Dorikka comments on When to scream "Error!" - Less Wrong

10 Post author: Dorikka 26 February 2011 05:40PM

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Comment author: Dorikka comment score below threshold [+] (11 children)

Comment author: Dorikka 26 February 2011 09:11:10PM 0 points [-]

Psst. If this comment's parent and its grandparent have different absolute karma counts, someone is doing the poll wrong -- the karma is supposed to balance out.

Comment author: wedrifid 28 February 2011 02:03:30AM * 2 points [-]

Psst. If this comment's parent and its grandparent have different absolute karma counts, someone is doing the poll wrong -- the karma is supposed to balance out.

Karma balancers are there to give people the option of contributing to the poll without the obligation of giving karma to the poll provider. Not downvoting the balancer is the obvious way to vote up the poll itself in the sense that one would normally provide karma to a comment - approval, disapproval, reward, punishment, etc. Downvoting the balancer without upvoting the 'vote up' part is how one would express disapproval of having the poll at all, without sabotaging the results.

Comment author: TheOtherDave 26 February 2011 10:29:38PM -1 points [-]

Really?

If I think it should be a top-level post, I read the grandparent, upvote it, and downvote the parent. Then I read the parent, downvote it, and upvote the grandparent.

Net impact: grandparent upvoted twice, parent downvoted twice.

I suspect you meant one of those "should"s to be "shouldn't."

Comment author: Normal_Anomaly 27 February 2011 03:37:40PM 1 point [-]

I'm not the person who downvoted you, but I do think you're mistaken. If you think it should be a top level post, the parent and grandparent both tell you to take the same action. The problem with Dorrika's poll is that it tells the number of people who want this to be a top level post, but not the number who don't.

Also, if you "upvote a post twice" it winds up not doing anything because a second click of the "vote up" button undoes the first one.

Comment author: TheOtherDave 27 February 2011 03:59:02PM * 0 points [-]

Right, agreed.

But...

For clarity, I label P the original parent and C the original child.

If C had read "If you think this shouldn't be a top level post, upvote this comment and downvote the parent." then it would have worked out fine.

That is, suppose ten people vote, 8 pro and 2 con.

P, in that case, would have 8 upvotes and 2 downvotes = 6 karma; C would have 2 upvotes and 8 downvotes = -6 karma; Net karma to dorrika = 0.

More efficient than the traditional "upvote this for yes" "upvote this for no" "downvote this for balance" arrangement... though perhaps more confusing.

I assumed that's what dorrika was trying to do originally and had just typoed C... but I guess I was wrong.

Thanks for the correction.

Comment author: Normal_Anomaly 27 February 2011 06:00:45PM * 1 point [-]

If C had read "If you think this shouldn't be a top level post, upvote this comment and downvote the parent." then it would have worked out fine.

That is, suppose ten people vote, 8 pro and 2 con.

P, in that case, would have 8 upvotes and 2 downvotes = 6 karma; C would have 2 upvotes and 8 downvotes = -6 karma; Net karma to dorrika = 0.

That system does work, but I find it less informative. Under that system, if you come back a day later and find that P and C have karma 2 and -2, then you don't know if a) only one person thinks it should be top-level and the rest don't care or b) 15 people think it should be top-level but 14 think it should stay in discussion.

Comment author: TheOtherDave 27 February 2011 06:14:11PM 0 points [-]

True. Karma scores on posts have the same dynamic -- if the score is 2, I don't know if that reflects indifference or ambivalence -- and I sometimes find myself caring.

Comment author: Dorikka 27 February 2011 04:22:10PM 0 points [-]

As Normal Anomaly said, I forgot to explicitly measure people who didn't want the post to be top-level; I put the instructions on each comment so that you only had to see one to know the other one was there, but see how that would be confusing when you saw the child. I posted the 'Psst.' comment when the parent/child got unequal absolute karma counts because I didn't know how that would happen.

Normal Anomaly: Your system seems superior, but I'm wondering why you're saying to downvote the karma dump comment iff you don't want the post to be top-level. Wouldn't the same post function as an effective dump if you did want the post to be top-level?

Comment author: Normal_Anomaly 27 February 2011 05:57:34PM 0 points [-]

Currently, there are two "upvote this if your position is X" posts, each with a corresponding Karma balance. Traditionally there need be only one karma balance, but the poll was set up by two different people. If somebody upvotes my poll comment, they should downvote my karma balance. If somebody upvotes your poll comment, they should downvote your karma balance.

I posted the 'Psst.' comment when the parent/child got unequal absolute karma counts because I didn't know how that would happen.

That was right. This shouldn't ever happen in polls, but it frequently does anyway.

Comment author: TheOtherDave 27 February 2011 03:18:39PM 0 points [-]

Incidentally, if the person who downvoted this did so because I'm mistaken, I would appreciate being corrected explicitly... I still can't see the flaw in what I said.

(If it's for other reasons, that's perfectly fine and doesn't require further explanation or discussion.)

Comment author: Dorikka 27 February 2011 04:26:02PM 0 points [-]

I didn't downvote you, but I'm guessing that it was because the interpretation of the comment instructions that you described in the downvoted comment didn't explain why the two absolute karma counts were unequal, which was the only point of the parent.

Dorikka comments on When to scream "Error!" - Less Wrong

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