prase comments on Rationality tip: Predict your comment karma - Less Wrong

10 Post author: Will_Newsome 14 September 2011 05:07AM

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Comment author: prase 14 September 2011 07:52:36PM 0 points [-]

There is not one reputation on a forum like this, where people don't engage in gossip about other users. You have as many reputations as many users are here. So even if somebody is downvoting your comments without reading them (by the way, are you sure about that?), it still doesn't mean that you can't lose more reputation.

Comment author: Will_Newsome 14 September 2011 11:30:31PM *  1 point [-]

(by the way, are you sure about that?)

Yes. (It would be a weird hypothesis for me to come up with with little evidence and then assert confidently.)

I wasn't claiming I can't lose more reputation.

Comment author: shminux 14 September 2011 11:59:01PM 0 points [-]

How did you manage to test it?

Comment author: Will_Newsome 15 September 2011 12:03:34AM 2 points [-]

Refreshed the page every 5 seconds. If all my comments get downvoted at once that is strong evidence that they weren't actually read, especially if it happens more than once.

There's also a precedent, I dunno if you saw my discussion post about karmassassination.

Comment author: lessdazed 14 September 2011 08:01:50PM 0 points [-]

I am considering making a thread in which people type, for reinforcement, a sentence emphasizing how little they know about votes they receive. What do you think of "I do not know why my comment got the votes it got"? It doesn't reflect partial knowledge or educated guesses enough to be perfect, can you think of better?

Comment author: handoflixue 14 September 2011 10:40:06PM 1 point [-]

"I do not know why my comment got the votes it got"

The point of Bayesian thinking is that you should have an idea why things are happening. If you genuinely don't know why your comments are getting the votes it did, then ask. This is not a shy forum. You'll build up a few data points and can resume being a competent Bayesian with a pretty good idea why you're getting the votes you do.