There should be a different discussion forum which is readable to all but can only be posted in by those with over, say 1000 karma.
Actually I’d find restrictions on who can or can’t on vote on the comments to be a more interesting option. What would a forum look like if only those with over 1000 karma on LW could vote?
The Stack Exchange sites provide new users with an increasing amount of privileges based on their karma (example). In principle, something similar could be implemented here, with separate privileges such as (in no particular order):
Meetup creation doesn’t seem to need a barrier. Perhaps a useful privilege that could come with enough karma would be to allow users to edit tags on articles. Separating voting on comments and main seem reasonable, but I don’t quite see why separating down voting and up voting would do any good.
I didn’t originally propose this for LW in general, but a different forum or section. People can earn their LW karma elsewhere. But let us for the sake of this exchange suppose here we make this a general rule. I actually like it much more than what I had in mind at first!
It should be emphasised the reverse of what you describe is constantly happening. It is easier and easier to amass 1000 karma as LessWrong grows. Comparing older to newer articles shows clear evidence of ongoing karma inflation.
There aren’t that few people with karma over 1000, I’d guesstimate there are at least 100 of them. Many of those are currently active. But again making it harder to get over 1000 karma in order to vote might be a good think. A key feature of the Eternal September problem is that when you have newcomers of a community interacting mostly with other new members old norms have a hard time taking root. And yes since users takee the karma mechanism, especially negative votes, so seriously it is a very strong kind of interaction. Putting the karma mechanism in the hands of proven members should produce better poster quality. It somewhat alleviates the problems of rapid growth.
It also further subsidizes the creation of new articles. Recall your karma from writing a Main Article is boosted 10 fold.
Getting about 10 karma from introductory posts in the Welcome to LW threads wouldn’t be hard. Also people can publish a draft in comment form or just ask for karma in order to write a particular article.
What do you think of the idea in general, for some other karma limit? Perhaps 500 which is probably close to what the average LWer has.
I like it but then again I have around a thousand karma so it wouldn’t impact me very hard. On the other hand, I don’t think it does a lot of work to actually fix the Monkeymind situation that EY and company seem to be so distressed by.
Right but recall that I didn’t propose this for LW in general, but a different forum or section. People can earn their LW karma elsewhere. But let us for the sake of this exchange suppose here we make this a general rule.
Your interpretation was an interesting question in itself. So please talk criticism of this modified idea!
The reverse is happening precisely because there are so many new users who are voting. I’d say that the way LW started out could be used as an estimate of what that would look like. It was very rare for a comment to reach as many as 5 upvotes, and if you see an old comment that has more than that, most likely it had help from someone more recently upvoting it.
Obviously, it would not be entirely the same, and I would place more weight on the up and downvotes being more accurate if this were put into place now, but it would make it much more difficult to get to that point.
The reverse is happening precisely because there are so many new users who are voting. I’d say that the way LW started out could be used as an estimate of what that would look like. It was very rare for a comment to reach as many as 5 upvotes, and if you see an old comment that has more than that, most likely it had help from someone more recently upvoting it.
I agree LW in say 2010 seems an ok proxy for what it would be like. With one key difference, posting Main articles is much more karma rewarding than it was back then. Articles did get over 10 or 20 karma even back then
We should remember that we don’t really care how many of the lurkers become posters. Growing the number of users is not a goal in itself, though I think for some communities it becomes a lost purpose. What we actually care about is having as much high quality content that has as many readers as possible.
I would argue the median high quality comment is already made by a 1000+ user. In any case the limit is something we can easily change based on experience and isn’t something that should be set without at least first seeing a graph of karma distribution among users.
What we actually care about is having as much high quality content that has as many readers as possible.
I would argue the median high quality comment is already made by a 1000+ user. In any case the limit is something we can easily change based on experience and isn’t something that should be set without at least first seeing a graph of karma distribution among users.
