Axe Elf
Prophet
There doesn't seem to be a forum for discussing the Forum, so I'll put this here.
I've been a member for about three weeks now, and I just wanted to discuss an observation that I initially made within my first week, and which has been gaining steam in my mind along the way as it is confirmed by repeated observations. Hopefully it will help others as it has come to assist me.
You know how sometimes you'll be sitting next to someone in a waiting room or something and you start talking, and they seem really nice and smart and erudite, and you start to feel a little camaraderie, and then they'll say something completely out of left field, like, "And that's how I know the aliens will pick us up before the world ends on Saturday" or something like that, and you just can't get out of the conversation fast enough?
That's happened to me here several times, where I think I'm getting involved in an interesting and thoughtful intellectual discussion, and then suddenly my discussion partner will come up with some nonsense tortured from an abstract concept like blood from a turnip--and more often than not, they can't even see where they've gone off the rails even when I try to walk them through it slowly!
BUT... I'm starting to figure out how to see potential situations like this coming before they actually manifest themselves--and it's hiding in the information the site gives us for free--what I will call our "Rating-to-Post" (RTP) ratio!
Almost every single time I have unknowingly engaged with someone for whom the languages of logic and reason might as well be written in Klingon, I have subsequently noticed that they have a very low "RTP" ratio. Like if a guy has 3,000 posts, but a rating of only 300, it's a pretty good sign that their grasp of rational discourse is going to be tenuous, at best. Someone who has 3,000 posts and a 2,000 rating is going to be a much better choice for meaningful dialogue.
I haven't run any statistical analyses to determine the exact degree of this correlation, but if I had to spitball it based on personal experience, I would say that you have a fair chance of meaningful discourse with anyone whose RTP is over 50%. Between 25%-50%, you may have a chance of getting some semaphore signals through the fog, but you are probably just wasting your time if you are trying to have a rational discussion with someone whose RTP is below about 20%-25%.
The hard part is forcing yourself to pay attention to that when you are considering how (or if) to respond to someone--sometimes even when you see that 12% RTP, you just can't help yourself--NO ONE could possibly not see the logic of THIS, right? Right??? Oh crap, not again...
So I'd be interested in hearing if others may have observed something similar in their own interactions, or if my observation causes you to pay closer attention to RTPs, or any other thoughts along these lines--but be advised that I WILL consider your RTP when I am determining whether or not to take your post seriously, in this or any other thread. I've been burned too many times already not to.
I've been a member for about three weeks now, and I just wanted to discuss an observation that I initially made within my first week, and which has been gaining steam in my mind along the way as it is confirmed by repeated observations. Hopefully it will help others as it has come to assist me.
You know how sometimes you'll be sitting next to someone in a waiting room or something and you start talking, and they seem really nice and smart and erudite, and you start to feel a little camaraderie, and then they'll say something completely out of left field, like, "And that's how I know the aliens will pick us up before the world ends on Saturday" or something like that, and you just can't get out of the conversation fast enough?
That's happened to me here several times, where I think I'm getting involved in an interesting and thoughtful intellectual discussion, and then suddenly my discussion partner will come up with some nonsense tortured from an abstract concept like blood from a turnip--and more often than not, they can't even see where they've gone off the rails even when I try to walk them through it slowly!
BUT... I'm starting to figure out how to see potential situations like this coming before they actually manifest themselves--and it's hiding in the information the site gives us for free--what I will call our "Rating-to-Post" (RTP) ratio!
Almost every single time I have unknowingly engaged with someone for whom the languages of logic and reason might as well be written in Klingon, I have subsequently noticed that they have a very low "RTP" ratio. Like if a guy has 3,000 posts, but a rating of only 300, it's a pretty good sign that their grasp of rational discourse is going to be tenuous, at best. Someone who has 3,000 posts and a 2,000 rating is going to be a much better choice for meaningful dialogue.
I haven't run any statistical analyses to determine the exact degree of this correlation, but if I had to spitball it based on personal experience, I would say that you have a fair chance of meaningful discourse with anyone whose RTP is over 50%. Between 25%-50%, you may have a chance of getting some semaphore signals through the fog, but you are probably just wasting your time if you are trying to have a rational discussion with someone whose RTP is below about 20%-25%.
The hard part is forcing yourself to pay attention to that when you are considering how (or if) to respond to someone--sometimes even when you see that 12% RTP, you just can't help yourself--NO ONE could possibly not see the logic of THIS, right? Right??? Oh crap, not again...
So I'd be interested in hearing if others may have observed something similar in their own interactions, or if my observation causes you to pay closer attention to RTPs, or any other thoughts along these lines--but be advised that I WILL consider your RTP when I am determining whether or not to take your post seriously, in this or any other thread. I've been burned too many times already not to.
