Jump to content
JonCole

"Ethics and Journalistic Integrity"

Recommended Posts

Hah, yeah, I guess they're pretty smart folks over there.

 

Do you have a link to how, specifically, the new process will work? I get the gist, but don't quite follow from your description.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Voting systems in general are super interesting! ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrow%27s_impossibility_theorem ) Basically it's impossible to design a voting system that doesn't leave something to be desired, and therefore you have to intelligently pick which weaknesses you think fit for your particular problem!

I took a class in college that was crosslisted between the PoliSci department & the Math department that was all about the mathematics of voting systems & elections that was super cool, and talked about things like this a lot, and what's the best way to discourage people from gaming the system.

 

True, but the Arrow's Impossibility Theorem requirements aren't the source of the issues in this particular case.  The Hugos aren't in a mathematical quandry, just a bad design spot.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Hah, yeah, I guess they're pretty smart folks over there.

 

Do you have a link to how, specifically, the new process will work? I get the gist, but don't quite follow from your description.

 

I can't find a good link that explains the 4/6 proposal, but it's basically what you said: people can nominate a maximum of four works for a final slate of six. The formal proposal for the much more complex "E Pluribus Hugo" system is here: http://nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/archives/016262.html. There aren't many good plain-language explanations of it, but I'll keep looking.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I can't find a good link that explains the 4/6 proposal, but it's basically what you said: people can nominate a maximum of four works for a final slate of six. The formal proposal for the much more complex "E Pluribus Hugo" system is here: http://nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/archives/016262.html. There aren't many good plain-language explanations of it, but I'll keep looking.

Actually, that's pretty decent. From a high level:

 

a. You have one nomination “point” for each category that will be divided equally among the works you choose to nominate in that category. So, if you nominate two works in a category, each will get half a point; if you nominate three works, each will get one-third of a point, and so on.

 

They gradually drop out the least popular option, and re-calculates all the ballots assuming that's been removed. So if my initial ballot is for X, Y, and Z, my vote is really:

1/3 X, 1/3 Y, 1/3 Z

 

Nobody else voted for Z, so it gets eliminated, and my vote is now:

1/2 X, 1/2 Y.

 

Repeat until there's only 5 left.

 

 

Edit: Also:

4. How does this system eliminate slate or bloc voting?

It doesn’t, exactly, nor should a work be automatically eliminated just because it appears on a slate. On the other hand, any slate which nominates a full set of five works will find that each of its nominations only count 1/5 as much. With “non-slate” nominating, some of your works will be slowly eliminated, so your remaining works get more and more of your support. Since slate works tend to live or die together, they tend to eliminate each other until, in general, only one slate work remains. With a large enough support behind the slate (five times as much), the slate may still sweep a category; however, if that many voters support the slate, they arguably deserve to win, and no fair and unbiased system of nomination will prevent that. The answer in that case is, simply, to increase the general pool of voters. Regardless, with SDV-LPE, slates will never receive a disproportionate share of the final ballot, as occurred in the 2015 Hugos.

 

Basically, if there are (made up numbers) 20 rounds, during rounds 1-15, the slate votes will only have 1/5 value per voter, whereas non-slate votes may concentrate up to have their full point go to their one remaining nominee. Towards the end, either the full slate passes, or things on the slate start dropping off because each individually has less value.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Voting systems in general are super interesting! ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrow%27s_impossibility_theorem ) Basically it's impossible to design a voting system that doesn't leave something to be desired, and therefore you have to intelligently pick which weaknesses you think fit for your particular problem!

I took a class in college that was crosslisted between the PoliSci department & the Math department that was all about the mathematics of voting systems & elections that was super cool, and talked about things like this a lot, and what's the best way to discourage people from gaming the system.

 

Hmm...fundamentally non-optimizable system? Sounds like a board game.

 

Each player controls a suite of nominees, and tries to convince the group to settle on voting / nomination rules for that round. A round of voting based on that system is run, and each player receives points for election. After each election, amendments to the voting process are presented and evaluated. Repeat for n rounds.

 

Sorry, I'll stop posting now.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Hmm...fundamentally non-optimizable system? Sounds like a board game.

 

Each player controls a suite of nominees, and tries to convince the group to settle on voting / nomination rules for that round. A round of voting based on that system is run, and each player receives points for election. After each election, amendments to the voting process are presented and evaluated. Repeat for n rounds.

 

Sorry, I'll stop posting now.

 

I've long had an idea for a boardgame where you play as different factions within the Holy Roman Empire, starting out as mostly powerless during the Ottonian emperors and needing to work together to have an influence on what is mostly an acclamatory process, but gradually gaining power and introducing new amendments to the electoral system to consolidate power with your selection of princes and bishops and no one else's. I even drew up a preliminary COIN document, but... Yeah. different thread, different time...

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Hmm...fundamentally non-optimizable system? Sounds like a board game.

 

Each player controls a suite of nominees, and tries to convince the group to settle on voting / nomination rules for that round. A round of voting based on that system is run, and each player receives points for election. After each election, amendments to the voting process are presented and evaluated. Repeat for n rounds.

 

Sorry, I'll stop posting now.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nomic is the game you describe in probably its purest form; players voting on changes to the rules of the game. In some cases you start with a basic win condition and can vote to change it to something more interesting; I think in others you might start with no victory condition at all. Obviously changing the rules for how voting can be done is very powerful. I've never played it myself but as you can imagine there are play-by-forum communities since it's so well suited to being played online.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Well, Auernheimer is Not Really Gamergate™, you know. uglyhammer_2.gif

 

 

But I'll quote this here anyway.

