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The Culture and Function of the X Button

adamjesionowski said in #4432 4d ago: received

I sez to the Monarch, I sez to him: Voting buttons are gay and Reddit, they don't belong on something in the lineage of chan culture. And he simply loves his demos too much, wants to give them power and freedom in shaping the culture. Many a king toppled for this weakness.

I can see a place for ✔ -- a post that just says "I agree" carries no real content. Fine. The way X is currently being used here is in fact gay and Reddit. The function of this button, as told to me by the Monarch, is to operate as a report button. Hitting this doesn't mean, "I disagree" but "This shouldn't be on here at all." Were that so, Xing posts should be used extremely sparingly and only in the case of contentless or disruptive posts. A post like >>4398, currently at X 3.9, clearly does not meet these criteria.

The primary sin of an "I disagree" button is that an actual post detailing why the user disagrees is why we are here. This produces discourse, arguments, insights. Someone who merely votes is a cultural parasite, attempting to shape the discourse without actually producing anything of value.

As one of the Monarch's stated goals is creating a place for intellectual 14 year olds to grow (sorely needed given the state of Discord/X/etc), then I believe this should be the standard by which you choose to deploy the X button. Any argument or post that could have been produced by a 14 year old that you think is wrongheaded merits a description of why they're heading down the wrong direction, not a cowardly downvote.

To that end I suggest removing scores next to X and having a pop-up of "Are you sure this content does not fit the board?" displayed when the button is pressed. Discuss.

referenced by: >>4443

I sez to the Monarch received

anon_pofu said in #4437 4d ago: received

Reasonable proposal, but I will take the contra.

I agree that X should not be used as a generic redditardian downvote.

But what about bad-faith arguments? Beyond outright spam, the X button is a useful way to signal "this post lowers the quality of discussion on this board".

That post you linked is a good example... jumbled, angry, clearly posted while on tilt. Contrast with this post, which agrees in content but is phrased productively, and didn't get any Xs: https://sofiechan.com/p/3572#4407

In short, Works As Intended.

referenced by: >>4439 >>4441

Reasonable proposal, received

anon_fimi said in #4439 4d ago: received

>>4437

What a joke. This post is a perfect example of why OP is correct and introducing the "downvote" is already turning this place into mini-Reddit. The post you call "jumbled, angry" is a response to the contentless and argumentless response of the previous poster, but because that post is defending an unpopular and unusual position cogently and confidently without trying to soften blows it gets downvoted, whereas the other poster is making poor arguments for a popular and common position and so gets updoots despite being far more jumbled and confrontational.

"Angry" is the wrong word for either poster and just shows this poster here is letting his own emotions get the better of him and then projecting, which is exactly why updoots and downdoots are a bad system for assessing quality of discussion and argumentation.

For example, he says downdoots can help remove "bad faith arguments" and/or posts that "lower the quality of discussion." He then equivocates that with a series of good-faith posts raising the quality of discussion by introducing novel and unusual arguments, just because he doesn't like them or because the poster isn't whinging himself in order not to offend anyone, he doesn't like his TONE. Completely pathetic. This person's feelings should have no bearing whatsoever on any discussion. The whole point of discussion is to force users and interlocutors to write arguments in writing which can then be dissected or dismissed by whoever pleases. What is the point exactly of giving bystanders the ability to modulate the reach of arguments without this filter for intellectual rigor?

If the updoot and downdoot system cannot figure out which posts introduce good arguments—which it has already proven it can't after twenty years of Reddit—it's useless. I don't know why the proprietor of this site even thinks voting, of all things, is the proper way to conduct high-minded intellectual discussion on unpopular topics. Adding extra layers of voting and special voting rules doesn't change anything important. There is just no need for it at all, you can just have a discussion board with compelling discussions. Experiment = failed.

referenced by: >>4444

What a joke. This po received

anon_tate said in #4440 4d ago: received

I'm not really sure why there are upvotes, either. I think that both upvotes and downvotes create undesirable incentives and disincentives. Anytime there are quantifiable metrics that track audience opinion, participants are naturally going to conduct themselves in such a way to try to game them. That's just how humans work.

I've been a part of threads here, and observed other threads, in which one person's posts get massively updooted because they're playing to the crowd, while other respondents who are providing a less popular opinion(s) in a less flowery way get ignored. You can't help but think to yourself: ok, well why am I even bothering to spend time contributing, then? It's not petty or selfish to feel this way, it's just human nature.

It also makes the environment here way more 'serious' than I think it needs to be. I don't want to have to worry about a public reputation system when I come here to post. The chans and similar uncensored anon forums are fun and prolific because they're truly anon, and everyone can just speak their mind without worrying about social games. Imo this forum would have significantly more activity without any reputation system at all. I know that I would spend more time here, and would create more threads and posts without being self-conscious about whether or not my posts are going to maximally perform in the public reputation system.

