Qiaochu_Yuan comments on Open Thread, April 1-15, 2013 - Less Wrong

3 Post author: Vaniver 01 April 2013 03:00PM

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Comment author: Qiaochu_Yuan 09 April 2013 12:24:57AM 2 points [-]

I think using Pomodoros is more fun because you can do things like record how many assignments you grade per Pomodoro. Now you can keep track of your "high score" and try to break it. Competition is fun and worth leveraging for motivation, even if it's with your past selves.

Comment author: jooyous 09 May 2013 06:52:11PM *  1 point [-]

But doesn't that make you inclined to not read as carefully or grade as thoroughly or not leave as many comments? "Oh whatever, that was mostly right. Yay, high score!"

Comment author: Qiaochu_Yuan 09 May 2013 07:15:04PM 2 points [-]

If you're at the point where you need to employ tricks to finish the grading at all, then I think this is unfortunately a secondary concern. Once you can consistently finish the grading, then I think you can start worrying about its quality.

Comment author: jooyous 09 May 2013 08:03:20PM *  1 point [-]

See, I always worry that the easiest way to get through grading is to just give everyone A's regardless of what they turned in. So I feel like you somehow have to factor in a reward for quality or that's what your system will collapse into?

Comment author: Qiaochu_Yuan 10 May 2013 04:43:58AM 1 point [-]

I would never be tempted to do that, but that comes from a strong desire to tell people when they're wrong which is not necessarily a good thing overall.