I hadn’t realized that Eliezer retracted the statement or that I was I was violating the rules.
In general, when someone says something is a spoiler and should be put in ROT13, the polite thing to do is to comply. You can then argue that it shouldn’t be necessary, after the damage control is done.
If you’re failing to do that, then the only recourse the rest of us have is to downvote the comment several times so that it is by default hidden from view. I will generally check back in a day to see if the spoiler has been ROT13′d, and reverse my downvote if it has.
The policy is listed in the post header, and the “more specifically” link says exactly what it is that should only be mentioned in ROT13.
And if you’d just bothered to go down to the local planning office, you’d see the policy was available for anyone to look at for the last nine months.
I have never posted a spoiler before, nor had I intended to. I was not aware that confidence was to be given to the accusing party. I will keep this in mind in the future.
It’s not about who’s the “accusing party”, it’s about limiting potential damage. It would have cost you only a few seconds to edit in order to rot13 or remove something you were told was spoiler—an action which would have been of positive utility to us, of hardly any cost to you—instead you preferred to spend a hundredfold times that amount of time in a negative-sum game, where we lose because the damn spoiler is still up, and you lose by losing all your karma, and we ALL lose by wasting time debating this back and forth.
Why don’t we instead trade utilities, you by editing to remove/rot13 the spoiler, and I by removing my own downvotes of you? As could have been done from the very first post?
a negative-sum game, where we lose because the damn spoiler is still up, and you lose by losing all your karma, and we ALL lose by wasting time debating this back and forth.
Not everyone is losing. For example, I’ve been enjoying this. I doubt I’m the only one.
For example, I’ve been enjoying this. I doubt I’m the only one.
First time it can be amusing, but if such situation would repeat often, the amusement would fade and the costs would stay. So I cooperate with my future selves by resisting to act on my amusement.
First time it can be amusing, but if such situation would repeat often, the amusement would fade and the costs would stay.
I can’t tell if you’re telling me I don’t actually enjoy this or if you’re threatening me with promises that time will deliver retribution.
I cooperate with my future selves
Things like this are why I can’t convince my friends that you guys aren’t a “system of religious veneration and devotion directed toward a particular figure or object.” I don’t know what you’re saying but I’ll bet p>0.75 there’s a way to say it without sounding like a fucking time traveler.
EDIT: I mean to say that you use phrases that reference something common to some group you belong to, but uncommon to the public majority. I could say you sound like you come from fairy land or a phyg or outer space, but saying that you sound like you come from another time seemed the most apt until I noticed the phrase I criticized said something about your future selves. Maybe that’s why I thought of time travel. I wasn’t taking you literally.
I’m threatening you that time may deliver more discussions about whether we should or shouldn’t rot-13 the spoilers, how exactly the spoiler is defined, etc… and that can become rather boring.
And by the way, I am a time traveller, I just always move in the same direction with a constant speed.
Actually, I would say that this whole affair was a net positive. It brought to light an issue that I’m sure some of us believe should be reformed. At this point I’ve gotten most of my karma back, and a lot of people have gained karma, so I’d say karma is up overall. Rationalists cannot agree to disagree, so when we argue correctly, we become stronger. I suppose I was briefly frustrated by this and its possible that some animosity sprung up here and there, but in the end we’re all really friends here trying to talk about a story we enjoy, and this was undeniably amusing.
At this point I’ve gotten most of my karma back, and a lot of people have gained karma, so I’d say karma is up overall.
With regards to karma, most of the comments on LW have positive karma, very few have negative. So by mere participation in a long discussion people gain karma, unless they do something very wrong and refuse to give up.
This does not directly contradict what you said. Most of discussions are added value on LW. I just suspect that the karma does not reflect utility precisely; positive votes are given more cheaply than negative votes. (An exaggerated example: if someone writes something bad and gets −10 karma, and two people react with “stop doing this!” and get +5 karma each, the total balance is 0, but the total utility is negative.) Also chronical procrastinators like me probably have a bias against recognizing the opportunity cost of time spent reading comments, which makes us ignore comments that—judged strictly by the utility they give us—should be downvoted.
