Rather than saying that this is a problem that is temporarily solvable by collective action, I would say that this is a problem which is currently ONLY solvable by collective action. The offenders clearly don’t care; the admins clearly aren’t going to do anything. It even appears as though the karma assassination has begun, as the user in question’s karma has dropped quite a bit in the last few days.
Frankly, having read through a number of the user in question’s posts, I’m ok with that, but I don’t think it’ll work. He seems to get his karma from rationality quote posting, which is a powerful karma generator. His actual comments are IMHO rarely worthy of an upvote and often deserving of a downvote, but he gains much karma from posting other people’s brilliance.
Perhaps this is another distortion in the karma system that would be worth looking at. Copy/pasting a rationality quote every few days from last years threads can easily keep your karma at a reasonable level even if the bulk of your other posts are crap or mildly offensive. Perhaps karma from those threads could be configured to not accumulate, or perhaps karma could be ‘number of posts upvoted minus number of posts downvoted’, instead of a vote total.
Frankly, having read through a number of the user in question’s posts, I’m ok with that, but I don’t think it’ll work. He seems to get his karma from rationality quote posting, which is a powerful karma generator. His actual comments are IMHO rarely worthy of an upvote and often deserving of a downvote, but he gains much karma from posting other people’s brilliance.
This is in general problem. There are other users who seem to do this also, but they don’t post as frequently so it hasn’t created as much of a problem. But in this particular case, it may also be instructive to look at where the quotes are coming from. A fundamental idea behind the rationality quotes is that rational thinking should be taken from wherever one finds it. And in the past there have been well-received quotes even from Jack Chick and the Unabomber. But, in this particular instance, a large section of the quotes come from people involved in a specific end of American politics. That may indicate further problems given the consistent nature of who is being quoted. It looks like they may see the quote threads as further opportunity to advertise their preferred politics an political writers.
Rather than saying that this is a problem that is temporarily solvable by collective action, I would say that this is a problem which is currently ONLY solvable by collective action. The offenders clearly don’t care; the admins clearly aren’t going to do anything. It even appears as though the karma assassination has begun, as the user in question’s karma has dropped quite a bit in the last few days.
Frankly, having read through a number of the user in question’s posts, I’m ok with that, but I don’t think it’ll work. He seems to get his karma from rationality quote posting, which is a powerful karma generator. His actual comments are IMHO rarely worthy of an upvote and often deserving of a downvote, but he gains much karma from posting other people’s brilliance.
Perhaps this is another distortion in the karma system that would be worth looking at. Copy/pasting a rationality quote every few days from last years threads can easily keep your karma at a reasonable level even if the bulk of your other posts are crap or mildly offensive. Perhaps karma from those threads could be configured to not accumulate, or perhaps karma could be ‘number of posts upvoted minus number of posts downvoted’, instead of a vote total.
This is in general problem. There are other users who seem to do this also, but they don’t post as frequently so it hasn’t created as much of a problem. But in this particular case, it may also be instructive to look at where the quotes are coming from. A fundamental idea behind the rationality quotes is that rational thinking should be taken from wherever one finds it. And in the past there have been well-received quotes even from Jack Chick and the Unabomber. But, in this particular instance, a large section of the quotes come from people involved in a specific end of American politics. That may indicate further problems given the consistent nature of who is being quoted. It looks like they may see the quote threads as further opportunity to advertise their preferred politics an political writers.