META – How Down-Voting Destroys Communities
Everyone here has seen this happen. It's an experience we have all shared.
Every community has an elaborate drama they cloak around the bedrock-destructiveness of down-voting. The belief is that the community must be armed with a weapon to defend against a line that must not be crossed. In the end, down-voting is pawned off as "democratic." The community manager says, "Let the users decide." But it is really nothing more than cheapness and laziness that results in negligence toward the entire community.
Let's look at how this works.
A casual glance of the pluses and minuses in the diagram above suggests a trend that has been confirmed in big data studies of down-vote enabled communities.
The evidence is that a contributor who is down-voted produces lower quality content in future that is valued even less by others on the network. What’s more, people are more likely to down-vote others after they have been down voted themselves. The result is a vicious spiral of increasingly negative behaviour that is exactly the opposite of the intended effect.
Those vicious spirals are experienced by anyone who is a member of such a community. Eventually, the emphasis is on "vicious." Affable persons turn into junk yard dogs over time, excited to rip apart even new visitors at the first sign of non-conformity. They must be held back by community management, but they seldom are. In this way, the community degrades.
In a study by Justin Cheng and his associates at Stanford University in Palo Alto to assess the future output of the authors in positive and negative voting communities. the results were something of an eye-opener.
“We find that negative feedback leads to significant behavioural changes that are detrimental to the community,” say Cheng and co.
“Not only do authors of negatively-evaluated content contribute more, but also their future posts are of lower quality, and are perceived by the community as such,” they say. And it gets worse: “These authors are more likely to subsequently evaluate their fellow users negatively, percolating these effects through the community.”
That points to an obvious strategy for improving the quality of comments on any social network site. Clearly, providing negative feedback to “bad” users does not appear to be a good way of preventing undesired behaviour.
So how can unwanted behaviour be stopped? “Given that users who receive no feedback post less frequently, a potentially effective strategy could be to ignore undesired behaviour and provide no feedback at all,” say Cheng and co.
Those experienced in online communities will immediately recognize that this is where the community is tested and its potential for survival measured. While many unwanted behaviors may self correct in a timely fashion by ignoring them, certain behaviors can injure the community and must be quickly addressed. This is most successfully accouplished by outside intervention and not by fellow members, which has the same destructive effect as downvotes. The best outcomes I've seen comes from occasional intervention by a benign authority, whose singular interest is in the wellbeing of the community. The clearest possible touch and the least frequent intervention allows the community to right itself with dignity intact.
The work of Cheng and co clearly suggested ignoring bad behaviour is an effective way of discouraging it, and one that social network sites might profitably explore. But at the same time, these sites will need a way to step in and actively prevent certain types of behaviour when necessary.
So, where did these old gladiator thumbs-up-or-down community management ideas originate? From animal behavior, of course — beings that do not effectively cross communicate with one another..
In the 1930s, the American psychologist Burrhus Skinner popularised the notion of operant conditioning, the notion that an individual’s future behaviour is determined by the punishments and rewards he or she has received in the past. It means that specific patterns of behaviour can be induced by punishing unwanted actions while rewarding those that are desired.
If online communities were composed of persons with the behaviors of rats and pigeons, this is a go-to solution for pre-AI community management. But among humans, it interferes with the evolution of thought and empowers retrograde ideas over innovation.
Says me.
Comments
From the beginning
JtC, Joe, and the Mods all agreed that we would not have a thumbs down icon. We also decided that we would not have any sort of flagging mechanism here are C99. We did decide to include a thumbs up icon so that posters and writers could get "atta boys" from the community at large. But we decided to keep the thumbs up function anonymous because if it were anonymous, then it would most likely be more sincere. Our primary reasons for structuring non-comment feedback was to try to avoid the junkyard dog pack mentality that permeated other sites.
IMHO, the system we use here seems to be working well so far.
Interesting essay, Pluto. I think the conclusions of the researchers are very close to what I have personally experienced.
Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?
“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy
A valuable essay--and better, it's predictive
The diagram of interaction illustrates both positive and negative reinforcement that has parallels as vastly separated as chemical reactions and foreign relations.
A recent comment in relationship was made by Park Dietz, PhD relevant to school shootings. His message, although simple, is universally ignored by the money-hungry MSM. The first thing he says is don't publicize the event, meaning don't make it page 1 news but, without blanking it out, relegate such news to the back of the news stream. Publicizing such evil behavior does at least two negative things:
1. Inspires copy cat events so that the morally deficient can have their 15 minutes of infamy.
2. Desensitizes large segments of the population to such horrific behaviors so that over time it is not as horrifying: "Yawn, just another school shooting today. Who won the ball game last night?"
