Douglas_Knight comments on A few remarks about mass-downvoting - Less Wrong

17 Post author: gjm 13 February 2014 05:06PM

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Comment author: Douglas_Knight 13 February 2014 06:52:58PM 7 points [-]

Check out this comment by Eliezer, within the last month.

I have always been skeptical of the value of posts like this. I have since become annoyed at the quantity of them. The fact that Eliezer responded in a particular place that was not of this form is evidence that they are not a good way of attracting his attention. Maybe you should contact him directly? (though I'd wait a full month from the above comment) If you want a statement from moderators, maybe you should contact them directly?

Comment author: Tenoke 13 February 2014 07:17:28PM 3 points [-]

Maybe you should contact him directly?

In my experience contacting him directly has been useless and he claims that there is no way whatsoever to check a suspect's voting history.

Comment author: Douglas_Knight 13 February 2014 08:27:03PM 3 points [-]

His assertion that there is no way to check seems to me a better outcome than these posts shouting into the wind that don't get any response.
But now that he made the particular comment, one could contact him to ask for an update, rather than a whole request.

Comment author: Tenoke 13 February 2014 08:31:26PM *  1 point [-]

His assertion that there is no way to check seems to me a better outcome than these posts shouting into the wind that don't get any response.

Sure, expect that I didn't exactly believe him.. even more so in the light of the comment you highlighted..

Comment author: ChrisHallquist 03 March 2014 07:25:03AM -2 points [-]

His assertion that there is no way to check seems to me a better outcome than these posts shouting into the wind that don't get any response.

Did he assert that, exactly? The comment you linked to sounds more like "it's difficult to check." Even that puzzles me, though. Is there a good reason for the powers that be at LessWrong not to have easy access to their own database?

Comment author: Douglas_Knight 03 March 2014 04:28:03PM 0 points [-]

My two paragraphs refer to two different things Eliezer said. The contrast is indicated by the word "but." Tenoke says that he asserted that, exactly. I assume Eliezer was just lying to get him to shut up.

There are a lot of reasons not to look directly at the database. But once the person wrote an acceptable query years ago, yes, it should be easy to just try it again.

Comment author: ChrisHallquist 03 March 2014 04:55:01PM -2 points [-]

Oh, I see now. But why would Eliezer do that? Makes me worry this is being handled less well than Eliezer's public statements indicate.