How to Tell if You're Flogging a Dead Parrot

[crossfire]

I haven't met a cat that doesn't love it!

Have you tried it yet, little kitten? Mwahahahaha!

If you know the power of asparagus you can:

• herd cats
• teach cats how to sit up and beg like a dog
• make cats jump through hoops
• have your very own cat version of a lion trainer show!

True story! Mwahahahaha!

 

[sandy whitelinger]

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'm thinking I might make it my mission to like every post on RF until everyone's ratio is over 50%. That way you would have to find a new way to express your arrogance.

 

[Vinayaka]

I rarely if ever look at ratings. It gets really skewed when 2 or 3 people just like everything the others say. Technically 2 people could each be at 100% if they agreed to like each and every post of each other.

 

[4consideration]

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.

Well...before getting too cocky, in a serious way, about how much smarter one is than another member one is talking to, it might be beneficial to consider the RTP ratio may not even be reflecting what it may seem to be reflecting on the surface.

Staff members, and former staff members, that do actual work on RF -- work that's not visible to everyone -- make posts that add to post count, but do not create opportunities for "likes," so what one might be assuming as evidence of that person's lesser brilliance than one's own radiating intellectual magnificence, may actually be a reflection of another person having put in a lot of time and effort in keeping RF a nice place to be.

 

[sandy whitelinger]

How smart are we if we can't lead someone of lesser insight forward to a path of enlightenment.

 

[Revoltingest]

How smart are we if....uh....dang....I got nuthin.

 

[Axe Elf]

That way you would have to find a new way to express your arrogance.

I don't think I'm expressing arrogance so much as superiority.

That's the problem with actually being the best; sometimes simple self-esteem can take on the illusion of arrogance.

In reality, it's only my great humility that makes me better than everyone else.

 

[Axe Elf]

Well...before getting too cocky, in a serious way, about how much smarter one is than another member one is talking to, it might be beneficial to consider the RTP ratio may not even be reflecting what it may seem to be reflecting on the surface.

I don't know what it seems to reflect on the surface (other than the ratio of likes to posts), but in my experience, I have noticed that it is correlated to the ability to think rationally and express oneself cogently. That's not an assumption, that's an observation.

Staff members, and former staff members, that do actual work on RF -- work that's not visible to everyone -- make posts that add to post count, but do not create opportunities for "likes," so what one might be assuming as evidence of that person's lesser brilliance than one's own radiating intellectual magnificence, may actually be a reflection of another person having put in a lot of time and effort in keeping RF a nice place to be.

That's all well and good, but even if they are nice people, if they can't recognize a thinking error when they're making one, then the correlation is apt.

 

[crossfire]

Well...before getting too cocky, in a serious way, about how much smarter one is than another member one is talking to, it might be beneficial to consider the RTP ratio may not even be reflecting what it may seem to be reflecting on the surface.

Staff members, and former staff members, that do actual work on RF -- work that's not visible to everyone -- make posts that add to post count, but do not create opportunities for "likes," so what one might be assuming as evidence of that person's lesser brilliance than one's own radiating intellectual magnificence, may actually be a reflection of another person having put in a lot of time and effort in keeping RF a nice place to be.

That's all well and good, but even if they are nice people, if they can't recognize a thinking error when they're making one, then the correlation is apt.

What she's saying is that staff members make many mundane and routine posts in the hidden moderation areas that will raise their post count, but are not subject to likes. This raising of the post count due to moderation duties without likes will greatly lower their post-to-like ratio on the hardest working mods. 4consideration and I are both former staff members, and I can attest to the fact that she was one of the hardest working mods I've seen. (Thank you for your service, @4consideration !)

 

[Axe Elf]

What she's saying is that staff members make many mundane and routine posts in the hidden moderation areas that will raise their post count, but are not subject to likes. This raising of the post count due to moderation duties without likes will greatly lower their post-to-like ratio on the hardest working mods. 4consideration and I are both former staff members, and I can attest to the fact that she was one of the hardest working mods I've seen. (Thank you for your service, @4consideration !)

I wasn't contesting that.

 

[Curious George]

I wasn't contesting that.

Ehh, but as it stands much of the wind has been knocked out of your OP.

We have the prior frubal system that limited the number of frubals and therefore decreased RTP of members. We have mundane posts which decrease RTP and we have necessary unratable posts by current and former administration which lowers RTP. And, we have ideas that are not popular which can decrease a persons RTP. The only actual example, (and I don't mind being a guinea pig), is me. Where so far you have cited the unforgivable omission of the word "it."