If one wanted a classic example of the effect of down-voting, we need look no further than:
1. The Great Orange Shithole (note my shameless, contradictory down voting here)
2. Negative political campaigning
3. Identity politics.
Great essay. This amply illustrates the wisdom of JtC, Joe, gulf gal and the other moderators in precluding down voting.
As I have written numerous times here--and as others have also--"that's why I love this place"
@Alligator Ed While oodles of negative
While oodles of negative press coverage does not always result in the unfortunate phenomenon we saw two years ago with Trump--specific types of scandals seem to buck this trend, else swift-boating John Kerry wouldn't have worked--the thumbs-down method of campaigning and press coverage quite often backfires in exactly the way this research would suggest, particularly when it's taking up massive amounts of air time.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
Not popular
If up votes signify "attaboy", zero or few up votes signify STFU in a conversation. I prefer talking like the people over on nakedcapitalism, if you have something to say, just say it within moderation. That is the real dopamine click of non-censorship, not some ballot simulation where every comment is its own election. Feels like A/B testing for the next speaking matrix to be honest, but that's just me, not popular. I feel sort of irritated after holding back clicks all day today. I either click 'em all, or none. That's fair and uncensored to my mind, I had no idea voting means attaboy. Thanks.
Nothing prevents AI from slurping up all the comments and votes here, then spitting back out a matrix that makes TPTB's hamster wheel keep spinning in 2018 and beyond. From "It's the economy, stupid." in the 90s to "Take what you need." today, nothing has changed targeting the age demographic, it is exactly the same as it ever was, only worse now for lack of resources. We're doomed if people can't put down social media and organize their lives around something real, that's what I think.
"don't forget to ring the bell"
You know, I can relate.
I think that's the next stage of evolution in a seasoned community. I don't have an opinion about AI for this application.
____________________
The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato
Well,
if I remember correctly, we did discuss whether or not to even have a thumbs up icon.
For the record, I was for having the thumbs up icon from the beginning. I saw it as a positive thing.
Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?
“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy
You have a point...
I see a thumbs up as more of an acknowledgment than an attaboy, although it can be that too. At dkos when my user name was attached, I used it as a way to simply say hello. Now that it is anonymous, it no longer says hello; but it still provides acknowledgment of existence, effort. As the study points out, the fastest way to discourage participation is to ignore it. While I can't possibly respond to everything posted though sometimes I try, the least I can do is acknowledge as much and many as I can with a thumbs up. If I'm reading it, it is a simple way to say thank you for adding to my blogging experience, my day. It is a way to let people know that somebody is there. For this reason, I do support having a thumbsup but sometimes I do wish my name was attached to it.
"Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich."--Napoleon
What you said; about what I would have, only better-phrased
Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.
A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.
Yeah, what she said. lol DITTO
thanks, I wish I hadn't sounded so harsh up thread. Getting too wrapped up or bogged down in the psychology is what happens to me all the time. mental floss
dkmich inspired my sig change, for linking Everything is a Rich Man's Trick. Gee thanks. lol Bolsheviks are everywhere! I give up, me and my tiny mind just want to keep it simple.
peace and thanks
good, but getting no "up" votes for a comment
has similar effects as getting a 'down' vote, imo. I see this system here just a little bit 'nicer' than the other sites, who use down votes. In a way it just looks like to be a safer place for those, who ignore or don't comment, to hide their disagreements. That doesn't mean that the 'ignored commentator' doesn't get the disagreement and it also means that the silent treatment is less honest, it's just easier to get away with being silent than with an open disagreeing argument.
But it's probably the only way to stay civil in the discourse of talking with each other.
This place here often reminds in adaptation to the song "killing me softly with your unspoken words".
@mimi I could do without the
I could do without the thumbs-up. I tend to look at it more often than is probably healthy as a measure of how well-regarded or important a given comment is to the community.
Relying simply on the responses--or lack thereof--is probably better.
That is a slightly less lurker-friendly method (there are a lot of people who don't have the time or motivation to write a comment who indicate their feelings by using the thumbs-up--or not) but I'm not sure that's a reason not to do it.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
On the site, Medium
The reader is able to clap for comments they like. The can clap as much as they like by clicking one times, ten times, fifty times.
