I see. But how can the poster learn if he doesn’t know where it has gone wrong? To give one concrete example: in a comment recently, I simply stated that some people hold that AI could be a solution to the Fermi paradox (past a certain level of collective smartness an AI is created that destroys its creators). I got a few downvotes on that—and frankly I am puzzled as to why and I would really be curious to understand the reasonings between the downvotes. Did the downvoters hold that the Fermi paradox is not really a thing? Did they think that it is a thing but that AI can’t be a solution to it for some obvious reason? Was it something else—I simply don’t know; and so I can’t learn.
Guillaume I think you’re imagining a world where we end up with all downvotes coming with nice explanations. But the actual world I think we’ll get is fewer downvotes, which means more bad content on the site, which makes the site reading and writing experience worse. (See Lies, Damn Lies, and Fabricated Options, as well as Well-Kept Gardens Die By Pacifism)
I think it’s good to have more explanations for downvotes all else being equal, but people are busy and it’s not actually tractable as an overall norm.
Similarly to what is mentioned in the Duncan_Sabien text above, that bad commenting culture ruins old-timers and newcomers alike, down-voting also doesn’t seem to work as intended.
”What happens instead, in practice, is evaporative cooling, as the most sensitive or least-bought-in of [the authors/builders who made your subculture worth participating in in the first place] give up and go elsewhere, marginally increasing the ratio of critics to makers, which makes things marginally less rewarding, which sends the next bunch of builders packing, which worsens the problem further.”
And to use your examples with the garden, if the fool is given the tool and power to down-vote and comment, doesn’t that endanger bad content/bad culture just as much as not hindering the ‘fool’ from writing on the front page?
In the post above, the point I see is that building and giving feedback is mutually dependent. In other words, it is much better for both of them if their relationship is acknowledged. Writing good posts is hard, and takes effort and dedication. Giving relevant and good feedback is also hard, and it takes effort and dedication. Since they are dependent of each other, it would be fair if both of them had to abide by the same levels of standards, and to also get similar levels of acclaim and prestige.
Going down the same level of thinking, if someone should have something like a blanket power of actively hiding new posts/comments in the way of “down-voting”, as a kind of sub-moderator power, that would make sense to me if they themselves are reliable, trustworthy, skillful and discerning. I wouldn’t mind if being down-voted/hidden showed my ‘skill bar’ regarding if my post/comment didn’t meet certain standards. And, unless there were enough people with this skill set around, I would be understanding if I didn’t get an explanation. But, I would assume that the person down-voting/hiding my post/comment themselves abided by the same rules and could explain their reasoning if prompted.
But is every down/up voter sufficiently skilled, discerning and trustworthy? Is there any bar they have to cross to wield this power?
Under this post alone, there are a lot of votes, as well as different comments. Let’s contrast two of them, the first being the introductory comment to this discussion, by Guillaume Charrier. It has gotten 7 down-votes. And this one (below) by cousin_it, which has gotten 18 up-votes. I’ll look at them using the Front page comment guidelines.
1. Aim to explain, not persuade. 2. Try to offer concrete models and predictions. 3. If you disagree, try getting curious about what your partner is thinking. 4. Don’t be afraid to say ‘oops’ and change your mind
cousin_it, ”I don’t see any group of people on LW running around criticizing every new idea. Most criticism on LW is civil, and most of it is helpful at least in part. And the small proportion that isn’t helpful at all, is still useful to me as a test: can I stop myself from overreacting to it?”
Charrier: 1. Tries mostly to persuade, but also explains. 2. Offers predictability in behavior, and a certain code of conduct. 3. Doesn’t disagree with Poster, but doesn’t acknowledge him/her directly. 4. Interacts with commentors, and seems open to change his/her mind if given a valid explanation.
cousin_it: 1. Both. 2. Uses a model to fully refute the post. 3. Disagrees, dismisses the poster’s points entirely, and doesn’t acknowledge him/her. 4. Did not interact or comment further, despite getting a couple of comments. No mention of any openness to ‘oops’ or changing his/her mind.