This is just a speculation about the nature of karma on LW. I don’t think that you did something horrible here, and I consider the downvoting of the offending comment a sufficient fix. But next time be more careful, because on this site torturing a person for 50 years is considered appropriate to avoid 3^^^3 readers getting spoilers in their eyes. :D
there will be a Singularity, the human race will survive and greatly expand through the universe;
some of those future humans will be interested in history;
LessWrong site and HP:MoR will be among the important historical artifacts, and their contents will be preserved.
Of course each of these assumptions is open to discussion, but if you give non-zero probability to each of them, the inevitable logical conclusion follows.
(see my comment below for why this was actually positive-sum)
We’re kinda wasting time in the first place. I mean, we’re debating a Harry Potter fanfiction. That’s hardly the most productive use of our time. Your trade would be very reasonable if I valued my karma as much as I value leaving my comment. i apologize to anyone who might have the story ruined for them by the revelation at the end of the first book, from more than 15 years ago. I’m not going to use the rot13 because it would be putting symbolism over substance. I would be censoring myself to avoid what is only technically defined as a spoiler because spoilers are “bad” regardless of whether their presence does any real harm.
Honestly, does anyone here actually say, “Rot13! I better not read this question because this guy is going to tell me the entire third act”? If anything, Rot13 just makes me more curious, as does a simple “Spoiler Alert”. I realized that this is only evidence for my mind, but even if someone on here as a deadly allergy to information they’re probably going to know anyway by next week, my comment would barely hurt them, if at all. Harry traded a 100,000 galleons because the value he assigned to Hermione was exponentially greater. I would trade twice my current amount of karma because the value I assign to resisting absurd technicalities is exponentially greater.
If you’re failing to do that, then the only recourse the rest of us have is to downvote the comment several times so that it is by default hidden from view.
A post only needs a score of −1 to be hidden.
The post currently stands at −12 points, in addition to ongoing punitive serial-downvoting of his (and my) further posts on the issue (most of which both did not mention the spoiler and were hidden under the hidden post).
By default, posts with −2 or less are hidden. (I just created a new account to check). I’m pretty sure the default used to be −4.
The post currently stands at −12 points, in addition to ongoing punitive serial-downvoting of his (and my) further posts on the issue (most of which both did not mention the spoiler and were hidden under the hidden post).
That is not relevant to anything I said. People can downvote for whatever reason they want, and should generally do so to mean “I want to see fewer comments like this one”.
By default, comments with a score of −2 are visible and with a score of −3 are hidden. The preferences page is confusing because it uses “below” as a strict inequality. I believe this was the original default, though there may have been something else in the middle.
In general, when someone says something is a spoiler and should be put in ROT13, the polite thing to do is to comply. You can then argue that it shouldn’t be necessary, after the damage control is done.
If you’re failing to do that, then the only recourse the rest of us have is to downvote the comment several times so that it is by default hidden from view. I will generally check back in a day to see if the spoiler has been ROT13′d, and reverse my downvote if it has.
The policy is listed in the post header, and the “more specifically” link says exactly what it is that should only be mentioned in ROT13.
And if you’d just bothered to go down to the local planning office, you’d see the policy was available for anyone to look at for the last nine months.
I have never posted a spoiler before, nor had I intended to. I was not aware that confidence was to be given to the accusing party. I will keep this in mind in the future.
It’s not about who’s the “accusing party”, it’s about limiting potential damage. It would have cost you only a few seconds to edit in order to rot13 or remove something you were told was spoiler—an action which would have been of positive utility to us, of hardly any cost to you—instead you preferred to spend a hundredfold times that amount of time in a negative-sum game, where we lose because the damn spoiler is still up, and you lose by losing all your karma, and we ALL lose by wasting time debating this back and forth.
Why don’t we instead trade utilities, you by editing to remove/rot13 the spoiler, and I by removing my own downvotes of you? As could have been done from the very first post?
Not everyone is losing. For example, I’ve been enjoying this. I doubt I’m the only one.
First time it can be amusing, but if such situation would repeat often, the amusement would fade and the costs would stay. So I cooperate with my future selves by resisting to act on my amusement.
I can’t tell if you’re telling me I don’t actually enjoy this or if you’re threatening me with promises that time will deliver retribution.
Things like this are why I can’t convince my friends that you guys aren’t a “system of religious veneration and devotion directed toward a particular figure or object.” I don’t know what you’re saying but I’ll bet p>0.75 there’s a way to say it without sounding like a fucking time traveler.
