LW anchoring experiment: maybe

gwern

I do an informal experiment testing whether LessWrong karma scores are susceptible to a form of anchoring based on the first comment posted; a medium-large effect size is found although the data does not fit the assumed normal distribution & the more sophisticated analysis is equivocal, so there may or may not be an anchoring effect.

Full writeup on gwern.net at http://www.gwern.net/Anchoring

I do an informal experiment testing whether LessWrong karma scores are susceptible to a form of anchoring based on the first comment posted; a medium-large effect size is found although the data does not fit the assumed normal distribution & the more sophisticated analysis is equivocal, so there may or may not be an anchoring effect.

Full writeup on gwern.net at http://www.gwern.net/Anchoring

Of course, I didn't expect the positive and negative comments to be treated differently

(Positive and somewhat stupid comments tend to be upvoted back to 0 even after they get downvoted at some point, so it's not just absence of response. I consider it a dangerous vulnerability of LW to poorly thinking but socially conforming participants, whose active participation should be discouraged, but who are instead mildly rewarded.)

I consider it a dangerous vulnerability of LW to poorly thinking but socially conforming participants, whose active participation should be discouraged, but who are instead mildly rewarded.

It's a huge problem that I have observed eroding quality of thought and discussion over time. I'm relieved to see others acknowledge it.

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LW anchoring experiment: maybe

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LW anchoring experiment: maybe

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