In a recent poll, many LW members expressed interest in a separate website for rational discussion of political topics. The website has been created, but we need a group of volunteers to help us test it and calibrate its recommendation system (see below).
If you would like to help (by participating in one or two discussions and giving us your feedback) please sign up here.
About individual recommendation system
All internet forums face a choice between freedom of speech and quality of debate. In absence of censorship, constructive discussions can be easily disrupted by the inflow of the mind-killed which causes the more intelligent participants to leave or descend to the same level.
Preserving quality thus usually requires at least one of the following methods:
- Appointing censors (a.k.a. moderators).
- Limiting membership.
- Declaring certain topics (e.g., politics) off limits.
On the new website, we are going to experiment with a different method. In brief, the idea is to use an automated recommendation system which sorts content, raising the best comments to the top and (optionally) hiding the worst. The sorting is done based on the individual preferences, allowing each user to avoid what he or she (rather than moderators or anyone else) defines as low quality content. In this way we should be able to enhance quality without imposing limits on free speech.
UPDATE. The discussions are scheduled to start on May 1.
I would like to note that on what basis the automation is done is really sensitive whether indirect moderation is exercised. If you have categories or subject topics then a) it's hard to impossible to differentiate within a subject area b) the bonudary drawing is a moderation choice (ie who gets to suffer from their "neighbours" bad karma). Another naive failure mode is that if a user is as a whole bucketed as good or bad. This would misbehave if the person contributes to one area but gets really button pushed on another area.
And while it doesn't place that much limitations on the "free" part it might make limitations on the "speech" part. If you have multiple echo chambers that preach to the choir the cross-cultural interaction is missed out on even if cultural segregation is fully successful. That is while it would be text and there would be low amount of conflict based interruptions it would not be that communicative. In order to make transimission of information make sense you have to be able to send information that the receiver doesn't already have.
You raise very relevant points. I’ll try to address them without getting too technical.
Our recommendation system estimates the probability that a user A will like a comment B. It is then a personal choice of a user A to decide what is the right threshold (read all comments, ignore comments rated below 60%, etc.).
We use a bit more sophisticated method.
I’m ... (read more)