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So you upvote and downvote comments, which are presented randomly and by themselves. No support for replies or threading? Seems a step backwards to me.

colinmegill 5y ago
Correct. For smaller discussions in the 10s, or potentially 100s of participants, the limitations of randomness and no direct replies are unnecessary. They become useful assumptions given thousands and tens of thousands of participants. The comments are sent out semi-randomly: https://compdemocracy.org/comment-routing/ https://compdemocracy.org/comment-routing/
wffurr 5y ago
The lack of replies is a feature, not a bug. Polis is about generating consensus from what I’m reading about it, not about maximizing engagement ala Twitter, FB, et al. From the Polis FAQ: https://compdemocracy.org/faq/ https://compdemocracy.org/faq/ “Structured replies also eliminate the possibility of trolling by replying directly (and thus provoking further response).” This Wired article has more: https://www.wired.co.uk/article/taiwan-democracy-social-media https://www.wired.co.uk/article/taiwan-democracy-social-medi... “Using the Internet to pull people together rather than split them apart requires designing an environment very different from the usual online forums for political debate, such as Twitter or Facebook.” “Polis has reengineered many of the features we take for granted on social media. No reply button – hence no trolling. No echo-chambers, replaced by an attitudes map showing you where you are in relation to everyone else. The platform does not highlight the most divisive statements, but gives more visibility to the most consensual ones.”
- pseudalopex 5y ago
  They under estimate trolls. "ZFS is over-hyped; FAT-32 is the best filesystem"[1] [1] https://pol.is/3h8kkbfdme https://pol.is/3h8kkbfdme
  - wffurr 5y ago
    If it gets disagreed with a bunch, then it stops being shown. Seems like that’s working as intended.
    - pseudalopex 5y ago
      The claim was no trolling. Not trolling gets hidden eventually. Other systems hide unpopular statements too. Trolls can work together. And Polis shows the most agreed and disagreed statements apparently.
      - patcon 5y ago
        If the claim made it seem that trolls somehow totally disappear, then it was def mis-articulated. Trolls get minimized. For instance, there's currently a small troll group of 3 participants in the viz (out of 100 total participants), far off to the left. But the system doesn't invite reactions to them, and it's evident they're fringe, due to placement in the opinion space. they don't get elevated by our reactions to them, and so it's trivial to discount them while reading the visualization. It's similar to how it works in an IRL discussion in a room. If someone is trolling, you can understand that by their relation to others in the room (where people direct their eyes, stepping toward/away from them, whether facial expressions respond to their ideas). You discount their views accordingly. Polis allows for some of that intuition to return, in a simple visual medium without our physical bodies.
        pseudalopex 5y ago
        Fringe and troll mean different things. And any system with votes makes unpopularity evident. The problem with trolls isn't not knowing if they're sincere. It's the ratio of signal to noise. And it was bad even without the trolls. Half the statements didn't answer the question.

colinmegill 5y ago

Correct. For smaller discussions in the 10s, or potentially 100s of participants, the limitations of randomness and no direct replies are unnecessary. They become useful assumptions given thousands and tens of thousands of participants. The comments are sent out semi-randomly: https://compdemocracy.org/comment-routing/ https://compdemocracy.org/comment-routing/

wffurr 5y ago

The lack of replies is a feature, not a bug. Polis is about generating consensus from what I’m reading about it, not about maximizing engagement ala Twitter, FB, et al. From the Polis FAQ: https://compdemocracy.org/faq/ https://compdemocracy.org/faq/ “Structured replies also eliminate the possibility of trolling by replying directly (and thus provoking further response).” This Wired article has more: https://www.wired.co.uk/article/taiwan-democracy-social-media https://www.wired.co.uk/article/taiwan-democracy-social-medi... “Using the Internet to pull people together rather than split them apart requires designing an environment very different from the usual online forums for political debate, such as Twitter or Facebook.” “Polis has reengineered many of the features we take for granted on social media. No reply button – hence no trolling. No echo-chambers, replaced by an attitudes map showing you where you are in relation to everyone else. The platform does not highlight the most divisive statements, but gives more visibility to the most consensual ones.”

pseudalopex 5y ago
They under estimate trolls. "ZFS is over-hyped; FAT-32 is the best filesystem"[1] [1] https://pol.is/3h8kkbfdme https://pol.is/3h8kkbfdme
- wffurr 5y ago
  If it gets disagreed with a bunch, then it stops being shown. Seems like that’s working as intended.
  - pseudalopex 5y ago
    The claim was no trolling. Not trolling gets hidden eventually. Other systems hide unpopular statements too. Trolls can work together. And Polis shows the most agreed and disagreed statements apparently.
    - patcon 5y ago
      If the claim made it seem that trolls somehow totally disappear, then it was def mis-articulated. Trolls get minimized. For instance, there's currently a small troll group of 3 participants in the viz (out of 100 total participants), far off to the left. But the system doesn't invite reactions to them, and it's evident they're fringe, due to placement in the opinion space. they don't get elevated by our reactions to them, and so it's trivial to discount them while reading the visualization. It's similar to how it works in an IRL discussion in a room. If someone is trolling, you can understand that by their relation to others in the room (where people direct their eyes, stepping toward/away from them, whether facial expressions respond to their ideas). You discount their views accordingly. Polis allows for some of that intuition to return, in a simple visual medium without our physical bodies.
      - pseudalopex 5y ago
        Fringe and troll mean different things. And any system with votes makes unpopularity evident. The problem with trolls isn't not knowing if they're sincere. It's the ratio of signal to noise. And it was bad even without the trolls. Half the statements didn't answer the question.