Regarding “I feel that the Forum has gotten healthier,” is that statement in comparison to pre-FTX levels of health?
It doesn’t surprise me that a series of scandals, as well as the various pro-reform/anti-reform posts, would trigger a rise in downvote percentage and in warnable events per hour in comparison to a calmer mix of topics. Without more, I would not be inclined to view the 4Q 22 / 1Q 23 trends as strong evidence of a generalized health decline rather than a reflection of the topic mix that needed to be discussed because of events that happened external to the Forum.
This is a good question. I was mostly not thinking of pre-FTX levels when I was writing that part of my response. I’m not sure if I think my claim holds on longer time scales! Things in the community have been calmer recently (outside of the Forum); I don’t know what would have happened had we not added the section (i.e on the Forum. whether things would have calmed down by themselves), nor what would happen if we removed the section now (and unfortunately we can’t e.g. A/B test this kind of thing, but maybe we should test in some other way at some point).
Aside (not related to what I was talking about in the “Forum has gotten healthier” section above): I agree that 4Q 22 / 1Q 23 aren’t representative in many ways, but a key underlying motivation for the Community section is giving posts that have a more niche audience a better chance by separating out posts that tend to get a lot of karma so they’re not “fighting for the same spots” (which are determined by ~karma). That phenomenon (and goal) is unaffected by recent events; ie. what we described in Karma overrates some topics; resulting issues and potential solutions should hold at all times. (On a skim, the top-by-karma posts of 2023, 2022, to some extent 2021 are Community posts. Curiously, this seems less true of 2020 but again more true of 2019.)
Regarding “I feel that the Forum has gotten healthier,” is that statement in comparison to pre-FTX levels of health?
It doesn’t surprise me that a series of scandals, as well as the various pro-reform/anti-reform posts, would trigger a rise in downvote percentage and in warnable events per hour in comparison to a calmer mix of topics. Without more, I would not be inclined to view the 4Q 22 / 1Q 23 trends as strong evidence of a generalized health decline rather than a reflection of the topic mix that needed to be discussed because of events that happened external to the Forum.
This is a good question. I was mostly not thinking of pre-FTX levels when I was writing that part of my response. I’m not sure if I think my claim holds on longer time scales! Things in the community have been calmer recently (outside of the Forum); I don’t know what would have happened had we not added the section (i.e on the Forum. whether things would have calmed down by themselves), nor what would happen if we removed the section now (and unfortunately we can’t e.g. A/B test this kind of thing, but maybe we should test in some other way at some point).
Aside (not related to what I was talking about in the “Forum has gotten healthier” section above): I agree that 4Q 22 / 1Q 23 aren’t representative in many ways, but a key underlying motivation for the Community section is giving posts that have a more niche audience a better chance by separating out posts that tend to get a lot of karma so they’re not “fighting for the same spots” (which are determined by ~karma). That phenomenon (and goal) is unaffected by recent events; ie. what we described in Karma overrates some topics; resulting issues and potential solutions should hold at all times. (On a skim, the top-by-karma posts of 2023, 2022, to some extent 2021 are Community posts. Curiously, this seems less true of 2020 but again more true of 2019.)