First of all, youch, people did not like this post. That’s okay.
I think we need to be careful not to get swept up in the diversity moment of popular culture or think that imperfect representation is an automatic condemnation.
I think we agree. I would prefer to understand problems rather than kneejerk solve them. Perhaps I was unclear.
However I do think that changing voting to match profiling is an interesting option to see whether it would change the kind of content the bubbled up.
First of all, youch, people did not like this post. That’s okay.
Aww, I’m sorry—I didn’t mean to sound harsh. I get very sensitive on this forum so I hate that I made you feel that way. I guess I was just really eager to clarify that diversity was not why I wanted an ethnography done and not considerate enough of the position you laid out.
I have a strong reaction against weighted voting on the basis of demographics, but it would definitely be interesting to see how it changed things.
No need to apologise, I didn’t mean my original comment individually, more as a kind of “gee whiz” to how much the blog bombed in general. But as I say, that’s okay, noone was unkind, they just didn’t like what I wrote. I think it can be easy for communities like this to be very dog-eat-dog so I think a little vulnerability/honesty might go a long way. Recently I have learned when I am insecure enough to be tempted to “man up” it’s often better to show vulnerability.
What is the issues of things voted against demographics, if I might understand. Let’s say tall EAs want a slightly different thing than short EAs. Scaling comments by height as if it were a survey means that if we have a fewer than representative number of tall EAs their votes would get weighed as more. That would mean the top posts/comments would be more likely to contain things which appealed to them, since (if they comprised half the representative population) they would control half the weighted votes. So new tall EAs would visit a site closer in tone/culture to what they would enjoy.
I don’t see why this would result in a less rational site, but if certain issues it turned out were culturally more important to short EAs, it would be good to notice that, rather than thinking it was about rationality.
Frankly, most counter positions seem to lead to “representative voting control by minority groups would lead to a worse site” and I don’t understand why that is the case. If they lead to increased growth in EA in minority groups that seems a good thing.
So my slightly clunky analogy aside, what do you think?
First of all, youch, people did not like this post. That’s okay.
I think we agree. I would prefer to understand problems rather than kneejerk solve them. Perhaps I was unclear.
However I do think that changing voting to match profiling is an interesting option to see whether it would change the kind of content the bubbled up.
Aww, I’m sorry—I didn’t mean to sound harsh. I get very sensitive on this forum so I hate that I made you feel that way. I guess I was just really eager to clarify that diversity was not why I wanted an ethnography done and not considerate enough of the position you laid out.
I have a strong reaction against weighted voting on the basis of demographics, but it would definitely be interesting to see how it changed things.
No need to apologise, I didn’t mean my original comment individually, more as a kind of “gee whiz” to how much the blog bombed in general. But as I say, that’s okay, noone was unkind, they just didn’t like what I wrote. I think it can be easy for communities like this to be very dog-eat-dog so I think a little vulnerability/honesty might go a long way. Recently I have learned when I am insecure enough to be tempted to “man up” it’s often better to show vulnerability.
What is the issues of things voted against demographics, if I might understand. Let’s say tall EAs want a slightly different thing than short EAs. Scaling comments by height as if it were a survey means that if we have a fewer than representative number of tall EAs their votes would get weighed as more. That would mean the top posts/comments would be more likely to contain things which appealed to them, since (if they comprised half the representative population) they would control half the weighted votes. So new tall EAs would visit a site closer in tone/culture to what they would enjoy.
I don’t see why this would result in a less rational site, but if certain issues it turned out were culturally more important to short EAs, it would be good to notice that, rather than thinking it was about rationality.
Frankly, most counter positions seem to lead to “representative voting control by minority groups would lead to a worse site” and I don’t understand why that is the case. If they lead to increased growth in EA in minority groups that seems a good thing.
So my slightly clunky analogy aside, what do you think?