My comments on LessWrong, and indeed most sites, tend to skew negative, especially for toplevel comments. My votes on LessWrong, and indeed most sites, tend to skew positive, especially for toplevel posts and comments.
I have come to a realization as to why this is. Take two hypothetical posts:
Post A is a perfect post[1]. It coherently and completely describes an obviously-correct-only-in-hindsight argument far more eloquently than I ever could, from premises that I assign a very high probability to. Post B is a terrible post. It incoherently and incompletely describes an obviously-incorrect argument in an inelequent fashion, from premises that I assign a very low probability to.
My typical reaction upon seeing these two posts is as follows:
For post A, I’ll upvote[2]. I am unlikely to leave a comment, as I am unable to constructively add to the discussion, and generally unconstructive comments-as-upvotes are discouraged[3].
For post B, I will leave a negative comment, either describing a flaw in the argument, or why a premise appears to be unlikely. (Or some combination of these). I may downvote, but am relatively unlikely to, at least initially and assuming that the post/argument appears to be made in good faith. (This is because, among other reasons[4], it is entirely possible that I am misconstruing the argument or am otherwise mistaken myself. I skew heavily towards not censoring information, lest I get trapped in information cascades.)
The overall result of this is that my comments, especially the initial toplevel comments on posts, skew heavily negative, whereas my votes skew positive, somewhat less heavily.
I find myself thinking that this state of affairs is undesirable; I cannot articulate why, precisely[5]. Is there a better approach or flaw in premises or reasoning here?
I suspect that at least some of this is due to upvotes being anonymous whereas comments are tied to my username. Someone e.g. looking at my user page just sees that I’m negative all the time.
My comments on LessWrong, and indeed most sites, tend to skew negative, especially for toplevel comments.
My votes on LessWrong, and indeed most sites, tend to skew positive, especially for toplevel posts and comments.
I have come to a realization as to why this is. Take two hypothetical posts:
Post A is a perfect post[1]. It coherently and completely describes an obviously-correct-only-in-hindsight argument far more eloquently than I ever could, from premises that I assign a very high probability to.
Post B is a terrible post. It incoherently and incompletely describes an obviously-incorrect argument in an inelequent fashion, from premises that I assign a very low probability to.
My typical reaction upon seeing these two posts is as follows:
For post A, I’ll upvote[2]. I am unlikely to leave a comment, as I am unable to constructively add to the discussion, and generally unconstructive comments-as-upvotes are discouraged[3].
For post B, I will leave a negative comment, either describing a flaw in the argument, or why a premise appears to be unlikely. (Or some combination of these). I may downvote, but am relatively unlikely to, at least initially and assuming that the post/argument appears to be made in good faith. (This is because, among other reasons[4], it is entirely possible that I am misconstruing the argument or am otherwise mistaken myself. I skew heavily towards not censoring information, lest I get trapped in information cascades.)
The overall result of this is that my comments, especially the initial toplevel comments on posts, skew heavily negative, whereas my votes skew positive, somewhat less heavily.
I find myself thinking that this state of affairs is undesirable; I cannot articulate why, precisely[5]. Is there a better approach or flaw in premises or reasoning here?
From my perspective. Don’t treat this as “ideal agent”, just “far better than I am”.
Likely a strong upvote, depending.
Sometimes explicitly, sometimes implicitly.
One other reason is that a lot of sites assign a cost to downvotes. Insofar as “number go up” is an incentive, there is a disincentive to downvote.
I suspect that at least some of this is due to upvotes being anonymous whereas comments are tied to my username. Someone e.g. looking at my user page just sees that I’m negative all the time.