This doesn’t seem quite right. The information content of agree vs. disagree depends on your prior, i.e., on P(people agree). If that’s <0.5, then an agree vote is more informative; if it’s >0.5, then a disagree vote is more informative. But it’s not obvious that it’s <.5 in general.
Fair point! The scenario I’m imagining is one in which our prior is low because we’re dealing with a specific, complex statement like “BLUE is the BEST color.” There are a lot of ways that could be considered wrong, but only one way for it to be considered right, so by default we’d have a low prior and therefore learn a lot more from an agreevote than a disagreevote.
I think this is why it makes sense for a truth seeker to be happier with upvotes than downvotes, pleasure aside. If I get agreevotes, I am getting a lot of information in situations like these. If I get disagreevotes, especially when nobody’s taking the time to express why, then I’m learning very little while perceiving a hint that there is some gap in my knowledge.
Come to think of it, I feel like I tend to downvote most when I perceive that the statement has a lot of support (even if I’m the first voter). Somebody who makes a statement that I think will widely received as wrong, I will typically either ignore or respond to explicitly. Intuitively, that behavior seems appropriate: I use downvotes where they convey more information and use comments where downvotes would convey less.
This doesn’t seem quite right. The information content of agree vs. disagree depends on your prior, i.e., on P(people agree). If that’s <0.5, then an agree vote is more informative; if it’s >0.5, then a disagree vote is more informative. But it’s not obvious that it’s <.5 in general.
Fair point! The scenario I’m imagining is one in which our prior is low because we’re dealing with a specific, complex statement like “BLUE is the BEST color.” There are a lot of ways that could be considered wrong, but only one way for it to be considered right, so by default we’d have a low prior and therefore learn a lot more from an agreevote than a disagreevote.
I think this is why it makes sense for a truth seeker to be happier with upvotes than downvotes, pleasure aside. If I get agreevotes, I am getting a lot of information in situations like these. If I get disagreevotes, especially when nobody’s taking the time to express why, then I’m learning very little while perceiving a hint that there is some gap in my knowledge.
Come to think of it, I feel like I tend to downvote most when I perceive that the statement has a lot of support (even if I’m the first voter). Somebody who makes a statement that I think will widely received as wrong, I will typically either ignore or respond to explicitly. Intuitively, that behavior seems appropriate: I use downvotes where they convey more information and use comments where downvotes would convey less.