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Rand al'Thor
Rand al'Thor
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I totally understand why you're asking for volunteer sites, instead of forcing this on any site that doesn't want it, which would have gone down way worse with the mods/communities of those sites and with the broader SE community. But, I just thought of a potential drawback of that approach.

Any site willing to volunteer for this experiment is probably a site less likely to suffer negative consequences.

Thinking about some of the sites I'm familiar with, I can think of one site that would never volunteer for this, due to too many people willing to try too much abuse, and another site that's much more peaceful and might potentially volunteer in order to get vote numbers up with a relatively low risk of widespread abuse.

Please account for this kind of "survivorship"selection bias" when analysing results.

If one site volunteers for having 1-rep voting and it goes reasonably well, that doesn't mean it would go similarly well on another site, with a completely different community! The sites most likely to suffer from it are also those least likely to volunteer for it, while any site willing to take the risk of volunteering is probably one that's risking less by doing so. Essentially, by asking for volunteers, you may end up skewing the results towards more positive outcomes.

Maybe this is obvious, but I thought it was worth mentioning explicitly ...

I totally understand why you're asking for volunteer sites, instead of forcing this on any site that doesn't want it, which would have gone down way worse with the mods/communities of those sites and with the broader SE community. But, I just thought of a potential drawback of that approach.

Any site willing to volunteer for this experiment is probably a site less likely to suffer negative consequences.

Thinking about some of the sites I'm familiar with, I can think of one site that would never volunteer for this, due to too many people willing to try too much abuse, and another site that's much more peaceful and might potentially volunteer in order to get vote numbers up with a relatively low risk of widespread abuse.

Please account for this kind of "survivorship bias" when analysing results.

If one site volunteers for having 1-rep voting and it goes reasonably well, that doesn't mean it would go similarly well on another site, with a completely different community! The sites most likely to suffer from it are also those least likely to volunteer for it, while any site willing to take the risk of volunteering is probably one that's risking less by doing so. Essentially, by asking for volunteers, you may end up skewing the results towards more positive outcomes.

Maybe this is obvious, but I thought it was worth mentioning explicitly ...

I totally understand why you're asking for volunteer sites, instead of forcing this on any site that doesn't want it, which would have gone down way worse with the mods/communities of those sites and with the broader SE community. But, I just thought of a potential drawback of that approach.

Any site willing to volunteer for this experiment is probably a site less likely to suffer negative consequences.

Thinking about some of the sites I'm familiar with, I can think of one site that would never volunteer for this, due to too many people willing to try too much abuse, and another site that's much more peaceful and might potentially volunteer in order to get vote numbers up with a relatively low risk of widespread abuse.

Please account for this kind of "selection bias" when analysing results.

If one site volunteers for having 1-rep voting and it goes reasonably well, that doesn't mean it would go similarly well on another site, with a completely different community! The sites most likely to suffer from it are also those least likely to volunteer for it, while any site willing to take the risk of volunteering is probably one that's risking less by doing so. Essentially, by asking for volunteers, you may end up skewing the results towards more positive outcomes.

Maybe this is obvious, but I thought it was worth mentioning explicitly ...

Source Link
Rand al'Thor
Rand al'Thor
  • 37k
  • 12
  • 71
  • 145

I totally understand why you're asking for volunteer sites, instead of forcing this on any site that doesn't want it, which would have gone down way worse with the mods/communities of those sites and with the broader SE community. But, I just thought of a potential drawback of that approach.

Any site willing to volunteer for this experiment is probably a site less likely to suffer negative consequences.

Thinking about some of the sites I'm familiar with, I can think of one site that would never volunteer for this, due to too many people willing to try too much abuse, and another site that's much more peaceful and might potentially volunteer in order to get vote numbers up with a relatively low risk of widespread abuse.

Please account for this kind of "survivorship bias" when analysing results.

If one site volunteers for having 1-rep voting and it goes reasonably well, that doesn't mean it would go similarly well on another site, with a completely different community! The sites most likely to suffer from it are also those least likely to volunteer for it, while any site willing to take the risk of volunteering is probably one that's risking less by doing so. Essentially, by asking for volunteers, you may end up skewing the results towards more positive outcomes.

Maybe this is obvious, but I thought it was worth mentioning explicitly ...