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Bongo comments on An account of what I believe to be inconsistent behavior on the part of our editor - Less Wrong
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Comments (63)
Good posts are articulate, civil and correct.
mormon2's post was not articulate, not civil and maybe correct. A pretty bad post.
One one hand, (a) we want to reward good posts and punish bad posts by status changes. One the other hand, (b) we want to address maybe correct ideas.
Addressing a post's idea raises the poster's status. Other means can lower it.
When deciding whether to address the idea of a post like mormon2's, a and b conflict.
--
Should we priviledge a over b or vice versa?
It depends on (p) the probability of an uncivil and inarticulate post being correct. If p is very low, the risk of misplacing status outweighs the possible benefit of truth. If p is very high, vice versa.
What is your p? At what value of p is the boundary between the two policies?
I like your analysis before the "--".
(Allow me to treat "p(correct)" as "a general measure of (probable) goodness of content" so as to not be distracted.)
Both the appreciation of a post and the inclination to award status can (, usually are and probably ought to) be dependent on other factors than correctness. This may either be because having pleasant conversation (civility and articulateness) is a terminal value or because civility and articulateness are instrumental in achieving a goal beyond the scope of the immediate calculation. Either way, p = 1 can be easily dominated by other concerns. p is insufficient for the representation you are aiming for. Consider adding a direct weighting.
Again on this part, I am not sure whether you mean: * The prior probability of any particular post that is uncivil and inarticulate being correct is 0.83. * This is a post. It has 0.83 chance of being correct. It is also uncivil and inarticulate.
I personally tend to weigh them approximately equally. At least, I can't guess which of the two I privilege more. (Again, I am using 'correct' extremely liberally.)
Ok. I thought about my post on a walk earlier and realized that it is flimsy after the '--'. a vs. b is the important part.
A community where posts are forced to meet a certain treshold of civility and articulateness, and if they don't, ignored even when correct and the poster punished. But above the treshold only correctness matters... Maybe such a community does produce more truth than a free-for-all.
But all this means potential bias: making "other concerns"-excuses to ignore arguments you don't like.
Culminating in the expected utility formula of posting? Interesting, but not worth the effort for me.
It does confuse me in parts.