Down voting might be reconsidered. Allow down voting, encourage it even, but require at least a brief explanation of the down vote. Without an explanation, down voting seems more like a lazy high school popularity contest Facebook kind of thing, not really suitable for such an intellectual forum.
If up and down voting is being used to calculate the positioning of posts on the home page, then perhaps you could consider the following.
If popular ideas which can easily be widely accepted could solve a problem, the problem would likely already be solved. Thus, the opportunity for new solutions would seem to often lie in the realm of ideas which upon first glance may seem unworkable, unrealistic, or even offensive. If you’re ranking posts via a popularity contest, the system serves mostly just to validate the status quo.
Sometimes users downvote because they disagree with the content. That’s unfortunate, and I wish they had a better way of expressing themselves. We will soon have the ability for users to vote on disagreement separately from whether they thought the comment was valuable. Nevertheless, sometimes humans are gonna human, and downvote something for non-virtuous reasons. The effect you describe is real, where it will discourage contrarian takes, including correct contrarian takes, which can be extremely valuable.
Nevertheless, it is my view that downvotes are one of the most useful ways to reduce bad behavior on the Forum, and one of the reasons the Forum is so much healthier than twitter et al. Instead of needing to spend time arguing about the worst content, you can just “downvote and move on”.
Nevertheless, it is my view that downvotes are one of the most useful ways to reduce bad behavior on the Forum, and one of the reasons the Forum is so much healthier than twitter et al. Instead of needing to spend time arguing about the worst content, you can just “downvote and move on”.
Agreed. I have very strong “someone is wrong on the internet tendencies,” and I find the karma system somewhat helpful in guiding me about which things I find worthwhile to argue about. If I see a low-quality argument, I may otherwise be tempted to argue with it, but seeing lots of downvotes tells me that few other people value it and I should probably move on.
On the other hand, seeing highly upvoted but invalid wrong arguments makes it more (rationally) tempting to engage or argue with. Less commonly, seeing downvoted-but-correct arguments makes me eager to defend them.
If I see a low-quality argument, I may otherwise be tempted to argue with it, but seeing lots of downvotes tells me that few other people value it and I should probably move on.
Certainly none of us can, or should, engage everything we don’t agree with. We all have our filtering mechanisms, and to each their own seems appropriate.
That said, I am personally quite wary of allowing the group consensus to be my guide on anything. The fact that lots of people like or dislike something has little meaning here. A quick example that seems relevant to EA...
It’s an overwhelming consensus of our society that nuclear weapons typically aren’t important enough to discuss, even in presidential campaigns when we are selecting a single human being to have sole authority over the use of these weapons. And this isn’t just “the stupid people”, it’s nearly everyone at all levels of society, including the most intelligent and highly educated among us. Even on this forum, the nuclear weapons which can destroy everything we care about without warning in just minutes is just one of a great many topics being discussed.
So, if a thread about nuclear weapons gets down voted by 100 million Americans and others beyond, why should I pay attention to that? We’re all basically insane, thus our voting lacks any real credibility.
Further, if the ideas that most people find generally acceptable could solve the problems we are often discussing, wouldn’t those problems most likely already be solved? If true, doesn’t it logically follow that we should be investing much of our time in to exploring ideas which most people would object to? Maybe we should be going around the forum looking for the threads that have the most down votes?
Ok, I get it now, you’ve finally sold me on down votes. :-)
I don’t have an objection to the down voting. I enthusiastically agree that all ideas can benefit from challenges and counter challenges. I’m very receptive to that. If members wish to come out of hiding and engage any of my posts and attempt to defeat the points being made, I’m all for that. Go for it! Make your case, support it, stand behind it.
I’m objecting to the anonymous no content popularity contest nature of the voting system here. It’s juvenile and cowardly, and undermines the credibility of the forum in my eyes. I appreciate you are making a good faith effort to rise above the norm of social media, but implementing Facebook style features doesn’t seem a good way to go about that. Honestly, even Facebook does this better, as they encourage positive feedback, while making negative feedback more obscure. You know, they don’t have a “this sucks” button.