It's interesting.
I'm going to upvote you anyway, but let me say, thanks for all the feedback.
____________________
The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato
@Pluto's Republic Well, as long as we
Well, as long as we've got it (the thumbs-up) we might as well get the use of it, mainly because if one has it and doesn't use that, that can create the implication that one doesn't agree. That's the thing about thumbs-up; the absence of it becomes significant too.
Thank you for writing such an informative essay--I didn't know useful research still got done in this country, LOL.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
I call this genre "behavioral physics."
I like to approach human behaviors as laws of physics. It's a personal preference in handling big data. The article did appear on a physics website. I was happy to see it and report on it.
____________________
The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato
@Pluto's Republic That's why, as long
That's why, as long as we have it, I'm going to use it. I'm saying as much by not giving a thumbs-up as I am by giving one.
When one of my comments gets few or no thumbs-ups I assume people don't think it's a useful comment, or that it is a boring one. I don't necessarily assume they disagree--if they did, they'd probably say something--but it does entire my mind as a possibility.
Usually I just assume I've said something trite or boring!
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
If you see one of your comments
...without a thumbs up, it's because I haven't seen it. I play favorites with zeros. So sue me.
____________________
The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato
Just to mention,
I've never known your comments to be trite or boring - and I've eagerly read a lot of them! I do know that a lot of clicks I give out vanish, which I'll only notice going back to an already-read essay to check out new comments to see sometimes an entire thread-full of great comments which I know darned well I clicked no longer registering that I've done so - sometimes showing 0, when they'd had some before - and generally do them again, lol. So you probably get a lot more readers/clicks than may show, although this vanishing act seems to be worse at some times than others.
Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.
A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.
instead of thumbs up, one could have something saying
"I read your comment" to click on to let the commentator know that you have read it. This wouldn't show agreement or disagreement. If you like the comment you can say so, if you have something you don't agree with in the comment you can say so as well. Just an idea.
I can live with everything, thumbs up, thumbs down, no response. I just get nervous if I don't understand a bit more aggressive response.
@mimi I like this idea a
I like this idea a lot. Don't know if it's doable, but I sure like it.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
mimi change your glasses.
Thumbs up is what you make it. See my comment above. I don't mean to be critical of people who don't use the thumbs up button, it is a choice. I see those individuals not as disapproving but as just not realizing how much everyone's participation means regardless of how small.
"Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich."--Napoleon
@dkmich Just to clarify-
Just to clarify--because I agree I could do without thumbs-down doesn't mean I agree with "killing you softly with unspoken words." Seems to me words get pretty much spoken around here, for good or for ill.
The point of this place, as I understood it, is to have a space where dissent, honesty, and civility can cohabit. We sometimes fail. We still do so much better than 90% of the rest of public discourse in this country (and in some others, like Britain--check out how they're smearing Jeremy Corbyn as a Russian mole), that I consider it to be important that this site survive and hopefully thrive.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
I use here the thumbs up icon all the time
and never thought it would be something one has to think about. If I use it and it is just me alone who used the thumbs up, it has the meaning of " I read your commnt". If there are more than my own thumb up clicks, mine means, I agree with it and find it a good comment.
I just realized for myself that getting no thumbs up makes me think I may have said something that either nobody understood or nobody liked. And that then makes me a little uncomfortable and nervous. If I expect that my comment would not get approval, I usually try to "talk in tongues" about it or I don't say anything. And both options don't make me happy.
I come here to talk. If I have to self-censor, I get frustrated and then aggressive in my wording. In general my way of expressing myself here reflects my personal state of mood, which is often not influenced by what someone said here, but by my life experiences. But then sometimes I do get aggressive just to vent and make hot air or put on a drama queen show. Shame on me. But I have not the knowledge of most issues discussed here that would allow me to make a "comment" that would be up to YOUR expectations. So, I give up on it from the beginning and just say whatever.
I think it's natural for a commentator or author to want to get a response. In that sense I said that "no response is killing someone softly". And my gosh, I didn't mean it so seriously as it may have sound. Those blog aficinados haven't killed me yet.
You underscore the point.
If it means one to you and another to someone else, it means whatever you want it to me. So pick something good.
"Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich."--Napoleon
What’s bad is, such findings can also be cited as justification
for the practice of stealth banning / shadowbanning.
