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prase comments on Disconnect between Stated/Implemented Preferences - Less Wrong
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Comments (57)
I haven't upvoted the joke, mainly because I think that jokes generate more karma than I think they are worthy, and thus I never upvote jokes since the moment I made that observation. But hadn't I the deliberate policy of never upvoting jokes, I would simply upvote it because it was funny.
Remember, upvoting here, from a single user perspective, is a boolean scale. A good comment earns my single upvote, a bad comment earns single downvote, while most comment pass along without my voting because a) I don't read them for different reasons or b) I am not sure whether they are good or bad.
If you make a thoughtful comment, many readers aren't interested to read it and skip it, because it is probably too long, or because it is incomprehensible, or because they aren't interested. From those who read, they would need to think about it for a while before they realise that the reply was really good, and maybe forget to upvote afterwards. On the other hand, a joke generates quite a few instinctive upvotes at the beginning, which makes it even more visible (I tend to read upvoted comments first and more carefully), the visibility then generates more karma.
Nobody is responsible for the others' choices and thus for the fact that the comment stands now at +16. For any single user, the joke is at +1 as well as other better posts, which (s)he is aware of. We want to hear good jokes and thus want to reward them somehow, and the system doesn't allow to differentiate between them and the information-bearing intelligent comments. I suppose that if it was possible to upvote on some more continuous scale, the seeming discrepancy between the individual preferences and the collective voting results would disappear.
Note, for comparison purposes, that this related comment stands at +10 after 22 hours.
Edit: The parent stands at +4 after 24 hours.
Do you mean that I have uselessly written basically the same thing in 15 times more words? I have read your comment, but I think mine isn't completely isomorphic, although it is related.
It's more that RobinZ post is itself an example of the effect that very post describes (as does your post, in a way), and your post is an example of the effect at the other end of the spectrum. RobinZ seems to be making the prediction that your post will not gain as much karma.
It certainly will not, but do we know whether this will be because of the length, or because RobinZ's post is simply better, or because it was posted sooner?
It is not a well-controlled experiment - but ciphergoth's top-level comment, which is later than prase's, has already gotten more votes than prase's. This would suggest that the delay was not an overwhelmingly strong effect.
(Actually, MrHen's comment likewise, and MrHen's is not short.)
There are other effects as well, status of the commenter included. People are more likely to read longer comments if the author is known to make good comments. I guess that this effect is weaker for shorter comments where the evaluation of actual content is easier. So, low status karma maximisers should write a lot of brief comments, and as they reach high status, they should swap to longer "walls of text".
Correct on every point. Indeed, prase's comment appears to imply the same prediction.
Edit: I posted my comment primarily in order that, when timestamp "18 March 2010 09:55:55AM*" arrives, a reader can examine the two posts and observe the difference in karma corresponding to the same length of voting time. I would do so myself, but that timestamp is pretty early in my time zone.
I was editing that in while you were replying or at least before I saw the reply, ironically I hadn't read prase's post all that closely so it didn't come to mind immediately.
FAWS is correct, but (1) thanks for asking - I should have made that clear, and (2) props for calculating the ratio of the wordcounts. ;)
(Edit: I admit that I had actually suspected you were intentionally performing the experiment when I first saw your comment - I know I was intentionally writing a short, immediately-comprehendible comment myself, to invoke the effect; that made it plausible to me that you were intentionally writing a long, substantive comment for the same reason.)
No, I wasn't performing an experiment, at least not intentionally. In fact, I didn't count your comment as a cheap karma generator (I have even upvoted it, IIRC) - it was brief, but relevant reply to the OP, and not visibly funny.
It wasn't meant to be a cheap karma generator - it was meant to be short and easy to confirm as good. The jokes everyone have been talking about are likewise.