negative vote

[A Tripolation]

'Marat' is actually just the pseudonym for a committee of 12 different people. Or not? My point is simply that we cannot know.

 

...does it matter? Any group of 12 people that would alternate sharing a single profile on a science forum are odd to begin with. I think that if it were 12 different people, the posts would all sound differently. Everyone has a different style of writing. I can tell the difference between ydoaPs' posts and Cap'n Refsmmat's posts quite easily, just based on the posting style. I find it hard to believe that 12 people could work out of a single account with someone noticing the incongruity.

 

Prime example: Any time I see blocks of text with little indentation, more question marks than periods, and lots of big words, I know it's more than likely lemur.

Edited May 13, 2011 by A Tripolation

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

It would be (almost) trivial for me to construct a program which, when fed a database of previous posts, could identify the authors of new posts with significant accuracy.

 

I find that identifying a pseudonym to an argument can be helpful when determining how to approach a debate or grasping a user's point if it is unclear -- you can check through old posts to determine what they are arguing.

[michel123456]

...does it matter? Any group of 12 people that would alternate sharing a single profile on a science forum are odd to begin with. I think that if it were 12 different people, the posts would all sound differently. Everyone has a different style of writing. I can tell the difference between ydoaPs' posts and Cap'n Refsmmat's posts quite easily, just based on the posting style. I find it hard to believe that 12 people could work out of a single account with someone noticing the incongruity.

 

Prime example: Any time I see blocks of text with little indentation, more question marks than periods, and lots of big words, I know it's more than likely lemur.

 

Now I bet Marat will try.

[imatfaal]

And what are the chances that one of us is actually a computer AI participating in a long-term Turing Test? I bet it's...um...Me. Oh Bugger! What a giveaway; failed again!

[Marat]

Wasn't there a famous experiment in which psychiatrists couldn't differentiate computer-generated texts from confessions written by real people rather than by a computer confession writing program?

 

Suppose 'Marat' is just the pseudonym of a committee of 12 people who just have one 'front man' who is in charge of actually writing up the ideas each of the other 11 members has. Then the writing style wouldn't give away the identity. Also, writing on a number of different topics seems to suggest that 'Marat' really is just a composite name for a few people rather than just one person.

 

The whole point of trying to generate this scepticism is just to suggest, of course, that personalizing things such as so many posts do here when they ridicule reputations and insult the poster's character, or assign negative or positive reputations, etc., doesn't make much sense when you don't know the whole person behind the posts. People might blush if they knew the real academic credentials, the list of publications, and the university position held by the posters they label as fools. The discussion would be much more civil if it were treated just as authorless ideas in interaction rather than personal contests.

[ydoaPs]

...does it matter? Any group of 12 people that would alternate sharing a single profile on a science forum are odd to begin with. I think that if it were 12 different people, the posts would all sound differently. Everyone has a different style of writing. I can tell the difference between ydoaPs' posts and Cap'n Refsmmat's posts quite easily, just based on the posting style. I find it hard to believe that 12 people could work out of a single account with someone noticing the incongruity.

 

Prime example: Any time I see blocks of text with little indentation, more question marks than periods, and lots of big words, I know it's more than likely lemur.

It has been suggested that ydoaPs is just a bot whose primary function is to provide "your mom jokes" and xkcd comics. Fair warning: ydoaPs is not 3-laws compatible.

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

I agree that we should avoid making discussions personal matters when they are intended to be an exchange of ideas. However, I don't think there are many ways to enforce this besides careful moderators.

 

For example, on the discussion site reddit, usernames are often ignored, since they're displayed in a small boring font and there are so many users that you rarely see the same names. There's no way to get a sense for a user's past behavior when there are millions of active users. However, I still see personal attacks and arguments in discussions of controversial topics. reddit discourages this by providing an upvote/downvote system, through which blatant insults are downvoted until they are simply hidden by the software -- but this just as often results in unpopular opinions being downvoted into oblivion, even if they are articulated particularly well.

 

Similarly, I think hiding usernames altogether may encourage rowdiness and abuse further -- anonymous forums are the ones with the most flaming (e.g. 4chan).

 

There are a number of discussion sites (such as The WELL) which mandate the use of real names, and some of them have become famous for their constructive and welcoming communities. Sites such as TechCrunch have recently moved to a Facebook-based commenting system, which displays real names with comments, and found that it reduces trolling and abuse by attaching the abuse to a real name.

 

Now, I'm sure there's room for improvement in our moderation and our format. I'm just not sure what changes would be improvements and what would be destructive.

 

(As for the psychiatrists and the computer program: as far as I know, no computer program has successfully passed the Turing test in human-computer interaction, although perhaps for limited interactions it may be possible.)

[ydoaPs]

as far as I know, no computer program has successfully passed the Turing test in human-computer interaction, although perhaps for limited interactions it may be possible.

ydoaPs may have fooled many humans, if ydoaPs is actually a bot. As for those passing on limited interactions, seuss has fooled and thoroughly confused several irc noobs.