I'm not privy to the site founders' exact vision for the forum, so maybe I'm off-base here, but as a random user who enjoys this forum and wishes there was more activity here, that's my opinion on the matter.

referenced by: >>4441 >>4444

I'm not really sure received

adamjesionowski said in #4441 3d ago: received

>>4437
Between LessWrong, the place with strictly enforced decorum rules, and 4chan, the place where bad-faith discussion is the norm, which site produced more healthy family men per capita? Despite picking from a similar pool of high IQ men, the answer is clearly 4chan. Why?

The answer is that the ability for shit-talking, bullshitting, breaking the rules, talking out of both sides of one's mouth, and matching all of these appropriately when someone does it to you are all key components of how male friend groups form. Shaming over breaking decorum is an activity for women.

There should be much more bad faith discussion, much more anger, tilt, and jumbled rhetoric for this place to claim any semblance of chan lineage.

>>4440
Wolf is planning for a future where there are orders of magnitude more posters here. In that regard I think planning for some sort of algorithmic self-sorting is wise, and marking posts you agree with is a reasonable proxy for this.

> Anytime there are quantifiable metrics that track audience opinion, participants are naturally going to conduct themselves in such a way to try to game them.
Yes, this is very true. I would also argue in favor of not showing the positive score. The real feedback loop is what happens in the course of a discussion, not what the Audience-O-Meter shows.

referenced by: >>4442 >>4446

Between LessWrong, t received

anon_pofu said in #4442 3d ago: received

>>4441

Alright, you asked for tilt, tilt you shall receive:

Why are you waxing poetic about chan culture while facefagging?

You are, as far as I can see, the only person on this board who can be immediately looked up on LinkedIn. Posting on Sofiechan under your real name as a Google employee just seems retarded, I'm sorry.

And why are you naming other anons? That is not the way.

referenced by: >>4452

Alright, you asked f received

admin said in #4443 3d ago: received

>>4432
I agree y'all are overusing the hide button. It's called "hide" for a reason. Use it for stuff that you don't even want to see and should be banned and deleted. But I see long quality discussions with people "downvoting" each other, which indeed is gay and reddit. Next time I get around to modifying the merit algorithm, I will be paying special attention to how to punish misuse of the hide button. Here's an idea: if your use of it is against everyone else's expressed preference, you're obviously misusing it and it will count against your merit. This standard will be applied retroactively. It's for deleting garbage, not cowardly passive-aggressive disagreement.

I hear the idea of not showing the down score. I prefer showing the information. I've also heard dissent on the decimal places that I'm sympathetic to. I also agree the linear scoring is suspect, though broadly I think we have been doing a good job having it align with Merit, and it's good to have something. Maybe we just want a simple one-digit integer on a log scale. Many options. I'm listening and considering.

I agree y'all are ov received

admin said in #4444 3d ago: received

>>4439
>which it has already proven it can't after twenty years of Reddit—it's useless.
The problem with reddit isn't voting per se. The problem with reddit is egalitarian democracy combined with the tyranny of mods who work for intelligence agencies and extremist freak fetish discords. Reddit falsifies that particular combination as a basis for quality discussion.

>I don't know why the proprietor of this site even thinks voting, of all things, is the proper way to conduct high-minded intellectual discussion on unpopular topics.
I've laid out my thinking on this and I'll do it again: we need to have some way to hide and discourage bad and especially hostile vandal posting. Even 4chan is actually quite tightly moderated in this way. But moderation is expensive. It takes a lot of human judgement, and is very politically contentious. So I deputize you lot to make that judgement as a community. You express your judgement with the "vote" buttons: this is good and not shit vs this is shit and not good vs meh. That's a strong signal, actually. How else are we supposed to do it, with jannies? The jannies are just a class of voters you aren't part of. The part where I depart from the democratic convention is that we assign voting power according to your merit as a poster (and other factors) such that the system can't be sybil attacked and isn't just either mob rule or mod rule, but is substantially rule by the consensus of the best posters.

>>4440
Note that the only actual decisions being made on the basis of these numbers are primarily whether posts are hidden by default, and secondarily drawing your attention to posts that have merit. If y'all really don't like the numbers and they just become something to fight and whine and worry about we could go to a qualitative system where great posts get highlighted, bad posts get hidden, and for the most part it's invisible. One of my motives for showing the numbers is to encourage voting to get more info into the system, which I do think is sound. But we could try without it. Overall on these metrics in particular, I think it's working great. Despite the grumbling, you are self governing effectively.

referenced by: >>4447 >>4452

The problem with red received

anon_xuju said in #4446 3d ago: received

>>4441
> ... shit-talking, bullshitting, breaking the rules, talking out of both sides of one's mouth, and matching all of these appropriately when someone does it to you are all key components of how male friend groups form. ... There should be much more bad faith discussion, much more anger, tilt, and jumbled rhetoric ...

