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Overcoming Bias Commenter's avatar

I don't know why this doesn't spread. Slashdot with the ratings filter set to 4 or 5 is so interesting!

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Overcoming Bias Commenter's avatar

The problem with comment ratings is that they're inevitably biased towards how popular the view is among the blog's readers. This is especially noticeable on politics posts. For example, look at fivethirtyeight's top rated comments: inevitably pro-Democratic cheerleading. You could argue that it gives people what they're likely to want to see - but maybe not. There may be a significant gulf between what the regular comment reader and the marginal comment reader wants to read. There may be benefits for the blog's brand for having a reputation of constructive discussion, but commenters are focused on partisan scuffles.

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