I came here to invest my time for free in helping you build this impressive well intended website, to the degree I am able. The insult mechanisms the mod team has put in place are not helping with my motivation.
Down voting might be reconsidered. Allow down voting, encourage it even, but require at least a brief explanation of the down vote. Without an explanation, down voting seems more like a lazy high school popularity contest Facebook kind of thing, not really suitable for such an intellectual forum.
If up and down voting is being used to calculate the positioning of posts on the home page, then perhaps you could consider the following.
If popular ideas which can easily be widely accepted could solve a problem, the problem would likely already be solved. Thus, the opportunity for new solutions would seem to often lie in the realm of ideas which upon first glance may seem unworkable, unrealistic, or even offensive. If you’re ranking posts via a popularity contest, the system serves mostly just to validate the status quo.
Sometimes users downvote because they disagree with the content. That’s unfortunate, and I wish they had a better way of expressing themselves. We will soon have the ability for users to vote on disagreement separately from whether they thought the comment was valuable. Nevertheless, sometimes humans are gonna human, and downvote something for non-virtuous reasons. The effect you describe is real, where it will discourage contrarian takes, including correct contrarian takes, which can be extremely valuable.
Nevertheless, it is my view that downvotes are one of the most useful ways to reduce bad behavior on the Forum, and one of the reasons the Forum is so much healthier than twitter et al. Instead of needing to spend time arguing about the worst content, you can just “downvote and move on”.
Agreed. I have very strong “someone is wrong on the internet tendencies,” and I find the karma system somewhat helpful in guiding me about which things I find worthwhile to argue about. If I see a low-quality argument, I may otherwise be tempted to argue with it, but seeing lots of downvotes tells me that few other people value it and I should probably move on.
On the other hand, seeing highly upvoted but invalid wrong arguments makes it more (rationally) tempting to engage or argue with. Less commonly, seeing downvoted-but-correct arguments makes me eager to defend them.
Certainly none of us can, or should, engage everything we don’t agree with. We all have our filtering mechanisms, and to each their own seems appropriate.
That said, I am personally quite wary of allowing the group consensus to be my guide on anything. The fact that lots of people like or dislike something has little meaning here. A quick example that seems relevant to EA...
It’s an overwhelming consensus of our society that nuclear weapons typically aren’t important enough to discuss, even in presidential campaigns when we are selecting a single human being to have sole authority over the use of these weapons. And this isn’t just “the stupid people”, it’s nearly everyone at all levels of society, including the most intelligent and highly educated among us. Even on this forum, the nuclear weapons which can destroy everything we care about without warning in just minutes is just one of a great many topics being discussed.
So, if a thread about nuclear weapons gets down voted by 100 million Americans and others beyond, why should I pay attention to that? We’re all basically insane, thus our voting lacks any real credibility.
Further, if the ideas that most people find generally acceptable could solve the problems we are often discussing, wouldn’t those problems most likely already be solved? If true, doesn’t it logically follow that we should be investing much of our time in to exploring ideas which most people would object to? Maybe we should be going around the forum looking for the threads that have the most down votes?
Ok, I get it now, you’ve finally sold me on down votes. :-)
I don’t have an objection to the down voting. I enthusiastically agree that all ideas can benefit from challenges and counter challenges. I’m very receptive to that. If members wish to come out of hiding and engage any of my posts and attempt to defeat the points being made, I’m all for that. Go for it! Make your case, support it, stand behind it.
I’m objecting to the anonymous no content popularity contest nature of the voting system here. It’s juvenile and cowardly, and undermines the credibility of the forum in my eyes. I appreciate you are making a good faith effort to rise above the norm of social media, but implementing Facebook style features doesn’t seem a good way to go about that. Honestly, even Facebook does this better, as they encourage positive feedback, while making negative feedback more obscure. You know, they don’t have a “this sucks” button.
I came here to invest my time for free in helping you build this impressive well intended website, to the degree I am able. The insult mechanisms the mod team has put in place are not helping with my motivation.