Re:Open letter from the BMJ to Mark Zuckerberg
by yosito on Friday December 17, 2021 @01:58PM
(#29596709)
First of all, even genuine, sincere upvotes and downvotes are not a reliable way to evaluate truth. Second, even if they were, such a system could easily be gamed by parties with political interests.
[ Parent
| on HN ]
Re:Open letter from the BMJ to Mark Zuckerberg
by soundnote on Wednesday December 22, 2021 @10:35PM
(#29658377)
A local newspaper had instituted separate "I agree / disagree" and "Well / Badly argued" buttons to their comments section. This was, in principle, a good idea. It'd let people clap for things that made them feel nice but didn't exactly have much substance to them, and to recognize well-argued opposing points while registering their dissent. The system was, in theory, excellent.
Of course, nothing remotely close to the ideal use case happened, and banal nonsense was voted as being a good argument because the readers agreed with it, and good, carefully thought out comments got swamped in bad argument flags because they were disagreeable. People just rated on one feeling-valence and nothing else.
In the end, the paper canned most of the voting options, and the interface is left with "reply" and "well argued".
Re:Open letter from the BMJ to Mark Zuckerberg
by endisneigh on Friday December 17, 2021 @02:09PM
(#29596881)
The up and downvotes are not there to evaluate the truth, the cited source of the claim is. No system can be a substitute for the reader to investigate themselves. The things I'm proposing basically just help triage your effort.
Re:Open letter from the BMJ to Mark Zuckerberg
by fallingknife on Friday December 17, 2021 @05:24PM
(#29599113)
Well, yes it could easily be gamed by parties with political interests, but FB's system of fact checking is parties with political interests.