I think I understand that. I do think it’s pretty unlikely this is some kind of step towards a broader trivialization of looking at voting data, but I do understand the concern.
...and clicking through to the linked post[1] it’s also talking about e.g. future potential extensions to split between logged-in and non-logged-in users.
Admittedly, this is not specifically voting data, and this step is still a fairly aggregated statistic, but it is a step in the broader trivialization of looking at user data.
For the record, I think it’s the wrong call for the EA Forum to show that data to users. I know from looking at that data on LW that it is a terrible and distracting proxy for what the actual great content is on the site. I think every time we’ve done the annual LW review, the most-viewed post that year has not passed review. One of the top 20 most viewed LW posts of all time is a bad joke about having an orange for a head. It’s a spiky metric and everyone I know whose job depends on views/clicks finds it incredibly stressful. Karma is a way better metric for what’s valued on-site, and passing annual review is an even better metric.
I think I understand that. I do think it’s pretty unlikely this is some kind of step towards a broader trivialization of looking at voting data, but I do understand the concern.
Counterpoint, in this very comment section there is this comment:
...and clicking through to the linked post[1] it’s also talking about e.g. future potential extensions to split between logged-in and non-logged-in users.
Admittedly, this is not specifically voting data, and this step is still a fairly aggregated statistic, but it is a step in the broader trivialization of looking at user data.
...which I was actually somewhat loathe to do.
For the record, I think it’s the wrong call for the EA Forum to show that data to users. I know from looking at that data on LW that it is a terrible and distracting proxy for what the actual great content is on the site. I think every time we’ve done the annual LW review, the most-viewed post that year has not passed review. One of the top 20 most viewed LW posts of all time is a bad joke about having an orange for a head. It’s a spiky metric and everyone I know whose job depends on views/clicks finds it incredibly stressful. Karma is a way better metric for what’s valued on-site, and passing annual review is an even better metric.