= 27d567bc2d48d9f40e9ccc20ea370b15)
Moss_Piglet comments on Open Thread, November 23-30, 2013 - Less Wrong Discussion
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
= 783df68a0f980790206b9ea87794c5b6)
Loading…= b715d02e85f7b3b4ae65ca3d3e450868)
Subscribe to RSS Feed
Powered by Reddit
= f037147d6e6c911a85753b9abdedda8d)
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
Comments (295)
One obvious problem with that system; what happens with habitually bad posters?
Let's say I write something so insipid and worthless that it's worth every downvote on the site... and then a better-quality poster writes an excellent point-by-point take-down of it and gets tons of upvotes for it. Should I then benefit from "generating" such a high quality rebuttal, or is that just going to weaken the already weak incentive structure the karma system is supposed to be creating?
I can think of a good case just in the last few days of a poor-quality poster who would seriously benefit from this system, and as a long time poster here you can probably think of more.
You have motivated the better poster to write an excellent post.
If you original post was really insipid and useless it would just be ignored. Capable people rarely waste effort on refuting truly worthless stuff.
How confident of that are you?
Not very. Note my hedging in mentioning "capable" people :-)
I think that in the short term there is the incentive to pile onto the stupid post and shred it to bits. But the bloom on this flower fades very rapidly. Smart people tend to realize that it's not a good use of their time.
Contrast this to a nonstupid but controversial position which motivates someone to write an excellent piece -- for an example consider Yvain's anti-neoreactionary FAQ.
I don't think that an excellent point-by-point take-down in a comment is not a good idea because
a) It is not very visible and if it is excellent and makes a point it should be done as an independent posting.
b) Writing a point-by-point take-down may be overkill and alienate the initial poster. Compensating him with karma may make good for this (and motivate the commenter to post separately).
c) I think individual counters should be addressed by individual comments to allow the to be voted and commented individually.
In the remaining cases and if the point-by-point reply is well meaning and clarifies matters that were unclear for the initial poster: Why shouldn't he get some credit for honstly (possibly mustering some courage) bringung up a question?
It is of course important to choose a suitable fraction of the comment karma.