This is everywhere. I have to deal with lots of jokers at work, who just suggest to use GPT-3 without understanding what it is :)
Please read the paper before you comment
101–110 of 341 posts
Re: Please read the paper before you comment
#102Some years ago, Ars Technica ran a story on guns. https://arstechnica.com/science/2011/04/guns-in-the-home-lot... About halfway through a one-page article was this quote. "If you have read this far, please mention Bananas in your comment below. We're pretty sure 90% of the respondants to this story won't even read it first." Sure enough, there were about 3 pages of comments before someone mentioned bananas. Read the…
I'm certain that social networks have played a large role, if not the sole reason for this behaviour by encouraging limited attention, FOMO, OCD-scrolling etc. But, I guess we wouldn't able to prove that more people read the content before commenting before social networks without a proper control and besides many visitors of these sites are from social networks. All major News organisations know that only small frac…
> I'm certain that social networks have played a large role, if not the sole reason for this behaviour
I don’t think that’s correct, depending upon your definition of "social networks". People were complaining about people not RTFAing on Slashdot in the 90s.
Re: Please read the paper before you comment
#103Some years ago, Ars Technica ran a story on guns. https://arstechnica.com/science/2011/04/guns-in-the-home-lot... About halfway through a one-page article was this quote. "If you have read this far, please mention Bananas in your comment below. We're pretty sure 90% of the respondants to this story won't even read it first." Sure enough, there were about 3 pages of comments before someone mentioned bananas. Read the…
It’s a standard quality measurement tactic in Internet based surveys. In the list of survey questions, you post a few question which have clear black or white answers. The answers from the survey takers will let you know to further investigate the the survey response. You can then decide to take actions accordingly. Most of the times, you discard.
Google had a surveys program where you could earn credits for the google play store and every now and then you would get a trap question usually formatted something like "Have you used x product" or "how well do you know x" where x does not exist. Anyone who answers incorrectly will see limited surveys in the future.
Re: Please read the paper before you comment
#104Some years ago, Ars Technica ran a story on guns. https://arstechnica.com/science/2011/04/guns-in-the-home-lot... About halfway through a one-page article was this quote. "If you have read this far, please mention Bananas in your comment below. We're pretty sure 90% of the respondants to this story won't even read it first." Sure enough, there were about 3 pages of comments before someone mentioned bananas. Read the…
NRK Beta, the tech lab of the Norwegian broadcasting corporation, make you take a quiz about the article before you are allowed to comment. I really like that idea.
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Re: Please read the paper before you comment
#105I mean, this applies to many of the discussions on HN too. I've noticed that there's so many people getting the facts around the topic completely wrong, and quite a few will push some simplistic narrative or long-standing grievances, instead of the relevant point which often is subtle and nuanced. I suppose that's just being human.
Was only a few weeks ago that an article written by GPT-3 managed to make it to the top of HN because the title fit the usual circlejerk. The few people who read the article and pointed this out were criticized.
Re: Please read the paper before you comment
#106The problem is people want their internet points. If you take the time to read, and then comment, your comment won't get enough visibility on all social media platforms, especially if dozens or hundreds of other comments quickly begin appearing. You have to 'show up early' to get visibility. Optimizing for that dopamine hit, users choose to maximize points over thoughtful discussion.
Yes they do that, however sometimes I feel like nobody will read your comment (opinion) if you post too late. And the competitive thing to do in that case is to try to be first to comment if possible, and when people who don't read the article are always first you are kind of forced to comment without reading the article too.
Re: Please read the paper before you comment
#107Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's not just getting the facts wrong, it's often about them misunderstanding the topic entirely because they didn't bother to read. I don't think it's about being human, I think it's because HN is a BBS where people can get points by chatting, which also happens to link to articles which you can read if you feel like it. Of course this is how it ends up.
People play the game according to the rules they're given. In the early days when HN was more caustic, you got more points by reading the articles and posting accurate facts. But in the dang era where comments are required to be nice and calling people out is discouraged, you get more points by rushing to post something plausible-sounding and vaguely related to the headline. So people do that instead, unsurprisingly.
It's news to me that the goal of HN is getting more points. I'd always thought it was about getting more bits.
Re: Please read the paper before you comment
#108You get the same when people cry "peer-review" without actually understanding what peer-review actually means.
Once you dig into it, you find it is far from the last word in validation in a modern world and very often an argumentum ad verecundiam
As explained, in depth, in "Why I don't publish in Peer-Reviewed Journals".
https://risk-monger.com/2020/07/31/why-i-dont-publish-in-pee...
Please read the article before commenting....
Re: Please read the paper before you comment
#109As a rule of thumb, I try not to quote from media unless I have seen the whole book/story/article/movie myself and am sure I understand the quotation in context. Part of that comes from the kind of frustration Hillel Wayne voices here: > People will offhand use famous quotes to support their arguments, when the context the quote was given in has nothing to do with it. I spent a lot of hours in high school debate list…
This is a thing I've been pondering recently, and I don't have the same takeaway as you. My thought is: The context doesn't always matter, and a quotation can mean different things in different contexts, and that's not a bad thing. For example, with the Knuth quote, both interpretations can be valuable? There are people who need to be told "don't optimise yet", and there are people who need to be told "there are crit…
I guess it depends on the purpose of using a quotation. My belief is that most people cite a quotation when arguing something as an appeal to authority. "Knuth says don't optimize at all, so we shouldn't do it either." In that case, I think understanding the context is key: if you use someone's words to back up your point, but that's not actually what they meant, then context does matter.
Yes, it's true that different people might need to hear different things at different times. If you're trying to tell someone not to micro-optimize ahead of time before profiling, then quoting Knuth is appropriate. If you're trying to tell someone not to optimize at all (let's say you have a valid reason for not optimizing at all), then its disingenuous (or at best ignorant) to use the Knuth quote.
Re: Please read the paper before you comment
#110Some years ago, Ars Technica ran a story on guns. https://arstechnica.com/science/2011/04/guns-in-the-home-lot... About halfway through a one-page article was this quote. "If you have read this far, please mention Bananas in your comment below. We're pretty sure 90% of the respondants to this story won't even read it first." Sure enough, there were about 3 pages of comments before someone mentioned bananas. Read the…
What it demonstrates is that people have already made up their mind on the topic and aren't genuinely interested in new perspectives. This helps explains the inflammatory nature of Internet debates in general.
I think it also possibly shows that in general we've not learned to be able to tune out or self filter the information overload that's thrown at us via the Internet.