Edited May 13, 2011 by ydoaPs

[Hal.]

My first math teacher put gold stars in the answer book when I had a good answer at school . But , at 5 years of age I couldn't have really given a **** !

[Light Storm]

Prejudices are what fools use for reason.

lol... I didn't even know there was a reputation system in place, looking at mine I concluded 'Figures' lol

[michel123456]

I have to say here that someone that continuously "gains" negative votes without being banned is more respectable that someone gaining positive votes for posting jokes.

Adding that the anonymous negative voters that apply on posts only because they disagree are totally irrespectable to me.

[Hal.]

Equality is also lacking in the number of positive votes one may make compared to the number of negative votes one may make . Is there a mathmathical bias in favour of positive votes to make people look good and feel happy , because when you have used your negative votes and have no other option , you are then more likely to make a positive vote ? But , could it also be an example of the world in general , where those with slightly to extremely radical views are manipulated into receiving only part of the vote of the populace while others receive the majority and thus have manipulated the voting system for their own means ?

 

 

[Spyman]

Related to the + and - vote for posts on this Forum.

I have seen well formulated posts from fellow members being negatively voted on a regular basis. There is no bad wording, no attacks, no insults.

resulting in some members with astonishing negative reputation, although always polite.

One may disagree with one's ideas but

Why do you vote negative?

I vote positive on any post I happen to like or posts that have good explanations and give negative votes for posts with very bad attitude or behavior and posts stating clearly false scientific claims as real facts.

 

I also have made it a personal rule to NOT vote negative on posts I argue against in discussions where I partake.

 

Sometimes, IMHO, persons are using misleading and delusive tactics in their arguments and while their post are very well formulated, seems polite, without bad wordings, attacks and insults, they still are immoral and unethical, made in dishonest purpose to trick and deceive. In addition they often stall discussions, cherry pick easy to counter arguments and tap dance around difficult ones, making threads unnecessary long and complicated and waisting both readers and repliers time. When the "culpable" is very good and cunning in debating it is not always easy to determine this behavior and can take several posts to find out. This manner earns negative votes by me, on every post made in the thread I encounter it in, even if some posts on their own would not otherwise deserve it.

 

Note though that I don't think I am repsonsible for the negative votes you are mentioning.

 

 

I have to say here that someone that continuously "gains" negative votes without being banned is more respectable that someone gaining positive votes for posting jokes.

Adding that the anonymous negative voters that apply on posts only because they disagree are totally irrespectable to me.

IMHO, I don't agree. The feat of continuously gaining negative points without getting banned does NOT make someone respectable.

 

Not getting banned only indicates that the poster is able to abide and follow the rules, which obviously is more than what some people coming here can handle, but still very far from what I require for earning my respect.

 

That does not mean that anyone continuously getting negative votes have to be irrespectable either since the current voting system can be used unfair as personal attacks or simply to show that you disagree.

 

 

And WHY would I be less repectable because I happen score a postitive point for a good joke?

 

Of course scoring for a good joke doesn't make anyone more respectable either but since a good joke is not irrespectible and the voting system is not supposed to be exclusively to measure persons respectability, I think it's fine to give and earn positive votes for appreciation.

 

 

How do you know that all anonymous voters in your case vote negative only because they disagree?

 

I agree that there likely are some who do and also possibly a few who use negative voting as personal attacks.

 

I also agree that negative votes should not be used because you happen to disagree with whats said in a post.

(And of course not for personal attacks either.)

 

However we only get ONE negative vote per day and post, so if someone continuously are getting negative votes for a longer duration and more than one negative vote per post, then there is clearly more to it than a personal attack or people disagreeing. What I have seen so far, I do think in general most people who continue to get negative votes deserves them, maybe it could be viewed as a partial consensus amongst the community that the poster is doing something wrong.

Edited May 20, 2011 by Spyman

[eqo]

Beginning from OP's post, I agree. This is a discussion board that is also utilized as a tool for learning (I assume). It's not a classroom or an examination. Any reputation related votes should be for posts that contain a reasonable amount of evidence that show the poster either a good or bad character; on terms of civility and in some cases morality (some of the forum laws are based around morality, I assume in the regulations it states that violent or threatening behavior is prohibited - why so? If it's because it's against the law, then again why so?). If it's judged on general knowledge and intelligence, then it's not reputation that needs to be altered, you would have chosen a different scheme of things such as 'Intelligence Meter' or 'Knowledge Pool'. It's not much of a problem for me personally, I don't judge people based on the forums representation of their character (reputation meter), but rather my own perception (i.e. I am the judge). I suppose it can be a problem for the poster, it's not polite, it's not civil or fair and it's only the, sometimes biased, opinion of the chain of command. It's not a big problem anyway, anyone with sense would look past it.