noteworthy wrote:
Democracy promotion should remain an integral part of American foreign policy, but it should not be seen as a principal means of fighting terrorism. We should stigmatize and fight radical Islamism as if the social and political dysfunction of the Arab world did not exist, and we should shrewdly, quietly, patiently and with as many allies as possible promote the amelioration of that dysfunction as if the terrorist problem did not exist. It is when we mix these two issues together that we muddle our understanding of both, with the result that we neither defeat terrorism nor promote democracy but rather the reverse..

This is a good article. I'm going to read it and recommend it myself later.. But do me a favor.. Only recommend things with one account. If you start using both accounts to recommend things, it's going to be very hard to make a good argument why people not should do the same thing to game the front page.

One man, one vote!

Rattle wrote:

do me a favor.. Only recommend things with one account. If you start using both accounts to recommend things, it's going to be very hard to make a good argument why people not should do the same thing to game the front page.

One man, one vote!

You're contending that a stream is equivalent to an identity. That is an artificial constraint, and it is going to break down sooner or later.

The purpose of having two streams is to apply a filter; it goes with that definition that items will be multiply recommended.

As far as "gaming" the front page goes, it's hardly necessary to recommend things twice. Take a look at the front page any time in the last week, and you'll find at least half of the entries are from the pnw stream. Most of those are not recommended by anyone else. There have been many otherwise "slow" periods during which the entire front page is essentially a subset of the pnw stream.

You're contending that a stream is equivalent to an identity. That is an artificial constraint, and it is going to break down sooner or later.

The purpose of having two streams is to apply a filter; it goes with that definition that items will be multiply recommended.

As far as "gaming" the front page goes, it's hardly necessary to recommend things twice. Take a look at the front page any time in the last week, and you'll find at least half of the entries are from the pnw stream. Most of those are not recommended by anyone else. There have been many otherwise "slow" periods during which the entire front page is essentially a subset of the pnw stream.

I'm trying to think forward. How do you suggest we handle the situation were a user create multiple accounts, all appearing to be different users, and recommends every link they post multiple times?

What guidelines and rules do you think should be applied to handling this situation?

I'm open to suggestions and advice, but my initial feel is that we should stick to a one-user/one-stream model, at least for any given link.

Rattle wrote:

What guidelines and rules do you think should be applied to handling this situation?

Oh, that's an easy one, at least for the specific case you cited.

Each stream is a vector. You can compute the distance/difference between two vectors. To the extent two vectors are the same, they are one identity.

What makes a post "interesting" is when it lies at the intersection of many otherwise "different" vectors. These are the posts that belong on the front page.

If Tom and Jerry are twin brothers whose streams are always and forever identical, does it really matter if I treat them like a single "identity" in the context of MemeStreams?

Besides, the whole democracy/popularity angle is stale. Who needs it?

If you want to attract venture capital, you need to think posthuman. When the AIs on the Internet outnumber the humans, then what are you going to do?

Each stream is a vector. You can compute the distance/difference between two vectors. To the extent two vectors are the same, they are one identity.

That's not useful. Online identity is useful, especially when attaching reputation to it.

What makes a post "interesting" is when it lies at the intersection of many otherwise "different" vectors. These are the posts that belong on the front page.

If Tom and Jerry are twin brothers whose streams are always and forever identical, does it really matter if I treat them like a single "identity" in the context of MemeStreams?

Your idea does present an interesting angle. I would love to see people grouped together with their meme-clones. "You are not a unique beautiful snowflake."

Besides, the whole democracy/popularity angle is stale. Who needs it?

Are you trolling me?

If you want to attract venture capital, you need to think posthuman. When the AIs on the Internet outnumber the humans, then what are you going to do?

Then I will move to another plane of existence and happily leave all this bullshit behind.

I can just see myself issuing a pitch based on that in a meeting, backed with a presentation containing robots and crap. "To get MemeStreams, you gotta think POSTHUMAN! We are all one big machine! No identities! Man is merely an information router in one big network! We need to tune the world onto the universal stream of the global meme! Think wires in the back of our heads! Science-reality overdrive! We don't need flying cars in a world where your home office can be the center of your social universe!"

I don't think so Jeremy. I'm still thinking more William Gibson than Ann Rand.

I wrote:

Each stream is a vector. To the extent two vectors are the same, they are one identity.

Rattle replied:

That's not useful. Online identity is useful, especially when attacking reputation to it.

I assume you meant "attaching." Regardless, that's not what's driving the front page. In fact, the current front page algorithm is explicitly NOT based on reputation.

You seem to have ignored my observation that the front page is presently frequently populated by items that only appear in one stream, and thus the issue is moot, since anyone can readily overtake the front page with only one account.

Are you trolling me?

Is it still a troll if you respond?