Everything depends on the integrity of the website operator (which is why I say JtC is worth his weight in [insert name of extremely valuable substance]).
@lotlizard Nothing can justify
Nothing can justify shadowbanning or stealth banning, whether it's a simple ban that nobody knows about, or a more sly form of censorship like Twitter making a user's comments only appear to their followers and not to the wider world (that was done to a really good poster, named Nina, on Twitter--that's not her whole name but I can't remember it, and I refuse to go on Twitter anymore like I refuse to go on Facebook or watch the World Wrestling Federation anymore).
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
Nina Illingworth?
I don't use Twitter, but am somehow not shocked they'd smack her down. Can't have intelligent dissenting voices, now, can we?
@WaterLily Thank you, that is
Thank you, that is exactly who I was referring to. She and I don't always agree, but she is a remarkable social commentator. And extremely scrupulous about her research, finding data to support her conclusions and linking to it.
There was a significant brouhaha when she discovered what was happening and informed her supporters, and Twitter backed down. The advantage of shadowbanning is that you hope nobody notices what was done.
Certainly no follower of hers would have reason to notice.
Nina noticed because she makes money off her work online, and keeps fairly close watch on how many eyes and clicks she receives on that account. I'm glad she noticed.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
I'm also glad she noticed.
This shit makes me insane.
As an educator, this confirms what I've always thought.
Showing people that you expect crap from them has the very likely result of them producing crap.
Of course, as an educator, I also believe that it is imperative to teach the young which behaviors are considered unacceptable.
It's a careful balance to maintain. And, of course, not entirely under one's control; the parents at home, and, inevitably, the peers at school, which throw their own ideas--and usually operant conditioning--into the mix.
But in general, I find it works better to expect the best from people and give them motivations to give it. People often rise or fall to expectations.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
@Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal This is also why big
This is also why big business putting out crap products and justifying it by saying "that's what the people want" or "that's what sells" tends to be a specious argument. The marketplace sets expectations. What's available sets expectations. Big business damned well knows that, and so does politics.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
Don't Feed the Trolls...
Gradation
I think the 1-4 voting in scoop WAY back in the day on dKos was the best voting system around.
Hiderating, giving a 1 of 4 was a BIG move, and actually didn't happen that much, given that you could throw a 2 on it and not "harm" the person. I really liked it. It felt like cultivation.
When it went binary, rec or troll rate, that's where it went bad.
Binary is the manipulative situation in this kind of communication. You can "Like It" or "hate it", there is nothing in between...
Limiting UpVotes
I've been over on Steemit it for about a month. It's an interesting place. I made $50 last month learning to use the site and dipping my feet into the crypto currency social network.
They limit the upvotes over there. You have 50 per day, max, for the most part. It takes 24 hours to regain 10 votes. So everyone is miserly with their votes (or flags).
Now, at this moment, they are having a serious flag war; imagine if the GOS had real money riding on those massive threads and in the comment/diary wars that started out of pie fights.
On Steemit, your vote has the value of your "wealth" of SteemPower, which is essentially your reputation. A Whale is a "wealthy" user. They can drop lots of coin on your work over there, or they can flag you and drop the coin value of your post, quite a bit. It's pretty crazy.
I quite like the limited daily upvotes. It definitely changes the calculation.
Oh, and BTW, I'm officially a Putin Puppet now; Lee Camp and Caitlin Johnstone I have chatted in comments over there.
“Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.” ~ Sun Tzu
Thanks for the review.
I check Steemit out, as well. I get the impression that Caitlin is not completely happy there.
You were familiar with early Scoop. Did you comment at Kuri5ion? The had an interesting system where an article entered a community-edit state, first. That was the first Scoop engine.
Nuance will remove us from the Pavlov model because it is a much more complex and human interface. However, it will always be hard to beat a society with an Enlightened Leader. That is a rare thing and it is the most treasured by the people. You can see that when the overwhelming majority of the people want to suspend term limits, such as is happening in China today. If the people are coerced, it rapidly becomes a failed state.
I have always regarded online communities as "civilizations." They rise and fall for all the same failures in leadership, except at a much faster rate. Much can be learned.
____________________
The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato
I Visited Kuro5hin Once or Twice, IIRC.
I was trying to build a community site and I looked into and installed all of the CMSs of the time: scoop, soapblox, plone, zope, moodle, drupal, mediawiki, tikiwiki, joomla, a host of forum sites, but I liked Scoop the best.
