Must answer questions before posting comments to prove you understand news • Hacker News Board

Re: Must answer questions before posting comments to prove you understand news

#81

Post by kwhitefoot » Mon, Jul 31, 2017, 6:32 AM UTC

gleenn wrote: post #17

mtl_usr wrote: post #12

Simple fact trivia won't do anything to demonstrate a person has understood the article, merely that he read it. It's the fundamental difference between functional illiteracy and "plain" illiteracy. This difference shows up all the time when analyzing data because some jurisdiction will only report the illiteracy number while some other will include the functional illiteracy as well.

I think you're ignoring that many people might not even read the article at all. Proving comprehension sounds incredibly hard; proving someone has at least tried would probably be a huge step in the right direction compared to the mayhem which is most comments online.

> I think you're ignoring that many people might not even read the article at al

I rarely read the articles posted on HN. The discussion is frequently much more interesting and often more enlightening. I generally only read the article if the filter of other people's comments suggests that it would be worth my time.

I think I am probably not alone in this.

Re: Must answer questions before posting comments to prove you understand news

#82

Post by 0xcde4c3db » Mon, Jul 31, 2017, 1:41 PM UTC

GoToRO wrote: post #58

Myrmornis wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True, but maybe there could be some sort of democratic consensus system to establish the questions (one which by design avoids the superficial circularity).

Ask questions that a 5th grader could answer. The level does not hove too be that high for it to be effective. Or... just ask science questions: "Is planet Earth flat?".

Even that is apparently fraught because a few people (though no sects I'm aware of) profess belief in a flat Earth for religious reasons. For example, Biblical literalists interpreting Job 38 as implying a flat Earth ("Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? [...] Whereupon are the foundations thereof fastened? or who laid the corner stone thereof").

Re: Must answer questions before posting comments to prove you understand news

#83

Post by warrenm » Mon, Jul 31, 2017, 5:27 PM UTC

pmarreck wrote: post #78

ice109 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

are you like totally ignorant of how literary tests (and poll taxes) were used to disenfranchise minorities

if all the literate people were male and all the illiterate people were female, requiring literacy would not necessarily be sexism. you're conflating 2 different things. as did they. perhaps it did exclude more recently-emancipated black people. oh well. requiring literacy for something as important as an election is not obstructionist, IMHO The fee you mentioned, however, is, IMHO. if I had to hire a scientist for a…

If it were universally applied, evaluated identically each time, and then used a clear pass/fail manner, you would be right. For example, the mathematical answer to "1 + 1 = ?" can be evaluated objectively.

But those "literacy" weren't anything even close to similar.

Re: Must answer questions before posting comments to prove you understand news

#84

Post by warrenm » Mon, Jul 31, 2017, 5:35 PM UTC

mtl_usr wrote: post #12

Simple fact trivia won't do anything to demonstrate a person has understood the article, merely that he read it. It's the fundamental difference between functional illiteracy and "plain" illiteracy. This difference shows up all the time when analyzing data because some jurisdiction will only report the illiteracy number while some other will include the functional illiteracy as well.

It's like learning how to answer standardized tests: the "reading comprehension" questions are usually among the worst offenders. The questions are asked in the order they appear in the passage (eg, the third question will not cover something prior to the first question, chronologically in the passage, unless it is an over-arching question). You can dramatically increase your "reading comprehension" scores by knowing things like this: and the same would be true of "questions about about the article" before commenting - just know to skim for the handful of pertinent keywords, answer, and move on.

I have fantastic reading comprehension from a standardized test point of view - I was always able to finish the section well before the time limit. But I also knew I didn't have to actually follow the directions - I didn't need to read the passage, I needed to find the answers: a very different, and far simpler, task.

That's what this would become.

Re: Must answer questions before posting comments to prove you understand news

#85

Post by warrenm » Mon, Jul 31, 2017, 5:38 PM UTC

MrTonyD wrote: post #7

I've often thought that those who make decisions for society should be required to pass a test to show they understand all sides of an issue. It is absurd to me that politicians are currently allowed to make the wide variety of decisions that they make. I don't think anybody really wants to vote for them to do that. (There was an old episode of Star Trek that had officer candidates use the holodeck to be exposed to a…

Then you get someone who would Kirk the Kobayashi Maru.

