I have mostly grown tired of making comments where I mention a contrarian position. I get asked to explain myself; it sometimes leads to an argument, and I put a lot of work into comments that often end up at negative karma. I suspect those threads add to LW, but the feedback I’m getting is that they don’t.
I’ll understand if you refuse, but… would you mind terribly saving me the work of searching for an example of what you’re talking about? Cause, see, if I’m right about what you’re referring to (something I’m not sure of, hence the question) I generally do upvote things like that.
Also I’ve only been here, like, two months, so if you have some kind of reputation I’m not aware of it.
The most recent example would be my comment that everyone becoming bisexual might lead to a net social loss, although the karma scores have gone up since that discussion happened (and so maybe I just need to wait before updating on the karma of contrarian comments).
I spent way too long looking through other comments I’ve made, and only really came across this example. I suspect this was misapplying discontent caused by other arguments. I had already noticed a while back that when I made a sloppy comment it would often get downvoted, although I would be able to make up the karma by explaining myself downthread. The only other significant example I can think of was in a thread about infanticide where I accidentally implied that I could be for the criminalization of abortion, and that comment got kicked down to −3 karma, with +1 karma from my following comments. (It’s hard to decide how that whole thread contributes to this question, because the person who said “well, I can’t say this many places, but I’m in favor of infanticide” got upvoted to 41 karma. That suggests to me their position isn’t contrarian locally, but I suspect it is contrarian globally.)
and so maybe I just need to wait before updating on the karma of contrarian comments
In general, it’s been observed that a comment on a controversial topic will be downvoted heavily in a quick flurry but then usually recovers; high-quality such comments tend to end up significantly positive.
In general, it’s been observed that a comment on a controversial topic will be downvoted heavily in a quick flurry but then usually recovers; high-quality such comments tend to end up significantly positive.
And now I have seen it observed by someone who isn’t me. Good to hear external confirmation! :)
Do you upvote people that do?
I have mostly grown tired of making comments where I mention a contrarian position. I get asked to explain myself; it sometimes leads to an argument, and I put a lot of work into comments that often end up at negative karma. I suspect those threads add to LW, but the feedback I’m getting is that they don’t.
I’ll understand if you refuse, but… would you mind terribly saving me the work of searching for an example of what you’re talking about? Cause, see, if I’m right about what you’re referring to (something I’m not sure of, hence the question) I generally do upvote things like that.
Also I’ve only been here, like, two months, so if you have some kind of reputation I’m not aware of it.
The most recent example would be my comment that everyone becoming bisexual might lead to a net social loss, although the karma scores have gone up since that discussion happened (and so maybe I just need to wait before updating on the karma of contrarian comments).
I spent way too long looking through other comments I’ve made, and only really came across this example. I suspect this was misapplying discontent caused by other arguments. I had already noticed a while back that when I made a sloppy comment it would often get downvoted, although I would be able to make up the karma by explaining myself downthread. The only other significant example I can think of was in a thread about infanticide where I accidentally implied that I could be for the criminalization of abortion, and that comment got kicked down to −3 karma, with +1 karma from my following comments. (It’s hard to decide how that whole thread contributes to this question, because the person who said “well, I can’t say this many places, but I’m in favor of infanticide” got upvoted to 41 karma. That suggests to me their position isn’t contrarian locally, but I suspect it is contrarian globally.)
In general, it’s been observed that a comment on a controversial topic will be downvoted heavily in a quick flurry but then usually recovers; high-quality such comments tend to end up significantly positive.
And now I have seen it observed by someone who isn’t me. Good to hear external confirmation! :)
Careful—if you’ve stated it out loud, the observation noted above might be your own.
By the way, +1 for noting the tension between “Is that your true rejection” and “Policy debates should not appear one-sided”.