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Emile comments on "Hide comments in downvoted threads" is now active - Less Wrong Discussion

18 Post author: Wei_Dai 05 October 2012 07:23AM

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Comment author: Emile 05 October 2012 01:38:49PM 1 point [-]

Care to translate that "should" into a well-specified forecast with attached probability? :)

Very approximately, I'd say I expect at least 50% less comments posted in downvoted threads, with probability 70%.

(though I don't think that adding precise numbers adds much to the discussion)

Comment author: Morendil 05 October 2012 01:52:19PM 0 points [-]

adding precise numbers

That's not necessarily what I mean by a "well-specified forecast". Be careful not to confuse "precise" and "accurate"... For instance by "downvoted" do you mean "net votes below 0", "having received any downvotes", or "net votes at -4 or below"?

Comment author: Emile 05 October 2012 02:00:07PM 0 points [-]

The last - by "downvoted threads" I meant "threads descended from a comment at -4 or less" (though there should also be an effect for threads whose most downvoted parent is at -3 or at -2). It's a bit of a pity there isn't a standard name for those.

Comment author: Morendil 05 October 2012 02:58:47PM 0 points [-]

OK, so to be clear: you're predicting a roughly 50% decrease of the population "comments which are descendants of comments downvoted -4 or more". This at "I'd be pretty surprised if it turned out otherwise", which is my verbal equivalent of 70%. (For 80% it's "I would be shocked" and for 90% it's "I'd seriously question my worldview on the topic in question", for 99% it's "you should really not be messing around with anything remotely connected with that topic, you're dangerous to yourself and others".)

Here are some of the uncertainties.

  • We don't know how large this population is currently. There is a subjective feeling that this number is significant and annoyingly so, but if it is small then it may be hard to detect an effect among the noise.
  • We don't know many new comments arise from replies to Recent Comments, as opposed to two people going back and forth, or people explicitly looking for new stuff in a discussion they're following, or people following a particular commenter.
  • We don't know how fast low-quality comments get to -4 before they have accrued substantial discussion, or alternately the ratio between number of comments accumulated before getting to -4 and comments accumulated after.

Sadly, I'm about 65% sure that we'll never get to have actual stats on the above, or on the prediction itself. :-/

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