In an environment with a sizable user base and a steady flow of traffic, having two accounts would be scarcely more useful than just one account. You'd find that the entries dominating the front page were those that have been recommended a large number of times -- not twice instead of once. If it so happened that having two streams become common, then it would offer no relative advantage, and thus would not be much of an issue.

At this point, if one has the goal of getting a specific item on the home page, this is quite easily done, all by oneself, with only one account, during any "slow" period. Simply submit the URL to your stream multiple times, using slight variations of the URL that don't affect retrievability but which make each instance suitably distinct, as required by the stream. For example, submit URL_A. Then submit it as URL_A?foo. Then change "?foo" to "?bar". And so on, ad infinitum. Let's say you do this 100 times. Then, when the front page algorithm goes to select an entry from the set of entries whose thread-count is 1, your URL will be there 100 times. If there are only 10 other single-recommendation URLs at the moment, your URL stands a good chance of getting selected. To increase the probability of getting chosen, just increase the number of times you enter that URL on your stream.

noteworthy wrote:
I wrote:

Each stream is a vector. To the extent two vectors are the same, they are one identity.

Rattle replied:

That's not useful. Online identity is useful, especially when attacking reputation to it.

I assume you meant "attaching." Regardless, that's not what's driving the front page. In fact, the current front page algorithm is explicitly NOT based on reputation.

You seem to have ignored my observation that the front page is presently frequently populated by items that only appear in one stream, and thus the issue is moot, since anyone can readily overtake the front page with only one account.

Are you trolling me?

Is it still a troll if you respond?

In an environment with a sizable user base and a steady flow of traffic, having two accounts would be scarcely more useful than just one account. You'd find that the entries dominating the front page were those that have been recommended a large number of times -- not twice instead of once. If it so happened that having two streams become common, then it would offer no relative advantage, and thus would not be much of an issue.

At this point, if one has the goal of getting a specific item on the home page, this is quite easily done, all by oneself, with only one account, during any "slow" period. Simply submit the URL to your stream multiple times, using slight variations of the URL that don't affect retrievability but which make each instance suitably distinct, as required by the stream. For example, submit URL_A. Then submit it as URL_A?foo. Then change "?foo" to "?bar". And so on, ad infinitum. Let's say you do this 100 times. Then, when the front page algorithm goes to select an entry from the set of entries whose thread-count is 1, your URL will be there 100 times. If there are only 10 other single-recommendation URLs at the moment, your URL stands a good chance of getting selected. To increase the probability of getting chosen, just increase the number of times you enter that URL on your stream.

I was surprised to learn how many people read this site as opposed to how many actually make recommendations. Anyone got any ideas on what kind of changes it will take to increase participation to the levels you're talking about where multiple identities don't matter?

Rattle replied:

That's not useful. Online identity is useful, especially when attacking reputation to it.

I assume you meant "attaching." Regardless, that's not what's driving the front page. In fact, the current front page algorithm is explicitly NOT based on reputation.

Yes, that is what I meant. I even corrected myself. In fact, I corrected it when I read the version after hitting "Post it!". There is no preview button in the recommend forms. The version of a post that appears in a user's MemeBox is the first submitted version, not one that has been edited. You replied to the version that went across when I hit "Post it!", not the one that survived review. You also replied to it several hours after I walked away from the system, and the reviewed post. Oversight in system design? Initially. Since then we have seen all kinds of ways its produced amusing miscommunications. Its stayed, for both lazy and curious reasons.

The mistake of sorts in reading over what I typed in the edit window can be interpreted several ways. I see no reason why this one disqualifies itself from giving useful insight.

Think e-mail and the send button. Say "useful paradigm" a few times. I have myself when contemplating that "bug".

You seem to have ignored my observation that the front page is presently frequently populated by items that only appear in one stream, and thus the issue is moot, since anyone can readily overtake the front page with only one account.

First, let's get one thing straight. The main page is fucked. Decius coded that to fill in a void. It was designed to handle a situation present when there was very little content in the system, and showing anything there was of use. Filtering was not in the equation. It has remained that way. Very similar to the last situation, it's due to lack of execution on a better (present) plan, and reinforced by interesting issues its presented in its current form. The only updates since the time its gone into place have been minor patches to address specific narrow problems and UI updates.

Even the simplest of rules, such as only showing posts that have at least two recommends, would have an effect. With its present aggregation logic, it should allow you to page beyond ten posts to be fully functional. People should be using the Reputation Agent, not the /topics/ page. Eventually, and according to plan at that, the entire /topics/ directory hierarchy will go away. As in 404. That is our attitude to that section of the site, which happens to contain the most hit page of the site.. The redirect from / to /topics/ is not a matter of connivence to get around a line of apache configuration we ... [ Read More (0.7k in body) ]