EDIT: I mean to say that you use phrases that reference something common to some group you belong to, but uncommon to the public majority. I could say you sound like you come from fairy land or a phyg or outer space, but saying that you sound like you come from another time seemed the most apt until I noticed the phrase I criticized said something about your future selves. Maybe that’s why I thought of time travel. I wasn’t taking you literally.
EDIT II: Son of Edit: Phyg
I’m threatening you that time may deliver more discussions about whether we should or shouldn’t rot-13 the spoilers, how exactly the spoiler is defined, etc… and that can become rather boring.
And by the way, I am a time traveller, I just always move in the same direction with a constant speed.
Point taken, though.
Actually, I would say that this whole affair was a net positive. It brought to light an issue that I’m sure some of us believe should be reformed. At this point I’ve gotten most of my karma back, and a lot of people have gained karma, so I’d say karma is up overall. Rationalists cannot agree to disagree, so when we argue correctly, we become stronger. I suppose I was briefly frustrated by this and its possible that some animosity sprung up here and there, but in the end we’re all really friends here trying to talk about a story we enjoy, and this was undeniably amusing.
With regards to karma, most of the comments on LW have positive karma, very few have negative. So by mere participation in a long discussion people gain karma, unless they do something very wrong and refuse to give up.
This does not directly contradict what you said. Most of discussions are added value on LW. I just suspect that the karma does not reflect utility precisely; positive votes are given more cheaply than negative votes. (An exaggerated example: if someone writes something bad and gets −10 karma, and two people react with “stop doing this!” and get +5 karma each, the total balance is 0, but the total utility is negative.) Also chronical procrastinators like me probably have a bias against recognizing the opportunity cost of time spent reading comments, which makes us ignore comments that—judged strictly by the utility they give us—should be downvoted.
This is just a speculation about the nature of karma on LW. I don’t think that you did something horrible here, and I consider the downvoting of the offending comment a sufficient fix. But next time be more careful, because on this site torturing a person for 50 years is considered appropriate to avoid 3^^^3 readers getting spoilers in their eyes. :D
I would never have guessed that we had that many readers.
It depends on a few assumptions:
there will be a Singularity, the human race will survive and greatly expand through the universe;
some of those future humans will be interested in history;
LessWrong site and HP:MoR will be among the important historical artifacts, and their contents will be preserved.
Of course each of these assumptions is open to discussion, but if you give non-zero probability to each of them, the inevitable logical conclusion follows.
(Also, I am joking.)
Wouldn’t transhumans with sufficiently modified minds probably have the cognitive ability necessary to guess the spoiler?
I actually agree, Although it is rather exasperating to argue against a larger group of people.
(see my comment below for why this was actually positive-sum) We’re kinda wasting time in the first place. I mean, we’re debating a Harry Potter fanfiction. That’s hardly the most productive use of our time. Your trade would be very reasonable if I valued my karma as much as I value leaving my comment. i apologize to anyone who might have the story ruined for them by the revelation at the end of the first book, from more than 15 years ago. I’m not going to use the rot13 because it would be putting symbolism over substance. I would be censoring myself to avoid what is only technically defined as a spoiler because spoilers are “bad” regardless of whether their presence does any real harm.
Honestly, does anyone here actually say, “Rot13! I better not read this question because this guy is going to tell me the entire third act”? If anything, Rot13 just makes me more curious, as does a simple “Spoiler Alert”. I realized that this is only evidence for my mind, but even if someone on here as a deadly allergy to information they’re probably going to know anyway by next week, my comment would barely hurt them, if at all. Harry traded a 100,000 galleons because the value he assigned to Hermione was exponentially greater. I would trade twice my current amount of karma because the value I assign to resisting absurd technicalities is exponentially greater.
A post only needs a score of −1 to be hidden.
The post currently stands at −12 points, in addition to ongoing punitive serial-downvoting of his (and my) further posts on the issue (most of which both did not mention the spoiler and were hidden under the hidden post).
By default, posts with −2 or less are hidden. (I just created a new account to check). I’m pretty sure the default used to be −4.
That is not relevant to anything I said. People can downvote for whatever reason they want, and should generally do so to mean “I want to see fewer comments like this one”.
By default, comments with a score of −2 are visible and with a score of −3 are hidden. The preferences page is confusing because it uses “below” as a strict inequality. I believe this was the original default, though there may have been something else in the middle.