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On free speech in forums
rgdot:
The thing is if someone is seeking 'opinion' and 'expertise' what else can he/she or do? Downloading shareware trials are a software thing but other products?
Snow ball effects, information cascades or the perhaps derogatory sheep mentality have a valid origin in them. Even if there are numerous examples of them as exploits. One can have an 'independent' mind and not follow or fall into traps but the need for seeing 'what others have done' always exists.
Personally I would define falling for beliefs (insert_politician_name is the best or Apple_products_rule) differently than following the masses in buying a specific product. The broader is at the different level of thought than the narrower in my opinion.
Paul Keith:
@trianglos
"If you're not interested in politics, then politics will get interested in you" (I've probably mangled that quote).
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You may or you may not have mangled that quote but that is going in my quote database. :P :up:
@40hz
Ditto websites. The way I see it, if I set certain conditions in order to gain full access - and the person complies - then they'll immediately get the whole 9-yards without further ado. A deal is a deal. And it stays that way unless this person gets stupid and deliberately starts violating the social contract they agreed to abide by. At which point, they'll usually (depending on the problem) get a warning (or two) before they get shown the door.
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Agreed.
This makes me wonder though...what's your opinion of the opposite? (and this question is to everyone reading this thread too)
The concept of a disintegrating permission has always piqued my curiosity but I've never seen one in action.
For a short while though, I've read things that claim that the future of moderation is to trick a troll that he's still viewing and interacting in a forum except his posts are invisible to everyone. (but he sees the page and the new posts normally as if nothing has happened to him)
The idea becomes even further mangled when we transfer it past forums and the PC.
In our world, there is often claim of free speech but we are no longer in a dictatorship that censors everything.
Instead, most of us live in a fragile democracy that subtly censors or makes our feelings apathetic or even scares us to speak our mind because even when stones are not thrown, the same free speech can be used to destroy our character and our individuality through gossip, subtle censorship, swiftboating, mob mocking and culture pressure.
@mouser
However, the idea of removing normal honest negative criticism is essentially declaring that the forum is not a place for open discussion of benefits and weaknesses. It is declaring that if people want honest balanced discussion of your product or ideas, they will have to go elsewhere. And it puts on notice anyone who might otherwise be a long term participant, that this forum is *not* a place where they can express dissenting views freely.
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Again, I agree with you mouser but I'm just being a devil's advocate as to contextualize the issue about Pavlina's forum.
Just as a religion forum could possibly open itself to "belief criticism" but can just as censor the thoughts of atheists' and those of other religions, certain forums like Pavlina's can loophole the issue by removing normal honest negative criticism of a certain category.
An example would be a honest negative criticism of the spiritual aspects of his post. I have never lurked much in his forums but from the sound of it, he can remove them but still create the illusion of openness by providing a place where people can have critical "believer level" posts.
When you do it like that then the forum's reputation may get negative reviews but on the long run you create this illusion that you simply are setting a limit (no more different from any forum admin) instead of one who purposefully hides negative criticism.
This cannot work successfully on every business-linked forum but I don't see the gap being too large that it will hurt such popular brands like Steve's because the perception isn't that of a corrupt dictator but that of a bad customer service and while bad customer service hurts; How many customers do most companies still have despite having bad customer service?
Even absent these kinds of paid campaigns, there is a whole field of research on what DC member alex3f calls "information cascades" where you get a kind of arbitrary snowball effect of crowd opinions that can lead to some very misleading group preferences.
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Interesting link mouser. Could you clarify what the difference is between information cascade and say...social conformity?
I know conformity was also linked in the wikipedia article but this is a case where I read them as exactly the same.
I'd also like to add that one doesn't need to cascade information or repeat it often enough. The idea starts as simply as social proof. Take some of the things written in this book I'm currently reading. (Well...a "lots of typo" torrented .doc of it at least --- but anyone guilty can just buy the book.)
Although her programs retain many of the elements common to most infomercials, including flashy catchphrases, an unrealistically enthusiastic audience, and celebrity endorsements, Szot changed three words to a standard infomercial line that caused a huge increase in the number of people who purchased her product.
Even more remarkable, these three words made it clear to potential customers that the process of ordering the product might well prove somewhat of a hassle. What were those three words, and how did they cause sales to skyrocket?
Szot changed the all-too-familiar call-to-action line,
"Operators are waiting, please call now," to, "If operators are busy, please call again."
On the face of it, the change appears foolhardy. After all, the message seems to convey that potential customers might have to waste their time dialing and redialing the toll-free number until they finally reach a sales representative. Yet, that surface view underestimates the power of the principle of social proof: When people are uncertain about a course of action, they tend to look outside themselves and to other people around them to guide their decisions and actions.
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As another example, if you were selling software to the owner of a string of local beauty salons, she'd be more influenced by information about how pleased other salon owners are with your software than by how pleased the big shots at General Motors were.
After all, she'd be likely to think, "If others like me have gotten good results with this product, then it should be right for me, too."
And if you're a leader or a manager attempting to persuade employees to willingly embrace a new system, you should ask for a positive testimonial from others within the same department who have already agreed to make the switch. But what if you've tried that, yet you still have one stubborn employee—perhaps the person who has been working with the older system the longest-whom you still can't win over?
A common mistake managers might make in such a case would be to choose the most eloquent coworker to try to explain the benefits to his or her stubborn coworker, even if he or she is completely different from that person on a number of important dimensions. Instead, the manager's best bet would likely be to solicit the opinions of another coworker-perhaps someone else who had also been working under the system for a long time-even if that particular person happens to be somewhat less articulate or popular.
