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.
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.
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.
This is simply beautiful.
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!
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.
There have been attempts at such debate before. I don’t know why, but they never seem to lead to anything.
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.
How would they, when one is completely unaccountable on what they post? There seems to be no extrinsic incentive to be fair or constructive.
And easily automated too!