tea.mathoverflow.net - Discussion Feed (Is the universe being ironic?)

Mark Meckes comments on "Is the universe being ironic?" (13653)

Mark Meckes — Wed, 16 Mar 2011 08:29:05 -0700

Hey, look! Now I'm getting pity votes, too!

@an_mo_user: I generally try to take things alluded here into account by ignoring votes as much as possible, although I admit I sometimes also vote in the way you describe.

an_mo_user comments on "Is the universe being ironic?" (13652)

an_mo_user — Wed, 16 Mar 2011 06:22:04 -0700

In my voting I take things aluded to here into account. That is, I am way more likely to give an upvote to a 'complicated answer' that did not yet get much votes even if I do not (fully) understand it, than the 24th upvote to an answer to a general interest question, even if I found it nicely written and interesting. Similarly for questions.

However, it is certainly true that I simply do not look at certain questions/answers at all (e.g., if the title/tags suggest it is something technical in a field very distant from the ones in which I am interested).
Yet, I specifically try to pay some (voting) attention to fields (even if distant from my own) that I feel are underrepresented in the userbase of MO, and thus (necessarily) question/answers there get fewer votes.

Mark Meckes comments on "Is the universe being ironic?" (13651)

Mark Meckes — Wed, 16 Mar 2011 06:21:45 -0700

I've written enough answers that I wouldn't try to rank them, but I'm sure there's a negative correlation between the number of upvotes they've received and how much work I put into them, or many other reasonable measures of how good an answer is. For example, I probably put more work into this answer than any other I've written, and this answer was probably one of the most useful to the OP. On the other hand, my most highly-upvoted answer is some off-the-cuff remarks written in a deliberately provocative style, and my three most highly-upvoted accepted answers just pointed the OPs to a paper or Wikipedia page.

Andrew Stacey comments on "Is the universe being ironic?" (13650)

Andrew Stacey — Wed, 16 Mar 2011 05:12:43 -0700

Ha ha! Yes, I didn't think that sentence through very well. Actually, I'm a rubbish voter. After more than a year on this site, I still haven't gotten the "civic duty" badge (though I'm nearly there, only 8 to go). But I try to vote for things that I would like to see more of on the site and although in the main I need to understand it to judge that, it's not an absolute given. If there's a well-motivated, well-written question that nonetheless I don't understand the mathematics of, I might still vote for it. My profile on tex-SX is perhaps a better guide of this; even if a question is completely irrelevant for me and I have no interest at all in the answer, I might still vote for it if I think it is a good fit for the site.

I appear to have stumbled upon a way to get more votes for technical answers: link to them here and bemoan the lack of votes! I've picked up a couple of sympathy votes on my latest answer in the last hour or so.

Gerry Myerson comments on "Is the universe being ironic?" (13649)

Gerry Myerson — Wed, 16 Mar 2011 05:06:34 -0700

"I'd guess that people only vote for things that they feel that they understand...." Do you not do this, too, Andrew?

an_mo_user comments on "Is the universe being ironic?" (13648)

an_mo_user — Wed, 16 Mar 2011 04:10:40 -0700

Yes, thinking about the phenomenon, I arrived at pretty much the same conclusion, it was only puzzling at first.
An additional factor, beyond whether one votes or not, is I guess if one even reads/opens the question/answer in the first place
(general and/or somewhat basic question seem to get considerably more 'views', too).

Todd Trimble comments on "Is the universe being ironic?" (13647)

Todd Trimble — Wed, 16 Mar 2011 03:34:40 -0700

That's been my experience too, Andrew. Some of my answers which required a lot of thought and were somewhat esoteric get 1 or 2 votes. Whereas it's almost a general rule that if people feel that an answer is accessible, and especially if it's snappy to boot, people go into celebratory mode. (Which is only right in some cases: sometimes the stuff you read here belongs in The Book.)

Andrew Stacey comments on "Is the universe being ironic?" (13646)

Andrew Stacey — Wed, 16 Mar 2011 02:42:22 -0700

I'm not surprised by that. For example, I just got the "Nice Answer" for this answer which I'll admit to being pretty, but also pretty basic. Whereas my latest answer, this one, is much more the sort of thing I'd like to be contributing to MO and yet it only gets 2 votes.

Making sweeping generalisations here, I'd guess that people only vote for things that they feel that they understand, so a complicated question or answer tends not to get many votes as not many people understand it. So the magic mark for me is that the questioner either accepts my answer, or comments on it positively. That way, I know that at least one person found what I wrote useful.

an_mo_user comments on "Is the universe being ironic?" (13645)

an_mo_user — Tue, 15 Mar 2011 17:32:08 -0700

Thanks for sharing this amusing strory!

On my still rather small sample of answers, I also noted the surprising (or perhaps not) phenomenon that if I had to rank my answer, it would (with very few exceptions) be just the ranking by votes in reverse.

Andrew Stacey comments on "Is the universe being ironic?" (13643)

Andrew Stacey — Tue, 15 Mar 2011 14:57:14 -0700

My other Necromancer badge is also for a non-mathematical answer as it's for how to draw knots in LaTeX.

One day I might just get a badge for something mathematical. One day.

Shevek comments on "Is the universe being ironic?" (13640)

Shevek — Tue, 15 Mar 2011 12:55:03 -0700

Out of my (small) number of badges, I have two Necromancer badges. It is an awesome badge.

Andrew Stacey comments on "Is the universe being ironic?" (13639)

Andrew Stacey — Tue, 15 Mar 2011 12:06:31 -0700

I'm quite used to the fact that http://mathoverflow.net/questions/5954/is-it-best-to-run-or-walk-in-the-rain attracts more attention that any other of my posts at MO, but this occurrence is funny enough that I felt like mentioning it to a wider audience. Regular readers may remember that I used this question to highlight a bug: namely that it was possible to add answers to closed questions arbitrarily long after they were closed. The answer that I added has now garnered 5 votes, and hence awarded me the "Necromancer" badge!

As Terry Pratchett once said: "What's neck romance?".