I really thought it had the most potential for a healthy civilization.
I'm not particularly happy over at Steemit, it's lonely, kind of crude UI, and there's a lot of naked money grubbing, but I am very interested in social on the blockchain and currency backed engagement. I'm not sure why Caitlin would be bummed other than engagement. Her posts there make some money.
Steem is an interesting ecosystem, and their Smart Media Tokens will allow anyone to tokenize content, and allow value to be generated in crypto backed currency. I think this could allow people to break out and do some amazing things. I'm thinking of giving it a shot.
It is quite revolutionary, I think. That said, it's quite revolutionary and totally could work, content producers could get paid independent of any other corporation or banking institution. Content could be valued by the people who consume it and interact with it. Curators of content could create and add value as well. Do this well and make some money.
That shit is completely NOT going to fly. It's like theft to gatekeepers and moneychangers.
“Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.” ~ Sun Tzu
Heh. Fun insights and ideas.
I got the impression Caitlin was overwhelmed by the name-calling. She's pretty open-hearted even through she has good defenses. It will pass, I'm sure.
I liked Scoop, too. In fact, that's how I stumbled across TOP. I was not there for the politics. I too was going to implement the software. Small world.
Again, thanks for sharing your valuable Steemit insights.
PS: Being a dog trainer, it seems to me that you must know a thing or two about community management. At least communities of dogs. But that's the stage we are at online. Looking for new ways.
____________________
The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato
Take Armando, Dh in MI, and a Few Other Assholes and Tie Their
ideas to real live currency... talk about scary.
If you wind up over there, hit me up. Same username and whatnot. I find the exposure to crypto alone to be worth my time.
“Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.” ~ Sun Tzu
Facebook is not testing a dislike button
Edited to add: Justin Cheng works at Facebook FFS. I'm slow. https://www.clr3.com/
Facebook is not testing a dislike button
except for the one it’s testing ... heh. Just throwing this on the pile, and noticing how much better clicking thumbs up feels when I do it. I don't just like it, I liike it. lol
lol scary
Does Breitbart have ups and downs? I forget, usually can't see any comments but when I unblock it's like wha?! 21,000 comments on one article, that's a lot. Too many for me, I like small crowds. Imagining the facebook with a downer button is scary, it's not like the psychology turns off when the computer does. Brains keep going, and tend to splatter in public not private. Every one pays for facebook 24/7, 365. good luck
Thanks for this Pluto...
and thanks to all that have commented, I've been watching intently.
There was much discussion about this when the site was still very young, I think it was first brought up when we were a phpBB forum and then brought up again when this site was established. The discussion was first among the admins and moderators and then the question was put to the membership. The vast majority agreed that a simple thumbs up would be best although some wanted thumbs down as well as usernames affixed to the votes. It was thought that knowing who voted up or down was the main reason for the tribalism that had developed at certain other site/s. That tribalism then led to flying monkey squads that used the downvote to wreak havoc on those that didn't comply with their point of view. Being a nonpartisan site we wanted to take the team aspect out of play.
Members still wanted a way to express their acknowledgment of agreement to the authors and commenters and also a way to show that they had read what other folks had taken the time to publish. A thumbs up proved to be the solution as it can be registered as "I agree" or "Thanks, I read this". Although the difference is not discernible a vote can be interpreted either way.
I have mixed feelings about the voting system.
As was stated in the comments here a low total or lack of upvotes can be interpreted as a negative response to a comment or essay. That can be discouraging, but at the same time it allows a barometer for the publisher to gauge the reception of their comment/essay without the much more negative impact of a downvote. It's a softer approach and a learning opportunity.
I have mentioned this several times before and I'll bring it up again, the voting system has a large impact on the performance of this site. Every vote on every comment/essay impacts our database, sometimes when traffic is heavy it slows the site down. Take a look at the amount of votes on a popular essay including the voting for the comments, each vote represents a hit on our db and at certain times has caused the site to be unresponsive. Many times when the site slows way down or can't be accessed, I'll check the logs and it's due to an error that's kicked out by the voting program. On any given day, with the amount of essays published, the comments posted to said essays and the vast amount of voting, can and does lead to the database and memory to be overworked. So, in that respect, and for the sake of site performance, it would not bother me if we did away with the voting system. But...
But, there would be some negative impacts to doing away with the voting.
* Many folks have become accustomed to voting, in all the different ways that it's done across the internet. Not being able to acknowledge posts is a real turn off for some folks and in my experience leads to less participation.
