighted by it. What I meant to convey was that I was saddened to discover that I lived in a universe where it was not a phrase in common usage, which it most certainly ought to be.
Sorry, I wasn’t clear. I understood perfectly well what you meant by the phrase and was delighted by it. What I meant to convey was that I was saddened to discover that I lived in a universe where it was not a phrase in common usage, which it most certainly ought to be.
Oh, gotcha. I’m kind of surprised we don’t have a post on it yet. Lax of me!
I accept your criticism in the spirit it was intended—but I’m not sure you are stating a local consensus instead of your personal preference. Consider the recent exchange I was involved in. It doesn’t appear to me that the more wrong party has been downvoted to oblivion, and he should have been by your rule. (Specifically, the Main post has been downvoted, but not the comment discussion)
Philosophically, I think it is unfortunate that the people who believe that almost all terminal values are socially constructed are the some people who think empiricism is a useless project. I don’t agree with the later point (i.e. I think empiricism is the only true cause of human advancement), but the former point is powerful and has numerous relevant implications for Friendly AI and raising the sanity line generally. So when anti-empiricism social construction people show up, I try to persuade them that empiricism is worthwhile so that their other insights can benefit the community. Whether this persuasion is possible is a distinct question from whether the persuasion is a “good thing.”
Note that your example is not that pattern, and I haven’t responded to Clueless. C is anti-empiricism, but he hasn’t shown anything that makes me think that he has anything valuable to contribute to the community—he’s 100% confused. So it isn’t worth my time to try to persuade him to be less wrong.
If you’re interested in concrete feedback, I found your engagement in discussions with hopeless cases a negative contribution, which is a consideration unrelated to the quality of your own contributions (including in those discussions). Basically, a violation of “Don’t feed the clueless (just downvote them)” (this post suggests widening the sense of “clueless”), which is one policy that could help with improving the signal/noise ratio. Perhaps this policy should be publicized more.
I support not feeding the clueless, but I would like to emphasize that that policy should not bleed into a lack of explaining downvotes of otherwise clueful people. There aren’t many things more aggravating than participating in a discussion where most of my comments get upvoted, but one gets downvoted and I never find out what the problem was—or seeing some comment I upvoted be at −2, and not knowing what I’m missing. So I’d like to ask everyone: if you downvote one comment for being wrong, but think the poster isn’t hopeless, please explain your downvote. It’s the only way to make the person stop being wrong.
Case in point: this discussion currently includes 30 comments, an argument with a certain Clueless, most of whose contributions are downvoted-to-hidden. That discussion shouldn’t have taken place, its existence is a Bad Thing. I just went through it and downvoted most of those who participated, except for the Clueless, who was already downvoted Sufficiently.
I expect a tradition of discouraging both sides of such discussions would significantly reduce their impact.
While I usually share a similar sentiment, upon consideration I disagree with your prediction when it comes to the example conversation in question.
People explaining things to the Clueless is useful. Both to the person doing the explaining and anyone curious enough to read along. This is conditional on the people in the interaction having the patience to try to decipher the nature of the inferential distance try to break down the ideas into effective explanations of the concepts—including links to relevant resources. (This precludes cases where the conversation degenerates into bickering and excessive expressions of frustration.)
Trying to explain what is usually simply assumed—to a listener who is at least willing to communicate in good faith—can be a valuable experience to the one doing the explaining. It can encourage the re-examination of cached thoughts and force the tracing of the ideas back to the reasoning from first principles that caused you to believe them in the first place.
There are many conversations where downvoting both sides of a discussion is advisable, yet it isn’t conversations with the “Clueless” that are the problem. It is conversations with Trolls, Dickheads and Debaters of Perfect Emptiness that need to go.
Startlingly, Googling “Debaters of Perfect Emptiness” turned up no hits. This is not the best of all possible worlds.
Think “Lawyer”, “Politician” or the bottom line.
Sorry, I wasn’t clear. I understood perfectly well what you meant by the phrase and was delighted by it. What I meant to convey was that I was saddened to discover that I lived in a universe where it was not a phrase in common usage, which it most certainly ought to be.
Oh, gotcha. I’m kind of surprised we don’t have a post on it yet. Lax of me!
I accept your criticism in the spirit it was intended—but I’m not sure you are stating a local consensus instead of your personal preference. Consider the recent exchange I was involved in. It doesn’t appear to me that the more wrong party has been downvoted to oblivion, and he should have been by your rule. (Specifically, the Main post has been downvoted, but not the comment discussion)
Philosophically, I think it is unfortunate that the people who believe that almost all terminal values are socially constructed are the some people who think empiricism is a useless project. I don’t agree with the later point (i.e. I think empiricism is the only true cause of human advancement), but the former point is powerful and has numerous relevant implications for Friendly AI and raising the sanity line generally. So when anti-empiricism social construction people show up, I try to persuade them that empiricism is worthwhile so that their other insights can benefit the community. Whether this persuasion is possible is a distinct question from whether the persuasion is a “good thing.”
Note that your example is not that pattern, and I haven’t responded to Clueless. C is anti-empiricism, but he hasn’t shown anything that makes me think that he has anything valuable to contribute to the community—he’s 100% confused. So it isn’t worth my time to try to persuade him to be less wrong.
I’m stating an expectation of a policy’s effectiveness.
I think Monkeymind is deliberately trying to gather lots of negative karma as fast as possible. Maybe for a bet?
If the goal was −100, then writing should stop now (prediction).