“we noticed that comments are more meaningful, helpful and thought out when they are at a minimum 500 characters, you can still post a shorter comment but you have N characters to go to cross the arbitrary threshold we decided on. You can still post but it will cost −1 karma. If you think that you will get at least one upvote more than usual then its certainly worthwhile posting as is; otherwise can you add more useful characters to your post?”
I can tell you exactly what the outcome of that will be. I am sure you’ll figure it out, too, if you think about your suggestion for a minute or two.
no I couldn’t think of it before I sugested the idea, please be explicit about it. exactly what will go wrong and is there a way to solve that without breaking the entire idea?
And then get a storm of downvotes that cancels out the benefit they hoped to gain by padding their comment. And then probably not do it again.
What I’d be more worried about is that short comments may be more valuable than you would think from their average karma—e.g., perhaps in some cases short not-exceptionally-insightful comments form (as it were) the skeleton of a discussion, within which insights might emerge. Or perhaps if everyone felt they mustn’t post short comments unless they were exceptionally insightful, the barrier to participation would feel high enough that scarcely anyone would ever post anything, and LW would just wither.
sure. some people will. and some people will re-think their choices and write with more effort. and some people will accept −1 karma. I don’t see these 3 choices as a problem, if we can marginally increase the quality of interactions...
a lovely quote, I would not say that volume is correlated with quality, but I would say the potential benefits outweigh the disadvantages. Obviously enough people disagree with me.
I don’t think this would be helpful, basically for the reason Lumifer said. In terms of how I vote personally, if I consider a comment unproductive, being longer increases the probability that I will downvote, since it wastes more of my time.
I can tell you exactly what the outcome of that will be. I am sure you’ll figure it out, too, if you think about your suggestion for a minute or two.
no I couldn’t think of it before I sugested the idea, please be explicit about it. exactly what will go wrong and is there a way to solve that without breaking the entire idea?
People will still write short replies.
Andthenfilltheremainderof500characterswithtrashjustsothatthestupidmachinebesatisfiedandtheywouldnothavetopaythe-1karmapricesinceit’seasytojustfillupspacewatchme:ooohaaahooohaaahooohaaahooohaaahooohaaahooohaaahooohaaahooohaaahooohaaahooohaaahooohaaahooohaaahooohaaahooohaaahooohaaahooohaaahooohaaahooohaaahooohaaahooohaaahooohaaahooohaaahphew.
And then get a storm of downvotes that cancels out the benefit they hoped to gain by padding their comment. And then probably not do it again.
What I’d be more worried about is that short comments may be more valuable than you would think from their average karma—e.g., perhaps in some cases short not-exceptionally-insightful comments form (as it were) the skeleton of a discussion, within which insights might emerge. Or perhaps if everyone felt they mustn’t post short comments unless they were exceptionally insightful, the barrier to participation would feel high enough that scarcely anyone would ever post anything, and LW would just wither.
sure. some people will. and some people will re-think their choices and write with more effort. and some people will accept −1 karma. I don’t see these 3 choices as a problem, if we can marginally increase the quality of interactions...
I don’t expect that an incentive to add some unnecessary volume will improve the quality of comments.
Recall Blaise Pascal’s “I would have written a shorter letter, but I did not have the time” :-)
a lovely quote, I would not say that volume is correlated with quality, but I would say the potential benefits outweigh the disadvantages. Obviously enough people disagree with me.
I don’t think this would be helpful, basically for the reason Lumifer said. In terms of how I vote personally, if I consider a comment unproductive, being longer increases the probability that I will downvote, since it wastes more of my time.