23 upvotes, 1 direct replies (showing 1)
This may be overly sanguine about the value of answer from people who don't know what they are talking about. You're the one who didn't know who Philippa Foot was and therefore disagreed with my assertions about a modern Aristotelian perspective on the death penalty[1]. You ended up at +4 and I ended up at -1. If I were the person who posted the question, with no way to adjudicate between the two flair-less nobodies, I guess I'd go with your comment.
But, your comment wasn't so great. You later posted that if you had known what you were talking about you would have just agreed with me in the first place. So I think I can see why /u/drinka40tonight would want to keep answers like "I don't know what the fuck, but..." off the sub. I understand your points about the value of unknowing answers, but I think you're stacking the deck if you only look at the times when those lead to interesting conversations and ignore the times when they lead to legitimately bad answers to someone's question. If I had to choose between giving up conversations between people who didn't ask the original question or giving up good answers to the original question, I think I'd rather have /r/askphilosophy be a place that gives people good answers rather than a circlejerk for philosophers to argue with each other without having to visit /r/philosophy.
Comment by HaggarShoes at 03/09/2013 at 16:53 UTC
2 upvotes, 1 direct replies
Perhaps a simple suggestion as to how to better this current situation without the negative implications that may arise with the issue of banning. Can we simply put a note on the sidebar that, if you have flair, it would be nice of you to include a simple reply to the answer you find most convincing with a "+1" and those more poorly written but highly voted with a "-1" to give a bit more reference for those who are confused? Maybe disable or delete comments responding to those simple phrases since it would be meant as ranking the upvotes and downvotes? This has its issues too, but seeing as how I would rather wake up with 5 "-1"'s on a bad comment than waking up to a note that I've been banned, I'm still open to any practice that doesn't make me nervous to post messages like the one you cite regarding Phillipa foot.
You ended up at +4 and I ended up at -1. If I were the person who posted the question, with no way to adjudicate between the two flair-less nobodies, I guess I'd go with your comment.
I think that's a fair response, but it also raises the question: if we were both saying the same thing, why does it matter if OP took my comment over yours? Especially since, upon realizing that they were the same, OP should have just as much incentive to seek out Phillipa foot.
When it came down to it, I also corrected my mistake, and thus left evidence of a discussion. To my own point as well, I think my response flushed out the reasons why Phillipa Foot's position as an Aristotelian philosopher was a relevant methodology of philosophical inquiry as I think your initial dismissal didn't make it clear what Foot's position was and why considering her viewpoint would be relevant since your argument about historical formations of identity (Aristotle wouldn't be Aristotle now) appeared, at first glance, to simply be recommending a different philosopher without an explanation of what qualified her to speak for Aristotle. Upon reflection, you implied all of that information, but as OP was likely as unfamiliar with both Foot's work and the implications arising from the form of the question, it wasn't clear how you arrived at that suggestion after having appeared to dismiss the framework of OP's question--I found his framework more interesting than the actual question itself and felt like a meta-discussion was an interesting response that I could provide. (For what it's worth as well, I've got you tagged at +12 in RES before this thread... now +13, so I presume I've respected your answers here quite a bit and I upvoted your correction as well); and, to be more fair, I think I was pretty drunk when I answered your question, and I'd rather not have been banned for an infraction like that one as, regardless of Karma, your response was flushed out and I corrected my mistake below; democracy doesn't always mean that people respond exactly how they would in a perfect world and sometimes people vote for a comment for reasons other than who's ultimately correct if it adds to the conversation. I feel we have to trust the people who ask questions to be capable of determining a good argument from a bad one, even if they are incapable of immediately recognizing which response is more correct. It isn't perfect, but, again, with an average of 5-6 comments per question, I don't feel like we need to take action just yet since we tend to moderate spam effectively as a population even if we sometimes prefer a concise response to a well-documented response and vice-versa since various users with various training will look at varying posts depending upon the time of day or how much free time they have.
I understand your points about the value of unknowing answers, but I think you're stacking the deck if you only look at the times when those lead to interesting conversations and ignore the times when they lead to legitimately bad answers to someone's question.
Regardless of the subjective nature of judgment (please don't shoot me if you're a Kantian), sometimes this subreddit is a place for both straightforward responses and personal discussions. If I respond to a bad comment, regardless of who's karma is where, and we have 10 responses, I think both parties have gotten something positive out of the experience--sometimes I forget that knowing about philosophy is different from being able to communicate it based on the level of training of the party I'm speaking with, sometimes I realize I'm the fool after a long back and forth, and sometimes I remember that ideology can be much a much stronger determination of rhetoric than logic is. This is why I say it could result in too much of an academic tone, because it's easy to forget how messy discussion of philosophical matters can be when the only people allowed to speak are trained to answer even though others may have valid, if not fully realized, ideas on the matter at hand. The worst thing that can happen with false information here is that someone gets a bad grade or is misinformed until they inform themselves later. I'd like to err on the side of a bad reading that allows participants to further their understanding rather than dedicating our entire efforts to OP to the point of keeping people from attempting an answer that informs them in the writing and responding processes.
If I had to choose between giving up conversations between people who didn't ask the original question or giving up good answers to the original question, I think I'd rather have /r/askphilosophy be a place that gives people good answers rather than a circlejerk for philosophers to argue with each other without having to visit /r/philosophy.
I can't argue this point with you. We each have our own vision for what this subreddit should look like, and it was merely my goal to say that the prescribed moderation strategy could severely limit the ways in which I enjoy and participate in this subreddit. My only gripe would be that since the average post in this thread gets 5-6 comments that this isn't worth the hassle. Most egregious errors get commented on with corrections (as you corrected me about Phillipa Foot) and it appears quite obvious just how contentious an issue can be when three people contribute 15 comments to a thread with 20 comments. We're not /r/philosophy because we don't have the traffic or activity of the user base, even if it can be confusing as to who's answer is 'better' than others and which are simply wrong.
However, I'm a Spinozist when I say that 'the truth is the measure of itself and the false.' I don't think labeling bad answers as false is as effective of a moderation strategy as it is to simply say that it's less true than a better response, and those of us engaged with this community are looking to better ourselves and become more correct through practice.