I think Scott’s argument for for openness to eccentrics on the ground that a couple of great ideas have far more positive value than a whole bunch of negative ones have negative value in generalises to an argument for being open to ‘eccentrics’ who comprise large numbers of new or intermittent posters.
You’ve got to consider the base rates. Most eccentrics are actually just people with ungrounded ideas that are wrong since it’s easy to have wild ideas and hard to have correct ideas and thus even harder to have wild and correct ideas.
In the old days of Less Wrong excess criticism was actually a huge problem and did silence a bunch of folks incorrectly. EAF and Less Wrong (which has basically the same cultural norms) have this problem to a much lesser extent now due a few structural changes:
new posters don’t post directly to the front page and instead only can post there once they get enough karma or explicit approval by moderators
this lets new posters work out the site norms without being exposed to the full brunt of the community
weighted voting also allows respected users to correct errors on their own, so when they see something of value they can give it a strong upvote rather than it languishing due to five other new people voting it down
If your concern is that the site is not making it easy enough for eccentrics with good ideas to post here, I can say from the experience of the way Less Wrong used to run that it’s likely they’d have an even worse time if it weren’t for weighted voting.
You’ve got to consider the base rates. Most eccentrics are actually just people with ungrounded ideas that are wrong since it’s easy to have wild ideas and hard to have correct ideas and thus even harder to have wild and correct ideas.
It is tiresome to have conversations in which you assume I only started thinking about this yesterday and haven’t considered basic epistemic concepts.
a) I am not talking about actual eccentrics; I’m drawing the analogy of a gestalt entity mimicking (an intelligent) eccentric. You don’t have to agree that the tradeoff is worthwhile, but please claim that about the tradeoff I’m proposing, not some bizarre one where we go recruiting anyone who has sufficiently heterodox ideas.
b) I am not necessarily suggesting removing the karma system. I’m suggesting toning it down, which could easily be accompanied by other measures to help users find the content they’d most like to see. There’s plenty of room for experimentation—the forum seems to have been stuck in a local maximum (at best—perhaps not a maximum) for the last few years, and CEA should have the resources for some A/B testing of new ideas.
c) Plenty of pre-Reddit internet forums have been successful in pursuing their goal with no karma system at all, let alone a weighted one. Looking at the current posts on the front page of the EA Reddit, only one is critical of EA, and that’s the same Bostrom discussion that’s been going on here. So I don’t see good empirical evidence that toning down the karma system would create the kind of wild west you fear.
You’ve got to consider the base rates. Most eccentrics are actually just people with ungrounded ideas that are wrong since it’s easy to have wild ideas and hard to have correct ideas and thus even harder to have wild and correct ideas.
In the old days of Less Wrong excess criticism was actually a huge problem and did silence a bunch of folks incorrectly. EAF and Less Wrong (which has basically the same cultural norms) have this problem to a much lesser extent now due a few structural changes:
new posters don’t post directly to the front page and instead only can post there once they get enough karma or explicit approval by moderators
this lets new posters work out the site norms without being exposed to the full brunt of the community
weighted voting also allows respected users to correct errors on their own, so when they see something of value they can give it a strong upvote rather than it languishing due to five other new people voting it down
If your concern is that the site is not making it easy enough for eccentrics with good ideas to post here, I can say from the experience of the way Less Wrong used to run that it’s likely they’d have an even worse time if it weren’t for weighted voting.
It is tiresome to have conversations in which you assume I only started thinking about this yesterday and haven’t considered basic epistemic concepts.
a) I am not talking about actual eccentrics; I’m drawing the analogy of a gestalt entity mimicking (an intelligent) eccentric. You don’t have to agree that the tradeoff is worthwhile, but please claim that about the tradeoff I’m proposing, not some bizarre one where we go recruiting anyone who has sufficiently heterodox ideas.
b) I am not necessarily suggesting removing the karma system. I’m suggesting toning it down, which could easily be accompanied by other measures to help users find the content they’d most like to see. There’s plenty of room for experimentation—the forum seems to have been stuck in a local maximum (at best—perhaps not a maximum) for the last few years, and CEA should have the resources for some A/B testing of new ideas.
c) Plenty of pre-Reddit internet forums have been successful in pursuing their goal with no karma system at all, let alone a weighted one. Looking at the current posts on the front page of the EA Reddit, only one is critical of EA, and that’s the same Bostrom discussion that’s been going on here. So I don’t see good empirical evidence that toning down the karma system would create the kind of wild west you fear.
If only there were some kind of measure of an individuals contribution. Maybe we could call it something like PELTIV