I would simply like to point out the irony of having this discussion in a thread that is hidden by default due to being below a comment currently at −9.
And: Did anyone take a karma hit for this to happen? Or does it turn out that we’re just incentivizing being quick on the trigger—so whoever’s camping out on the site and can get to a comment before its score plummets gets to talk about it and no one else can without accepting the ding?
I paid 5 karma for making this comment. But if everyone in the subthread had to pay 5 karma, or if people below 1000 karma couldn’t participate at all, then this thread would be much smaller. Comments of minor significance, like this one and others, would probably not exist. This ceteris paribus I would see as a loss.
Meta-discussion is also a horrible slime-dripping cancer on a forum
Meta-discussion has to occur on fora if fora are going to function. It may be that non-functioning fora have more meta-discussion, but there are obvious correlation v. causation issues.
Meta-discussion has to occur on fora if fora are going to function.
You have some evidence for this?
In this thread and the perfectly superfluous other thread you made for this topic, I have observed a tendency to state ex cathedra beliefs on the nature of communities and what mechanisms are necessary for their survival.
Only some personal experience and general intuition. I don’t think anyone, even Eliezer, is going to argue that zero meta discussion is optimal. The question then is how much is optimal. It is possible that a weaker version of my statement like starting it with “it seems that” might have been helpful.
In this thread and the perfectly superfluous other thread you made for this topic, I have observed a tendency to state ex cathedra beliefs on the nature of communities and what mechanisms are necessary for their survival.
I agree that there’s a fair bit of stated beliefs without much evidence all around, although I’m puzzled by your description of the other thread as superfluous.
I agreed with this as a general principle strongly enough to pay a 5 karma penalty to say so. I don’t think it should be as down voted as it is.
I can’t recall having ever participated in a forum or blog and have the pay offs of meta-discussion be higher than discussing something else. More problematically it is way too engaging than it should be and is an attention sink.
I would simply like to point out the irony of having this discussion in a thread that is hidden by default due to being below a comment currently at −9.
And: Did anyone take a karma hit for this to happen? Or does it turn out that we’re just incentivizing being quick on the trigger—so whoever’s camping out on the site and can get to a comment before its score plummets gets to talk about it and no one else can without accepting the ding?
I paid 5 karma for making this comment. But if everyone in the subthread had to pay 5 karma, or if people below 1000 karma couldn’t participate at all, then this thread would be much smaller. Comments of minor significance, like this one and others, would probably not exist. This ceteris paribus I would see as a loss.
I have taken at least 3 karma hits to talk about this.
Or worse, if someone wants to reply to a comment at −3, they will first upvote it to −2 just to avoid the penalty.
Well, they can undo the up-vote afterwards.
Well upvote the grandparent so that there can be more responses, then.
Round and round it goes …
Meta-discussion is also a horrible slime-dripping cancer on a forum, so I’m okay with nobody ever seeing it again.
Meta-discussion has to occur on fora if fora are going to function. It may be that non-functioning fora have more meta-discussion, but there are obvious correlation v. causation issues.
You have some evidence for this?
In this thread and the perfectly superfluous other thread you made for this topic, I have observed a tendency to state ex cathedra beliefs on the nature of communities and what mechanisms are necessary for their survival.
Only some personal experience and general intuition. I don’t think anyone, even Eliezer, is going to argue that zero meta discussion is optimal. The question then is how much is optimal. It is possible that a weaker version of my statement like starting it with “it seems that” might have been helpful.
I agree that there’s a fair bit of stated beliefs without much evidence all around, although I’m puzzled by your description of the other thread as superfluous.
Do we have any reliable authorities on the sociology of internet forums yet?
I agreed with this as a general principle strongly enough to pay a 5 karma penalty to say so. I don’t think it should be as down voted as it is.
I can’t recall having ever participated in a forum or blog and have the pay offs of meta-discussion be higher than discussing something else. More problematically it is way too engaging than it should be and is an attention sink.
If you really believe meta-discussions are inappropriate, delete the parent comment.