What’s right and wrong is rarely as clear cut as that when you’re talking about the type of topics discussed here. At any rate I’m not talking about rewarding well-written but clearly wrong posts, but rather posts that are interesting but of uncertain truth value (which is a lot of them on this site). Agree/disagree on the other hand would allow people to register whether they believe something is true/a good idea independently of how interesting it is.
I guess rather than having two ratings that could be given seperately, you could vote a post as “agree” or “interesting”, both giving postive karma, or “disagree” or “bad”, both giving negative karma, but with visual distinguishment. This would give posters more accurate feedback without fundamentally changing the karma system.
Right now if a post has a high rating it’s unclear if people actually agree with it/think it’s true or just find it useful/interesting, and similarly for low ratings.
Public expression of (dis)agreement creates emotional binding to beliefs and triggers some associated biases. Seeing how popular a belief is can bias people as well, functioning like an indirect argumentum ad populum. I would rather not know how much popular an opinion is; a well-reasoned disagreement or agreement accompanied by additional arguments are gladly accepted, but unsupported opinion expression ranges, in my opinion, from nearly worthless to actually harmful.
Now the popularity of certain beliefs can be discerned from the present karma system too, but still it doesn’t “officially” hold that highly upvoted post → probably true. The less explicit meaning karma has, the less likely it produces biases, or at least I think so.
Also, I agree with jimrandomh. To maintain that a post brings relevant, valid and good argument supporting X and simultaneously disagree with X seems irrational; rationalists are supposed to change their beliefs with new evidence. Upvoting an argument whose conclusion one doesn’t accept means either that one values sophistry, or that one has an opinion (enough strong to be willing to express it by voting) in spite of accepting arguments to the contrary. I can imagine few situations when that may be appropriate, but not enough to justify existence of two voting scales.
Right now if a post has a high rating it’s unclear if people actually agree with it/think it’s true or just find it useful/interesting, and similarly for low ratings.
Personally, I use comments to specify. I notice that a lot of other people do not, and wonder if I’m violating a social more against relatively informationless comments by doing it (although I’ve gotten upvoted for it).
I agree with the problem, though. I can’t tell if the upvotes on this are meant to give me the confirmation I’m asking for, or join in the asking.
What’s right and wrong is rarely as clear cut as that when you’re talking about the type of topics discussed here. At any rate I’m not talking about rewarding well-written but clearly wrong posts, but rather posts that are interesting but of uncertain truth value (which is a lot of them on this site). Agree/disagree on the other hand would allow people to register whether they believe something is true/a good idea independently of how interesting it is.
I guess rather than having two ratings that could be given seperately, you could vote a post as “agree” or “interesting”, both giving postive karma, or “disagree” or “bad”, both giving negative karma, but with visual distinguishment. This would give posters more accurate feedback without fundamentally changing the karma system.
Right now if a post has a high rating it’s unclear if people actually agree with it/think it’s true or just find it useful/interesting, and similarly for low ratings.
Public expression of (dis)agreement creates emotional binding to beliefs and triggers some associated biases. Seeing how popular a belief is can bias people as well, functioning like an indirect argumentum ad populum. I would rather not know how much popular an opinion is; a well-reasoned disagreement or agreement accompanied by additional arguments are gladly accepted, but unsupported opinion expression ranges, in my opinion, from nearly worthless to actually harmful.
Now the popularity of certain beliefs can be discerned from the present karma system too, but still it doesn’t “officially” hold that highly upvoted post → probably true. The less explicit meaning karma has, the less likely it produces biases, or at least I think so.
Also, I agree with jimrandomh. To maintain that a post brings relevant, valid and good argument supporting X and simultaneously disagree with X seems irrational; rationalists are supposed to change their beliefs with new evidence. Upvoting an argument whose conclusion one doesn’t accept means either that one values sophistry, or that one has an opinion (enough strong to be willing to express it by voting) in spite of accepting arguments to the contrary. I can imagine few situations when that may be appropriate, but not enough to justify existence of two voting scales.
I think my most upvoted posts have been the jokes. Perhaps there should be a fun/useful distinction.
Personally, I use comments to specify. I notice that a lot of other people do not, and wonder if I’m violating a social more against relatively informationless comments by doing it (although I’ve gotten upvoted for it).
I agree with the problem, though. I can’t tell if the upvotes on this are meant to give me the confirmation I’m asking for, or join in the asking.