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To test the role of negative social proof (and to see if we could design a more effective message), one of us, along with a team of other scientists, created two signs designed
to deter wood theft at Petrified Forest National Park.
The negative social proof sign said, "Many past visitors have removed the petrified wood from the park, changing the natural state of the Petrified Forest," and was accompanied by a picture of several park visitors taking pieces of wood.
A second sign conveyed no social proof information. Rather, it simply conveyed that stealing wood was not appropriate or approved, saying, "Please don't remove the petrified wood from the park, in order to preserve the natural state of the Petrified Forest."
That sign was accompanied by a picture of a lone visitor stealing a piece of wood, with a red circle-and-bar (the universal "No" symbol) superimposed over his hand. We also had a control condition in which we didn't put up either of these signs.
Unbeknownst to park visitors, we placed marked pieces of petrified wood along visitor pathways. We also varied what sign (if any) was posted at the entrance of each pathway. Through this procedure, we were able to observe how the different signs affected petrified wood theft.
In a finding that should petrify the National Park's management, compared with a no-sign control condition in which 2.92 percent of the pieces were stolen, the social proof message resulted in more theft (7.92 percent). In essence, it almost tripled theft. Thus, theirs was not a crime prevention strategy; it was a crime promotion strategy. In contrast, the other message, which simply asked visitors not to steal the wood and depicted a lone thief, resulted in slightly less theft (1.67 percent) than the control condition.
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To test the idea that the value of an item declines when it's offered as a gift, Raghubir had participants view a duty-free catalog that featured liquor as the target product and a pearl bracelet as the bonus gift. One group of participants was asked to evaluate the desirability and value of the pearl bracelet in the context of the gift, and another group was asked to evaluate the pearl bracelet by itself. The results confirmed the hypothesis: People were willing to pay around 35 percent less for the pearl bracelet when they saw it bundled with the target product as an add-on than when they saw it as a standalone product.
These findings reveal some potentially negative implications for businesses that promote a particular line of products by throwing in goods or services for free that the business normally sells independently. Raghubir suggests that one way of preventing the offer of gifts or services from backfiring is to inform or remind customers about the true value of the gift.
For example, imagine that you work for a software company. One way that you attract new business is to offer a free piece of software, let's say a security program, to new customers. If in your advertising and your mailings you offer this free product and fail to point out what it would cost customers if they had to pay for it themselves, you're losing out on an effective way of positioning your offer as valuable and significant.
After all, if you write down "free," numerically the number is $0.00-not a message you would want
to send to prospective customers about the worth of your products.
To ensure that your offer is seen as the valuable proposition it actually is, the customer needs to be shown the true value of your offer. So, no longer should your message read, "Receive a free security program." Instead, it becomes, "Receive a $250 security program at no cost to you."
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That said I'm not a marketer so I can't verify all the effectiveness of these control but I know the last bit has worked on me so it won't take a 100. More than 1, but by 12, I may already be influenced. (but I am a very gullible person so it might take longer for others.)
@rgdot
The broader is at the different level of thought than the narrower in my opinion.
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It really depends on what you consider broad and narrow and hopefully the above quotes show that too.
One of the best argument (that's tailored for casual people) that I have recently heard is the Obama and Online Dating explanation by Dan Ariely.
One is narrow.
The other is broad.
But specifics aside, both can have a similar source of influence.
Video located here: http://fora.tv/2008/03/04/Dan_Ariely_Predictably_Irrational#Barack_Obama_and_Online_Dating
Article here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dan-ariely/obama-and-online-dating_b_92612.html
mouser:
Interesting link mouser. Could you clarify what the difference is between information cascade and say...social conformity?
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i think the key difference would be that the concept of an information cascade seems to focus on the idea that the groups preferences and choices affect the information that others are exposed to, which can create a kind of feedback loop. as an example imagine a voting site where the top rated movies are pushed to the top of the list of recommended movies, where they tend to accrue more watchers, and then more voters, etc., and essentially get stuck in a positive feedback loop and never leave the top position. It's not that anyone is conforming to the crowd, consciously or subconsciously, it's that the system kind of gets stuck in a very small region of the possible space of choices.
keep in mind this is not my research area at all so i'm just relaying my casual understanding of the idea -- others can correct me.
people have leveled serious criticisms of sites like digg on the grounds that they are highly influenced in a counter-productive way by information cascades.
Paul Keith:
Thanks for clarifying nevertheless.
That is interesting...I've never really thought of it like that. I guess I was so focused on the idea that voting is game-able that a positive feedback loop never really occurred to me.
40hz:
For a short while though, I've read things that claim that the future of moderation is to trick a troll that he's still viewing and interacting in a forum except his posts are invisible to everyone. (but he sees the page and the new posts normally as if nothing has happened to him)
-Paul Keith (October 10, 2009, 11:37 PM)
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It's already doable, but hardly worth the effort.
Attempting to apply a quick technical fix to what is essentially a human problem is just another example of wishful thinking on the part of people who understand tech too well, and their fellow human beings too little.
Personally, I don't think plain technology is a workable or sustainable solution to the human dilemma.
Look no further than Afghanistan for an example. Here you have two instances of what happens when hi-tech military butts heads with tribal culture. High tech may not exactly lose - but it still remains to be seen whether it can actually win such a conflict.
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