I’m not going to read too much into it, but which of them are following the guidelines more? And not only the guidelines, but I assume the intentions of them? And still, cousin_it has 18 up-votes, and Charrier has 7 down-votes. How is that possible?
Since Posts and Comments are mutually dependent, both should be held accountable, managed and rewarded. To keep the garden well-kept, we not only need censure—we need discernment. If we have discernment, it is prudent to go much further in censure.
I see Charrier’s comment, Duncan_Sabien’s post and my own comment as pointing at a Major problem. And this comment is hopefully one contribution towards solving it.
If we can’t trust the enforcers, what are the guidelines even worth? I would like stricter enforcing, so that good is promoted and validated, and better is even more supported, whereas needs-work gets feedback, and dubious and bad is simply hidden (You can always do what cousin_it says and work on reading the hidden stuff just to challenge yourself, but it should be optional).
But is every down/up voter sufficiently skilled, discerning and trustworthy? Is there any bar they have to cross to wield this power?
LW has tried to solve this with weighted voting power, and that has made a difference; I think vote totals here are meaningfully better than on Reddit, for instance.
But there are just so many people with vote strength 1 or 2 or 3, and it’s very easy for a popular (but really bad by the standards of rationality) comment to drown out an actually good one.
I’m not one of the downvoters, but to hazard a guess, if something like a paperclip maximizer were to have killed off a nearby alien civilization, where are all the paperclips?
Exactly—and then we can have an interesting conversation etc. (e.g. are all ASIs necessarily paperclip maximizers?), which the silent downvote does not allow for.
You are given millions of words of context and examples to learn from.
One of the things to learn is that a few downvotes is basically meaningless, because lots of people disagree in lots of ways and you need to stop caring that much.
But how can the poster learn if he doesn’t know where it has gone wrong?
That is the poster’s problem.
When I think that a poster is wrong or clueless about something, and that I have good reasons for thinking so that i can articulate, then I may write something. But often, especially when I click on a post standing at −20 just out of morbid curiosity, I find something deep into not-even-wrong territory and happily add my silent strong downvote.
It is the poster’s job to learn,
It is not my job to teach.
I see. But how can the poster learn if he doesn’t know where it has gone wrong? To give one concrete example: in a comment recently, I simply stated that some people hold that AI could be a solution to the Fermi paradox (past a certain level of collective smartness an AI is created that destroys its creators). I got a few downvotes on that—and frankly I am puzzled as to why and I would really be curious to understand the reasonings between the downvotes. Did the downvoters hold that the Fermi paradox is not really a thing? Did they think that it is a thing but that AI can’t be a solution to it for some obvious reason? Was it something else—I simply don’t know; and so I can’t learn.
Guillaume I think you’re imagining a world where we end up with all downvotes coming with nice explanations. But the actual world I think we’ll get is fewer downvotes, which means more bad content on the site, which makes the site reading and writing experience worse. (See Lies, Damn Lies, and Fabricated Options, as well as Well-Kept Gardens Die By Pacifism)
I think it’s good to have more explanations for downvotes all else being equal, but people are busy and it’s not actually tractable as an overall norm.
Hello Raemon and Guillaume Charrier,
Similarly to what is mentioned in the Duncan_Sabien text above, that bad commenting culture ruins old-timers and newcomers alike, down-voting also doesn’t seem to work as intended.
”What happens instead, in practice, is evaporative cooling, as the most sensitive or least-bought-in of [the authors/builders who made your subculture worth participating in in the first place] give up and go elsewhere, marginally increasing the ratio of critics to makers, which makes things marginally less rewarding, which sends the next bunch of builders packing, which worsens the problem further.”
And to use your examples with the garden, if the fool is given the tool and power to down-vote and comment, doesn’t that endanger bad content/bad culture just as much as not hindering the ‘fool’ from writing on the front page?
In the post above, the point I see is that building and giving feedback is mutually dependent. In other words, it is much better for both of them if their relationship is acknowledged. Writing good posts is hard, and takes effort and dedication. Giving relevant and good feedback is also hard, and it takes effort and dedication. Since they are dependent of each other, it would be fair if both of them had to abide by the same levels of standards, and to also get similar levels of acclaim and prestige.