Re: Must answer questions before posting comments to prove you understand news

#86

Post by warrenm » Mon, Jul 31, 2017, 5:39 PM UTC

averagewall wrote: post #9

MrTonyD wrote: post #7

I've often thought that those who make decisions for society should be required to pass a test to show they understand all sides of an issue. It is absurd to me that politicians are currently allowed to make the wide variety of decisions that they make. I don't think anybody really wants to vote for them to do that. (There was an old episode of Star Trek that had officer candidates use the holodeck to be exposed to a…

The danger there is that the people who write the test end up having some power. They can choose a biased set of questions or even demand wrong/biased answers. Being political issues, often nobody knows the right answers anyway. So we'd need elections to choose who writes the tests and then who gets to vote for them? The great thing about democracy is that no matter what goes wrong to the country internally, the blam…

> great thing about democracy is that no matter what goes wrong to the country internally, the blame lies with the people who voted for those politicians, or didn't bother to vote, which is most people

In the abstract, this is true.

In the perception, it's always the leaders that screwed up - or whomever they can blame.

In democracy, as with most politics, perception is reality

Re: Must answer questions before posting comments to prove you understand news

#87

Post by warrenm » Mon, Jul 31, 2017, 5:40 PM UTC

Boothroid wrote: post #36

MrTonyD wrote: post #7

I've often thought that those who make decisions for society should be required to pass a test to show they understand all sides of an issue. It is absurd to me that politicians are currently allowed to make the wide variety of decisions that they make. I don't think anybody really wants to vote for them to do that. (There was an old episode of Star Trek that had officer candidates use the holodeck to be exposed to a…

I've often thought that apart from the very fewest national security issues all government should be conducted in the open: all cabinet meetings should be public, all political areas should be monitored and the results available to all, and all private political discussion between politicians should be banned on pain of imprisonment. If they've nothing to hide they've nothing to fear, right?

> all private political discussion between politicians should be banned on pain of imprisonment

Is that a public event, too?

Who gets to enforce the public-vs-private thing?

Re: Must answer questions before posting comments to prove you understand news

#88

Post by warrenm » Mon, Jul 31, 2017, 5:41 PM UTC

Myrmornis wrote: post #80

ivanbakel wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ignoring the ethics: what reason would you have to answer truthfully? Someone could easily circulate the "correct" responses, and then you pass the barrier with basically no difference. What are you going to do, eliminate voting anonymity and chase people up afterwards to see if they can actually answer the way they said they did?

One form of question could be this. Then even if people parrot the right answer, they are still being improved and have to acknowledge their profound wrongness every time they visit the ballot box. Your child is very sick. Do you (A) Do what is recommended by peer-reviewed scientific literature, of which one of the central tenets is that you only believe things which are backed up by data and solid arguments. (B) Do…

So which is the "right" answer, in your system?

And who gets to determine (and enforce) "rightness"?

Re: Must answer questions before posting comments to prove you understand news

#89

Post by warrenm » Mon, Jul 31, 2017, 7:37 PM UTC

gleenn wrote: post #17

mtl_usr wrote: post #12

Simple fact trivia won't do anything to demonstrate a person has understood the article, merely that he read it. It's the fundamental difference between functional illiteracy and "plain" illiteracy. This difference shows up all the time when analyzing data because some jurisdiction will only report the illiteracy number while some other will include the functional illiteracy as well.

I think you're ignoring that many people might not even read the article at all. Proving comprehension sounds incredibly hard; proving someone has at least tried would probably be a huge step in the right direction compared to the mayhem which is most comments online.

Proving real comprehension would be (is?) hard/impossible in a constrained format such as this would have to be (pointy-clicky multiple choice).

Proving someone "tried* is also [nearly] impossible here: just take standard test-taking strategies for standardized tests of reading comprehension, and apply them to this context (because that's all this is, but not even done by people whose entire job is to make "good" tests)

Re: Must answer questions before posting comments to prove you understand news

#90

Post by pmarreck » Mon, Jul 31, 2017, 9:41 PM UTC

warrenm wrote: post #83

pmarreck wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

if all the literate people were male and all the illiterate people were female, requiring literacy would not necessarily be sexism. you're conflating 2 different things. as did they. perhaps it did exclude more recently-emancipated black people. oh well. requiring literacy for something as important as an election is not obstructionist, IMHO The fee you mentioned, however, is, IMHO. if I had to hire a scientist for a…

If it were universally applied, evaluated identically each time, and then used a clear pass/fail manner, you would be right. For example, the mathematical answer to "1 + 1 = ?" can be evaluated objectively. But those "literacy" weren't anything even close to similar.

People are biased dicks. I know.