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SilasBarta comments on I can't see comments anymore -- what was recently changed? - Less Wrong
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Comments (45)
Good point, so remember to phrase your brilliant insight next time as, "Does it work in other browsers?", and be sure to pay attention to such details as "It was working a day ago, but not now" so that you know it's not merely a problem of using the wrong browser.
Great troubleshooting advice there, let's make sure to follow it in the future.
Also -- I'd advise against flipping between, "use a different browser" and "wait! It might matter for other people if a specific browser doesn't work, so don't dismiss the problem just because you can avoid it that way."
Sarcastic responses aren't generally very productive. (I may be misreading this, but I don't think I am.)
And you're leaping to the conclusion that it's something on LW's end. I'd be surprised if anything changed at all - it seems more likely to me that something changed on your end without your knowledge, in terms of the security settings at your work.
Furthermore, information on other browsers is relevant. P(Site issue|Broken on other browsers) > P(Site issue|Not broken on other browsers).
I didn't leap to conclusions: I noted that the site worked fine on IE7 until very recently, which suggests that IE7 is not the problem. It's a datapoint that you still don't seem to have accounted for, considering that you're taking its performance on other browsers to be relevant to the matter of why LW stopped working at a specific time on (at least) one browser.
(Note: as I am involved in this exchange, I'm not modding down anyone's comments, including yours.)
And if you're not downvoting my posts (and this isn't meant as an accusation of lying) I'd like to know why other people are, I don't see anything fallacious about them.
Edit: Perhaps it's because I started writing a sentence, went off to write something else, and forgot to come back and finish it. I'll go change that. :-)
I voted some of your comments down (as well as some of Silas') because you seemed unnecessarily confrontational, and to a lesser extent because I disagree with your priors.
Ah, thanks for explaining. I don't feel I was especially confrontational though, especially given Silas's tone. Could you point out what made you feel that way?
Nothing that would stand out as confrontational on its own, but things like describing him as "leaping to a conclusion" that add up.
As for Silas' tone:
No, for the time being you should probably stick with the hypothesis that it was because you were writing Nesov-style unhelpful comments.
No, for the time being, I'll develop my own hypotheses, and not be told what to think.
But you're just being rude at this point. I started out posting what information I had, in an attempt to be helpful. As Nesov did. And now you're just insulting both of us. I have no intention of continuing this further.
Robert, comments like this make a step in the wrong direction, they engage on emotional level, rather than trying to understand what's going on, they don't break the usual pattern, and so encourage following it further. Silas is allowing his emotions to make steps in the conversation in a way that distracts from its topic, and now you do too. It's better if at least someone in a discussion doesn't do that, and it's much, much better if nobody does that.
You're right. In re-reading my comment, it wasn't helpful. I have a tendency to engage on an emotional level when I am engaged in such a manner.
Well obviously IE7 didn't change - I'm not suggesting that it did. But it's possible that something changed with the security settings on your work computer(s), which would cause strange things. Maybe security software was added to the computers or something.
Sure, and it's possible something in LW's software or dependencies changed. Both are low-probability. I'm seeking answers on my end. I'm also asking here if there were any changes on this end so that I can distinguish which one is more likely.
You have no evidence to offer that would favor one possibility over another, and yet you post anyway, and rather confidently. Why?
Well, as I've said, my prior for p(site issue) is fairly low. Especially given that several other people have suggested (in other browsers) that they're seeing things fine. And I don't mean to imply certainty. You're correct - the only evidence I have is what has been posted in the comments here. I'm just trying to propose an alternative hypothesis, that you hadn't seemed to consider. If you had, then I apologize for the redundancy, but you made no mention of this possibility in your OP.
Really? Who mentioned seeing the comments just fine in IE7 over the past few days, rather than yesterday but not today?
More accurately, you're telling me your priors. I'm interested in likelihood ratios though, and you had nothing to offer on that front.
Other people have said they're seeing things fine in other browsers. Sorry. Edited for clarity.
The two are not mutually exclusive. And both are relevant.
No need. The point is, the fact that other people see things fine in other browsers (which, btw, I already knew) does not help to establish why IE7 previously worked but recently stopped, nor suggest that nothing changed on LW's end.
No, likelihood ratios are the only concern for a Bayesian, unless I have a particular reason to put credence in your priors.
In fact, it does. Unless you're suggesting that compatibility with IE7 and other browsers is statistically independent, p(site problem | no problem in other browsers) < p(site problem | problem in other browsers). It may not be strong evidence, but it is evidence. Although, at this point, it's moot, since your bug has been duplicated.
I didn't say they were relevant to the question asked, but they were relevant given the context in which they were mentioned.
The issue is the strength of your emotional reaction, not quality of the advice. We both agree advice is useless, but it looks like we disagree about your reaction.
(The useful content of my comment was mostly presenting the results of trying IE6, generalizing to other IEs, and concluding that it's probably not the security restrictions specific to your setup that are at fault, but lack of maintenance for the whole browser lineage.)
What would have been the appropriate reaction for me in the blank?
Me: Comments used to be visible on IE7, but not anymore. What changed?
You: Don't use IE7.
Me: I wouldn't be asking if had that option.
You: That doesn't matter, it means there's a problem even if you had an option, because other people might use IE7!
Me: ____
So what's the story? I describe the parameters of a problem the site is having, and you knowingly post unhelpful comments that aren't even consistent? Sorry if I'm not optimally prepared for people who are just going to troll bug reports.
My answer is unhelpful, and would be even more so if there was nothing else in my comment.
You used words "posting the issue". I think that you should've posted even if you had that option, posted for an entirely different reason, which becomes relevant specifically in the hypothetical where you have that option (being located in the hypothetical, this reason can easily be "inconsistent" with ones relevant in reality, in our case perhaps in the sense of not sharing relevance with them). I agree that this consideration has nothing to do with (1) helpfulness of "use a different browser" (we both agree it's unhelpful), and (2) strength of emotional reaction to "use a different browser" (we disagree, as I believe it's useful to not have a strong reaction in such cases, so as not to miss other low-hanging fruit that might be perceptually similar). As such, it's a completely unrelated point, and shouldn't be taken as acting on other elements of this conversation. (But it's a valid point, I think we both agree on that as well.)