Men speak frankly, even sharply to each other, no holds barred. That's the opposite of talking out of both sides of one's mouth, bad-faith discussion, or jumble rhetoric, all of which drag down the quality of discussion. I love arguing with men who sharply disagree with me, when they're honest and smart. If they're just arguing in bad faith, that's useless.

Men speak frankly, e received

anon_tate said in #4447 3d ago: received

>>4444
>If y'all really don't like the numbers and they just become something to fight and whine and worry about we could go to a qualitative system where great posts get highlighted, bad posts get hidden, and for the most part it's invisible.

This is what I think you should do. I (think) I understand what you're trying to do with the rating system. But if the numbers get shown publicly, people will naturally try to game the system, even unconsciously.

Another disadvantage of the current system is - correct me if I'm wrong - one's "reputation score" increases and decreases based on one's choice of upvoting/downvoting posts. If you upvote posts that other people upvote, your score increases. If you upvote posts that nobody else upvotes, your score decreases. (And presumably, downvotes work in the same way). But since upvotes/downvotes are publicly transparent, this incentivizes people to keep throwing upvotes at already popular posts, and to refrain from upvoting good but unpopular/controversial posts or posts that go against the prevailing opinion in a thread. Again, please correct me if my understanding of the system is wrong.

referenced by: >>4449 >>4450

This is what I think received

anon_pofu said in #4448 3d ago: received

> But since upvotes/downvotes are publicly transparent, this incentivizes people to keep throwing upvotes at already popular posts

I don't think it does. It rewards early votes that are predictive of the later ones.

But I agree that even this is unnecessary. People should be judged (and have their voting power modulated) directly on the quality of their posts. It should not be possible to accrue reputation as a lurker whose only contribution is to smash that like button.

referenced by: >>4450

I don't think it doe received

anon_xuju said in #4449 3d ago: received

>>4447
> Another disadvantage of the current system is - correct me if I'm wrong - one's "reputation score" increases and decreases based on one's choice of upvoting/downvoting posts. If you upvote posts that other people upvote, your score increases. If you upvote posts that nobody else upvotes, your score decreases. (And presumably, downvotes work in the same way).

The details can be tweaked in many ways, but some version of this is at the heart of advisory voting and the whole Sofiechan concept. It's not supposed to be a clone of 4chan, but an improvement upon it in the direction of algorithmic self-governance with monarchist characteristics.

referenced by: >>4450

The details can be t received

admin said in #4450 3d ago: received

>>4447
>this incentivizes people to keep throwing upvotes at already popular posts
Actually gaming the system doesn't work like that. The way to "game" the system is to vote before everyone else the same way they will vote. But that's also a useful signal-adding activity, so its rewarded on that grounds. Voting after a pattern has been established means nothing, possibly including a contradictory vote. The phrase here to keep in mind is "predictive consensus alignment". The early votes take the risk and get the reward.

As for "against prevailing opinion", yes if you upvote something that the rest of us think should be deleted, I question your taste. If you hide something that the rest of us like and think is fine, I question your taste. These inferences aren't fully implemented yet, but they will be some day.

>>4448
Currently it works mostly how you say it should: the overwhelming contributor to your merit is the consensus quality of your posts. I have no plans to change this, just adding more signals on the margin. But I also disagree about the lurker: if the lurker smashes that like button *before everyone else* and does so accurately, he is increasing the amount of time that we have accurate information available, and earns a reward for this. Again, predictive consensus alignment.

>>4449
>algorithmic self-governance with monarchist characteristics.
Precisely.

Actually gaming the received

adamjesionowski said in #4452 2d ago: received

>>4444
> One of my motives for showing the numbers is to encourage voting to get more info into the system, which I do think is sound. But we could try without it.
I would encourage a trial run of this. We've all been trained to hunt for likes and high grades, I think it's much more freeing to not have these visible. The empirical change on voting patterns would also be interesting, I'd expect you'd get better signal on what a poster actually thinks if they don't have a score to guide them.

>>4442
> Why are you waxing poetic about chan culture while facefagging?
I am claiming the status for all of my excellent and insightful posts for me, Adam. Besides, the actual use of identity on 4chan was much more complex than your second-hand knowledge of it.

> Posting on Sofiechan under your real name as a Google employee just seems retarded, I'm sorry.
I don't understand why that would be, there's way less wrongthink on here than where I usually post.

> And why are you naming other anons? That is not the way.
The bulk of people on here come from Wolf posting about his creation on Twitter, this is very silly. Good energy though, keep it up!

I would encourage a received

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