Going down the same level of thinking, if someone should have something like a blanket power of actively hiding new posts/comments in the way of “down-voting”, as a kind of sub-moderator power, that would make sense to me if they themselves are reliable, trustworthy, skillful and discerning. I wouldn’t mind if being down-voted/hidden showed my ‘skill bar’ regarding if my post/comment didn’t meet certain standards. And, unless there were enough people with this skill set around, I would be understanding if I didn’t get an explanation. But, I would assume that the person down-voting/hiding my post/comment themselves abided by the same rules and could explain their reasoning if prompted.
But is every down/up voter sufficiently skilled, discerning and trustworthy? Is there any bar they have to cross to wield this power?
Under this post alone, there are a lot of votes, as well as different comments. Let’s contrast two of them, the first being the introductory comment to this discussion, by Guillaume Charrier. It has gotten 7 down-votes. And this one (below) by cousin_it, which has gotten 18 up-votes. I’ll look at them using the Front page comment guidelines.
1. Aim to explain, not persuade.
2. Try to offer concrete models and predictions.
3. If you disagree, try getting curious about what your partner is thinking.
4. Don’t be afraid to say ‘oops’ and change your mind
cousin_it,
”I don’t see any group of people on LW running around criticizing every new idea. Most criticism on LW is civil, and most of it is helpful at least in part. And the small proportion that isn’t helpful at all, is still useful to me as a test: can I stop myself from overreacting to it?”
Charrier:
1. Tries mostly to persuade, but also explains.
2. Offers predictability in behavior, and a certain code of conduct.
3. Doesn’t disagree with Poster, but doesn’t acknowledge him/her directly.
4. Interacts with commentors, and seems open to change his/her mind if given a valid explanation.
cousin_it:
1. Both.
2. Uses a model to fully refute the post.
3. Disagrees, dismisses the poster’s points entirely, and doesn’t acknowledge him/her.
4. Did not interact or comment further, despite getting a couple of comments. No mention of any openness to ‘oops’ or changing his/her mind.
I’m not going to read too much into it, but which of them are following the guidelines more? And not only the guidelines, but I assume the intentions of them? And still, cousin_it has 18 up-votes, and Charrier has 7 down-votes. How is that possible?
Since Posts and Comments are mutually dependent, both should be held accountable, managed and rewarded. To keep the garden well-kept, we not only need censure—we need discernment. If we have discernment, it is prudent to go much further in censure.
I see Charrier’s comment, Duncan_Sabien’s post and my own comment as pointing at a Major problem. And this comment is hopefully one contribution towards solving it.
If we can’t trust the enforcers, what are the guidelines even worth? I would like stricter enforcing, so that good is promoted and validated, and better is even more supported, whereas needs-work gets feedback, and dubious and bad is simply hidden (You can always do what cousin_it says and work on reading the hidden stuff just to challenge yourself, but it should be optional).
Sincerely,
Caerulea-Lawrence
Strong upvote, strong agree. In particular:
LW has tried to solve this with weighted voting power, and that has made a difference; I think vote totals here are meaningfully better than on Reddit, for instance.
But there are just so many people with vote strength 1 or 2 or 3, and it’s very easy for a popular (but really bad by the standards of rationality) comment to drown out an actually good one.
I’m not one of the downvoters, but to hazard a guess, if something like a paperclip maximizer were to have killed off a nearby alien civilization, where are all the paperclips?
Exactly—and then we can have an interesting conversation etc. (e.g. are all ASIs necessarily paperclip maximizers?), which the silent downvote does not allow for.
You are given millions of words of context and examples to learn from.
One of the things to learn is that a few downvotes is basically meaningless, because lots of people disagree in lots of ways and you need to stop caring that much.
That is the poster’s problem.
When I think that a poster is wrong or clueless about something, and that I have good reasons for thinking so that i can articulate, then I may write something. But often, especially when I click on a post standing at −20 just out of morbid curiosity, I find something deep into not-even-wrong territory and happily add my silent strong downvote.