You're looking at Less Wrong's discussion board. This includes all posts, including those that haven't been promoted to the front page yet. For more information, see About Less Wrong.

Jayson_Virissimo comments on November 2012 Media Thread - Less Wrong Discussion

4 Post author: RobertLumley 02 November 2012 06:13AM

You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.

Comments (88)

You are viewing a single comment's thread. Show more comments above.

Comment author: Jayson_Virissimo 15 November 2012 11:56:50AM 1 point [-]

This is simply beautiful.

Comment author: Multiheaded 15 November 2012 05:55:53PM *  6 points [-]

My recent karma -

A quick rewrite of an old copypasta: +5.
Pat-on-the-back comment on a titillating story about the community leader: +4.
Attempts to (somewhat) seriously debate gender relations from the mainsteam position without insta-mindkilledness: net negative.

Gee, it sure is perverse incentives around here!

Comment author: Ritalin 21 November 2012 06:17:15PM *  1 point [-]

Perhaps there could be a debate on standards of karma, so that we may feel compelled to use a consistent, non-perverse system? By setting up what to strive for and what to avoid in some detail, we would make it easier for users to interpret punctuation. By agreeing on how we ought to vote, we may find ourselves voting more often in ways that satisfy our values, rather than our base/silly/suboptimal desires.

Comment author: Multiheaded 21 November 2012 07:16:47PM 0 points [-]

There have been attempts at such debate before. I don't know why, but they never seem to lead to anything.

Comment author: satt 24 November 2012 02:47:49PM 1 point [-]

I think the basic problem's unfixable.

Obvious jokes and back-patting comments are easy for readers to judge, so they get more extreme scores because it's easy to decide how to vote on them. Ideologically charged comments of questionable seriousness are harder to judge, as well as more divisive. Hard-to-judge comments are more likely to be misinterpreted (leading to downvotes) and more likely to be passed over by normal readers (leaving them at the mercy of the minority who feel strongly about the topic/poster).

I doubt debates can fix this asymmetry. If LW readers spent longer thinking about their votes on edgier comments, that'd help, but that won't happen because it's no fun to spend 5 minutes deciding which little Internet thumb to click.

Comment author: Ritalin 21 November 2012 07:53:03PM 0 points [-]

How would they, when one is completely unaccountable on what they post? There seems to be no extrinsic incentive to be fair or constructive.

Comment author: Multiheaded 15 November 2012 01:49:02PM 1 point [-]

And easily automated too!