*I hear from some members, via both comments and private messages that they mostly lurk and read. They don't publish much but they do log in to upvote that which they deem agreeable. Take away the voting and we may lose those members.
*Authors look to the voting system to gauge the popularity of what they have written, giving them a working count as to how many have read their work. Take that away and it could very well lead to an author feeling discouraged from further writing.
*Discontinue the voting and we'll lose our Community Featured listings (our rec list) as it's based on total upvotes per essay.
Given the positives and the negatives of the voting system I'm of the opinion that despite the impact on the site performance that we are probably better off to leave it as is. So I don't push the issue.
Edit to add: Doing away with voting would also affect our My Comments page, one of our most popular and useful tools.
As you know, Community Management is a particular
...interest of mine. I have also written several long essays on the destructive nature of down-voting — especially when it is augmented by the horrific self-abuse closet where trusted users are allowed to examine the sins and punishments of others, and arm themselves further to justify on-sight abuse.
So, this scientific approach appealed to me and I'm glad you noticed it. As the study authors note, this preliminary work calls out for further experimentation in forming more perfect communities.
On another note:
I did not know this existed, but I found it easily enough. The most important thing to know when landing at a community site is, "Where is everybody?" "What's hot?"
"What's Hot" or hot topics should perhaps go on the Main Menu Bar as another Door into the community. Since it's taking up so much DB juice, might as well put it to good use.
Thank you, Jtc, for going above and beyond.
____________________
The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato
I remember...
one of your diaries at DKos espousing that very thing. Your warnings of the manipulative effects and damage the software was causing the community. You called it dangerous and intentional click bait for bucks. I remember that diary quite well because I agreed with it entirely. It very much influenced my input on the set up for our voting system here.
Did you delete all your diaries there? It would be great if you could link to the one I mentioned.
I have all my intellectual property
Including comments, if I wish to use them.
I never allowed them to linger there for long. Been in the business for a while.
One day I may post a blast from that past.
PS: I don't think I can live without recent comments. Just saying. Don't need the subject line if that helps.
____________________
The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato
I too...
use the Recent Comments to monitor the comments. If we removed the subject line from the comments then all of the listings in the Recent Comments would default to the first few words in the comment body and all of the Recent Comment listings would start with numerical hash like some are doing now. That would make a mess of the Recent Comment listings.
A few weeks ago I implemented a change that required a subject line in the comments, that did away with the numerical hashes in the subject line in the Recent Comments. After a couple of weeks the site started slowing way down and going offline for short periods of time. You may remember that, it lasted for a few days, I did a meta essay about it.
I isolated the problem to be a conflict between two programs, the program that required the subject line and the parent link program. They both affect the subject line. Since the parent link proggy is much more important than the required subject line proggy it was a no brainer to disable it. That alleviated the slow downs.
A quick glance at the diagram tells me nothing.
It looks like a fuzzy cognitive map, but none of the nodes have a description, and all the arrows around "a" point in, indicating that "a" has no effect on the other nodes. I see that the linked article also says nothing to explain the diagram, so I have to wonder why it's even there.
I confessing to liking the way it looked.
I saw the initial dynamic of who was down-voting whom in the chart. It gave me a narrative. But it was by no means comprehensive.
In the original article you will find another diagram that is more elaborate.
I don't think either of them are explained very well, but they do illustrate, to some degree, the accompanying text there.
Here's the link.
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The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato
Slashdot Moderation is interesting too
I do a fair bit of moderation on science threads, usually on climate or energy policy. The votes there are labeled, with several ups (interesting, insightful, informative, funny) and two negative (redundant and troll). This forces mods to be specific eg I use informative for posts with links in them. I also find that I almost never use the negative ones, in part I think because of the point being made in the 99c essay.
Moderation is monitored using the meta-moderation system: any user can go and say whether they agree with a moderators vote. Moderators who get downvotes don’t get given mod points. My approach seems to work because I get mod points pretty frequently (along with the attendant guilt)
The other thing they do that I find helpful is the friend/foe system. It sounds rather aggressive but I use it to mark domain experts (like actual rocket scientists). This help me find good comments to promote. It also sometimes confronts me with the same people when they are talking outside their area of expertise, and while that can be depressing at times, it also keeps me from being in a echo chamber.
We can’t save the world by playing by the rules, because the rules have to be changed.
- Greta Thunberg