8 - Have you considered some form of reputation system, allowing commenters to build a reputation for debunking badly supported claims and affirming well-supported claims? (Or perhaps some other goodie?) I can imagine it becoming a pastime for grad students, which would be a Good Thing (TM).
I hadn’t. I like the idea, but am less able to visualize it than the rest of this stuff. Grad students cleaning up marketing claims does indeed sound like a Good Thing...
I was thinking something like the karma score here. People could comment on the data and the math that leads to the conclusions, and debunk the ones that are misleading. A problem would be that, If you allow endorsers, rather than just debunkers, you could get in a situation where a sponsor pays people to publicly accept the conclusions. Here are my thoughts on how to avoid this.
First, we have to simplify the issue down to a binary question: does the data fairly support the conclusion that the sponsor claims? The sponsor would offer $x for each of the first Y reviewers with a reputation score of at least Z. They have to pay regardless of what the reviewer’s answer to the question is. If the reviewers are unanimous, then they all get small bumps to their reputation. If they are not unanimous, then they see each others’ reviews (anonymously and non-publicly at this point) and can change their positions one time. After that, those who are in the final majority and did not change their position get a bump up in reputation, but only based on the number of reviewers who switched to be in the final majority. (I.e. we reward reviewers who persuade others to change their position.) The reviews are then opened to a broader number of people with positive reputations, who can simply vote yes or no, which again affects the reputations of the reviewers. Again, voting is private until complete, then people who vote with the majority get small reputation bumps. At the conclusion of the process, everyone’s work is made public.
I’m sure that there are people who have thought about reputation systems more than I have. But I have mostly seen reputation systems as a mechanism for creating a community where certain standards are upheld in the absence of monetary incentives. A reputation system that is robust against gaming seems difficult.
I’m very glad I asked for more clarification. I’m going to call this system The Reviewer’s Dilemma, it’s a very interesting solution for allowing non-software analysis to occur in a trusted manner. I am somewhat worried about a laziness bias (it’s much easier to agree than disprove), but I imagine that there is a similar bounty for overturning previous results this might be handled.
I’ll do a little customer development with some friends, but the possibility of reviewers being added as co-authors might also act as a nice incentive (both to reduce laziness, and as addition compensation).
I hadn’t. I like the idea, but am less able to visualize it than the rest of this stuff. Grad students cleaning up marketing claims does indeed sound like a Good Thing...
I was thinking something like the karma score here. People could comment on the data and the math that leads to the conclusions, and debunk the ones that are misleading. A problem would be that, If you allow endorsers, rather than just debunkers, you could get in a situation where a sponsor pays people to publicly accept the conclusions. Here are my thoughts on how to avoid this.
First, we have to simplify the issue down to a binary question: does the data fairly support the conclusion that the sponsor claims? The sponsor would offer $x for each of the first Y reviewers with a reputation score of at least Z. They have to pay regardless of what the reviewer’s answer to the question is. If the reviewers are unanimous, then they all get small bumps to their reputation. If they are not unanimous, then they see each others’ reviews (anonymously and non-publicly at this point) and can change their positions one time. After that, those who are in the final majority and did not change their position get a bump up in reputation, but only based on the number of reviewers who switched to be in the final majority. (I.e. we reward reviewers who persuade others to change their position.) The reviews are then opened to a broader number of people with positive reputations, who can simply vote yes or no, which again affects the reputations of the reviewers. Again, voting is private until complete, then people who vote with the majority get small reputation bumps. At the conclusion of the process, everyone’s work is made public.
I’m sure that there are people who have thought about reputation systems more than I have. But I have mostly seen reputation systems as a mechanism for creating a community where certain standards are upheld in the absence of monetary incentives. A reputation system that is robust against gaming seems difficult.
Max L.
I’m very glad I asked for more clarification. I’m going to call this system The Reviewer’s Dilemma, it’s a very interesting solution for allowing non-software analysis to occur in a trusted manner. I am somewhat worried about a laziness bias (it’s much easier to agree than disprove), but I imagine that there is a similar bounty for overturning previous results this might be handled.
I’ll do a little customer development with some friends, but the possibility of reviewers being added as co-authors might also act as a nice incentive (both to reduce laziness, and as addition compensation).