There’s probably a corollary to Löb’s theorem that says a community of rationalists can’t add new members to the community and guarantee that it remains a rational community indefinitely. Karma from ratings is probably an especially poor way to indicate a judgement of rationality because it’s also used to signal interest in humor (to the point that slashdot doesn’t even grant karma for Funny moderations), eloquence, storytelling, and other non-rational things. Any karma-increasing behavior will be reinforced and gain even more karma, and the most efficient ways of obtaining karma will prosper contrary to the goal of creating high quality content. Does every user with more than 1000 karma understand that concept sufficiently to never allow a user who does not understand it to reach 1000 karma?
To be honest I didn’t fully grasp the concept until just now. I was ready to start talking economics with karma as the currency until I realized that economics can not solve the problem.
This seems like one of the best ideas in this thread to me. It’s a simple rule (low drama, low meta), and is a bit like a distributed sponsorship system (where instead of needing to be sponsored by one member, you get partial sponsorship by several).
Hmmm. My unease with this idea would be entirely resolved if the upvotes were cached until the user reached 1000 karma rather than merely prohibited/lost.
Consider EYs article on how we fail to co-operate; I’d like to be able to stand-up and say “yes, more of this please”. I don’t mind at all if the effect of that upvoting is delayed but if I reach 1000 karma I don’t expect to find the energy to go back over all the old threads to up vote those I liked in the past—so in that world my expression of support will be forever missing.
That said, something really is necessary—on more recent posts the comments have had such a disheartening effect that I was beginning to decide that I should only read articles.
Edited: I got the wrong impression from reading too quickly. Corrected comment:
If needed we can choose a different level than 1000 karma, and change it over time in response to experience, so it’s a flexible system.
However, I’m not certain the idea itself is sound. I don’t have the feeling that mutual upvoting by new users is a real problem that needs solving. Can you give links to example comments where you think the proposed rule would have helped?
I feel like if implemented generally, this would punish lurkers who have presumably been contributing to voting patterns for quite some time.
It would limit or remove the voting capability of lurkers. I’m not sure this is a bad thing (even though some of the people who do not comment probably do have good judgement). Either way “punishment” isn’t the right the right word.
Actually I’d find restrictions on who can or can’t on vote on the comments to be a more interesting option. What would a forum look like if only those with over 1000 karma on LW could vote?
The Stack Exchange sites provide new users with an increasing amount of privileges based on their karma (example). In principle, something similar could be implemented here, with separate privileges such as (in no particular order):
Vote comments up
Vote comments down
Vote posts up
Vote posts down
Create Discussion posts
Create Main posts
Create meetups
Meetup creation doesn’t seem to need a barrier. Perhaps a useful privilege that could come with enough karma would be to allow users to edit tags on articles. Separating voting on comments and main seem reasonable, but I don’t quite see why separating down voting and up voting would do any good.
This would make it very difficult for people who aren’t already over 1000 to get there, because there would be so much less upvoting happening.
I didn’t originally propose this for LW in general, but a different forum or section. People can earn their LW karma elsewhere. But let us for the sake of this exchange suppose here we make this a general rule. I actually like it much more than what I had in mind at first!
It should be emphasised the reverse of what you describe is constantly happening. It is easier and easier to amass 1000 karma as LessWrong grows. Comparing older to newer articles shows clear evidence of ongoing karma inflation.
There aren’t that few people with karma over 1000, I’d guesstimate there are at least 100 of them. Many of those are currently active. But again making it harder to get over 1000 karma in order to vote might be a good think. A key feature of the Eternal September problem is that when you have newcomers of a community interacting mostly with other new members old norms have a hard time taking root. And yes since users takee the karma mechanism, especially negative votes, so seriously it is a very strong kind of interaction. Putting the karma mechanism in the hands of proven members should produce better poster quality. It somewhat alleviates the problems of rapid growth.
It also further subsidizes the creation of new articles. Recall your karma from writing a Main Article is boosted 10 fold.
It especially control how easy it is to post to main. 20 karma from +1000 people is worth way more than 20 random karma.
Getting about 10 karma from introductory posts in the Welcome to LW threads wouldn’t be hard. Also people can publish a draft in comment form or just ask for karma in order to write a particular article.