Consequently, we seem to have one of those instances where you are soundly shown how your previous assumption is wrong, but you are the only one who doesn't understand.

Now, kudos where it is deserved: your post was well written, humorous, and did have a grain of truth. The problem is an overcommitment to the position.

Yet, at the heart of your post, you are advocating for the dismissal of people's opinions and ideas based on how well that person's opinions and ideals have been received by others in the past. This leads to the problem: an unpopular or poorly written idea does not mean it is a wrong idea. Better form would focus on the ideas with which you disagree, not the person espousing those ideas.

Still, I guess some are all too happy to dismiss those that challenge them as crazy. If the tactic did not work, people would not use it.

 

[Axe Elf]

Ehh, but as it stands much of the wind has been knocked out of your OP.

Oh, not at all. I made an observation, which still stands for my own personal experience. Whether or not the observation is shared by others (i.e., whether it is a valid observation with any predictive value) was always the question of the OP--one which many have done a good job of answering by providing their own observations and ways of interpreting their observations and mine.

 

[Curious George]

Oh, not at all. I made an observation, which still stands for my own personal experience. Whether or not the observation is shared by others (i.e., whether it is a valid observation with any predictive value) was always the question of the OP--one which many have done a good job of answering by providing their own observations and ways of interpreting their observations and mine.

Lol, well I guess this part still stands:

"you just can't help yourself--NO ONE could possibly not see the logic of THIS, right? Right??? Oh crap, not again..."

As here I am engaged with you on this point when I thought "-NO ONE could possibly not see the logic of THIS, right?"

Cheers

 

[Axe Elf]

Lol, well I guess this part still stands:

"you just can't help yourself--NO ONE could possibly not see the logic of THIS, right? Right??? Oh crap, not again..."

As here I am engaged with you on this point when I thought "-NO ONE could possibly not see the logic of THIS, right?"

Cheers

:::shakes head:::

Seventeen percenters...

 

[sandy whitelinger]

I don't think I'm expressing arrogance so much as superiority.

That's the problem with actually being the best; sometimes simple self-esteem can take on the illusion of arrogance.

In reality, it's only my great humility that makes me better than everyone else.

It also takes on the appearance of superiority, seemingly, in your psyche.

Be careful. This blinds you to your weaknesses, grasshopper.

 

[Axe Elf]

It also takes on the appearance of superiority, seemingly, in your psyche.

Be careful. This blinds you to your weaknesses, grasshopper.

Not at all. My inferiorities are just as much an examined part of me as my superiorities. To be clear, having an IQ that has to be expressed in scientific notation doesn't make me any more valuable as a human being as anyone else, but it HAS made me a superior thinker to most other people. Others can run faster than I can, lift more than I can, and likely even be more successful in personal relationships than I have been. In fact, others have a myriad of abilities that make them superior to me in those areas--but when it comes to thinking about something clearly and rationally, I'm your huckleberry.

 

[sandy whitelinger]

Not at all. My inferiorities are just as much an examined part of me as my superiorities. To be clear, having an IQ that has to be expressed in scientific notation doesn't make me any more valuable as a human being as anyone else, but it HAS made me a superior thinker to most other people. Others can run faster than I can, lift more than I can, and likely even be more successful in personal relationships than I have been. In fact, others have a myriad of abilities that make them superior to me in those areas--but when it comes to thinking about something clearly and rationally, I'm your huckleberry.

Ah.

 

[sandy whitelinger]

See, Ace, it easy to get likes with some exotic, esoteric alliteration.

 

[Revoltingest]

What she's saying is that staff members make many mundane and routine posts in the hidden moderation areas that will raise their post count, but are not subject to likes. This raising of the post count due to moderation duties without likes will greatly lower their post-to-like ratio on the hardest working mods. 4consideration and I are both former staff members, and I can attest to the fact that she was one of the hardest working mods I've seen. (Thank you for your service, @4consideration !)

Anyone who'd judge 4con based upon frubal/post ratio should pay a 1000 frubal penalty (to me).

 

[crossfire]

Not at all. My inferiorities are just as much an examined part of me as my superiorities. To be clear, having an IQ that has to be expressed in scientific notation doesn't make me any more valuable as a human being as anyone else, but it HAS made me a superior thinker to most other people. Others can run faster than I can, lift more than I can, and likely even be more successful in personal relationships than I have been. In fact, others have a myriad of abilities that make them superior to me in those areas--but when it comes to thinking about something clearly and rationally, I'm your huckleberry.

How much koan work have you done in connection with your Zen?