What do you think of the idea in general, for some other karma limit? Perhaps 500 which is probably close to what the average LWer has.
I like it but then again I have around a thousand karma so it wouldn’t impact me very hard. On the other hand, I don’t think it does a lot of work to actually fix the Monkeymind situation that EY and company seem to be so distressed by.
I’m not at all convinced the Monkeymind situation is nearly as serious a problem as EY and company seem to think.
Ah, okay. Never mind then, sounds like an interesting idea.
I hope this says what I wanted it to say:
Your interpretation was an interesting question in itself. So please talk criticism of this modified idea!
Okay, in regards to the misinterpretation:
The reverse is happening precisely because there are so many new users who are voting. I’d say that the way LW started out could be used as an estimate of what that would look like. It was very rare for a comment to reach as many as 5 upvotes, and if you see an old comment that has more than that, most likely it had help from someone more recently upvoting it.
Obviously, it would not be entirely the same, and I would place more weight on the up and downvotes being more accurate if this were put into place now, but it would make it much more difficult to get to that point.
I agree LW in say 2010 seems an ok proxy for what it would be like. With one key difference, posting Main articles is much more karma rewarding than it was back then. Articles did get over 10 or 20 karma even back then
We should remember that we don’t really care how many of the lurkers become posters. Growing the number of users is not a goal in itself, though I think for some communities it becomes a lost purpose. What we actually care about is having as much high quality content that has as many readers as possible.
I would argue the median high quality comment is already made by a 1000+ user. In any case the limit is something we can easily change based on experience and isn’t something that should be set without at least first seeing a graph of karma distribution among users.
There’s probably a corollary to Löb’s theorem that says a community of rationalists can’t add new members to the community and guarantee that it remains a rational community indefinitely. Karma from ratings is probably an especially poor way to indicate a judgement of rationality because it’s also used to signal interest in humor (to the point that slashdot doesn’t even grant karma for Funny moderations), eloquence, storytelling, and other non-rational things. Any karma-increasing behavior will be reinforced and gain even more karma, and the most efficient ways of obtaining karma will prosper contrary to the goal of creating high quality content. Does every user with more than 1000 karma understand that concept sufficiently to never allow a user who does not understand it to reach 1000 karma?
To be honest I didn’t fully grasp the concept until just now. I was ready to start talking economics with karma as the currency until I realized that economics can not solve the problem.
I agree. This idea is better than my originally proposed idea. Easier to implement too, and with fewer drawbacks.
This seems like one of the best ideas in this thread to me. It’s a simple rule (low drama, low meta), and is a bit like a distributed sponsorship system (where instead of needing to be sponsored by one member, you get partial sponsorship by several).
Hmmm. My unease with this idea would be entirely resolved if the upvotes were cached until the user reached 1000 karma rather than merely prohibited/lost.
Consider EYs article on how we fail to co-operate; I’d like to be able to stand-up and say “yes, more of this please”. I don’t mind at all if the effect of that upvoting is delayed but if I reach 1000 karma I don’t expect to find the energy to go back over all the old threads to up vote those I liked in the past—so in that world my expression of support will be forever missing.
That said, something really is necessary—on more recent posts the comments have had such a disheartening effect that I was beginning to decide that I should only read articles.
The thing is your early up votes and down votes are probably different than your later ones.
My expectation is that there would be a significant degree of similarity. This may be a testable hypothesis, but we’d have to be gathering the data.
I’m all in favour of that.
Edited: I got the wrong impression from reading too quickly. Corrected comment:
If needed we can choose a different level than 1000 karma, and change it over time in response to experience, so it’s a flexible system.
However, I’m not certain the idea itself is sound. I don’t have the feeling that mutual upvoting by new users is a real problem that needs solving. Can you give links to example comments where you think the proposed rule would have helped?
I feel like if implemented generally, this would punish lurkers who have presumably been contributing to voting patterns for quite some time.
It would limit or remove the voting capability of lurkers. I’m not sure this is a bad thing (even though some of the people who do not comment probably do have good judgement). Either way “punishment” isn’t the right the right word.