 

gamergate [...] is by far the single biggest siren bringing people into the folds of white nationalism. More people have been converted in the past year by things like images of Anita Sarkeesian being rendered as a happy merchant than were in the three before it.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Whether or not he's really Gamergate has no bearing on whether or not what he's saying is true (which I don't claim to know). I suppose it is somewhat relevant to what one should do with that information, but it certainly wouldn't reflect well on the movement one way or the other.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Don't get me wrong here – "not really gamergate" is a running gag I have going (with myself mostly, obviously). Almost all the major gamergate ideologues don't identify with the movement, but there's no protest when they speak for it, that's what "decentralized leadership" means. :)

 

(I'm seeing a fair bit of disassociation from some figureheads with recent embarrassing performances though – of course, in other places, they're still called "Master Milo" and "Lord Ro*sh)

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I got where you were coming from; I just thought it worth mentioning that even if there ever was any worth to the No True Scotsman nonsense, in this case it has no bearing at all. You know, for any entirely theoretical passing GGers. Or because I just can't bear for a thought to stay in my head, unspoken.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

KIA was recently asked what one ethics breach should be talked about and the results of what people think is the one ethics breach that has to be mentioned in the poster's media appearance are pretty interesting: https://archive.is/Pfx81

 

The top two suggestions are about people being friends with people they cover and Brad Wardell (He's head of Stardock and was sued for sexual harassment. Kotaku wrote an article about it. Then during the lawsuit a lot of the stuff mentioned in the article was given alternate explanations by witnesses and the accuser was forced to appologize for the accusations.)

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Helpful hint for anybody going to that link: CoI = Conflict of Interest, because the last letter is an i, not an L. I spent a couple minutes reading that wondering if it stood for column, or what.

 

Also, it seems like those guys might be more upset about Wardell's treatment than Wardell was.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I was also confused about why everyone was a Colonel in that string! Yeah, they really like to bring up Wardell. That first post looks like it's all examples against "indie devs." I know that sometimes there are posts about AAA ethics stuff, but indies take so much more heat. Wonder why that is...

 

I found this comment string between journalist Jesse Singal (who was on HuffPo Live debating against some GG folks today) and various GGers to be fascinating: https://archive.is/9ep6z

 

Singal is the user "jsingal." There's a lot in there about how GG uses ethics as a smokescreen for their reactionary feelings. No surprises to anyone here I guess... but I thought Singal was very articulate in making his points and the replies were very revealing about what members of the movement think.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

https://twitter.com/GeeDee215

 

Gene Demby, one of my favorite internet people & head of NPR's Code Switch blog, had a bunch of goobers brigade his mentions and just thoroughly demolished them because he is a real journalist and just kept telling them that just because they've never thought about "journalistic ethics" before doesn't mean it isn't a real conversation between that's existed for generations.

It is so good.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I was also confused about why everyone was a Colonel in that string! Yeah, they really like to bring up Wardell. That first post looks like it's all examples against "indie devs." I know that sometimes there are posts about AAA ethics stuff, but indies take so much more heat. Wonder why that is...

 

I found this comment string between journalist Jesse Singal (who was on HuffPo Live debating against some GG folks today) and various GGers to be fascinating: https://archive.is/9ep6z

 

Singal is the user "jsingal." There's a lot in there about how GG uses ethics as a smokescreen for their reactionary feelings. No surprises to anyone here I guess... but I thought Singal was very articulate in making his points and the replies were very revealing about what members of the movement think.

 

Yeah, before that thread I don't remember even hearing about the Wardell thing. One article was written about it and they act like it was the biggest ethical breach ever.

 

It amazes me when they can claim not to be right wing in one breath and in the next call people like Sarkeesian and Mia Consalvo "radical feminists." As if there is anything radical about Sarkeesian's feminism. I don't really agree with her but it isn't because of her feminist beliefs.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

It amazes me when they can claim not to be right wing in one breath and in the next call people like Sarkeesian and Mia Consalvo "radical feminists." As if there is anything radical about Sarkeesian's feminism.

 

I'm always amazed how it's possible that these beliefs cross the ocean and land in Europe, and Germany in particular. The gamergate strategy is to portray an extreme right wing political opinion as neutral and apolitical, and in consequence paint reasonable or basically philantropist stances as extremist.

 

Germany doesn't have that kind of extreme right wing political opinion, and I'm STILL encountering comments on Sarkeesian's "radikaler Feminismus" that all sound like badly translated ralphretort. There's no German word for SJW, or rather the German term is connotated too positively/passive-peacefully, so they're just going with "SJW". 

 

It dumbs down the discussion even more... which is hard to believe until you've seen it. :rolleyes:

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

It's what happens when the Internet allows certain US-centric opinions to flourish globally because everyone uses Twitter or Reddit or whatnot. The throughline, I think, is regardless of politics, patriarchal notions of women are something that transcend many country borders. 

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

It's what happens when the Internet allows certain US-centric opinions to flourish globally because everyone uses Twitter or Reddit or whatnot. The throughline, I think, is regardless of politics, patriarchal notions of women are something that transcend many country borders.

And I think that's self-reinforcing, too, because a large segment of the people who push traditional notions of the patriarchy do so as "biotruths" free of cultural or political framework. There's a definite investment for people to sell it that way.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Eh, there's that general tendency in Europe to claim that we're soooo much more progressive than the US, but that belief doesn't really match up to reality, it's just repeated ad nauseam until it becomes conventional wisdom, at which point it actually serves to mask what issues we do have here. People scoff at the state of reproductive rights, marriage equality (etc. etc.) in the states, but we're far from fixing these issues ourselves, and it's actually pretty hard to address them when people want to keep up the fantasy that discrimination is something that only exists elsewhere in the world.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Eh, there's that general tendency in Europe to claim that we're soooo much more progressive than the US, but that belief doesn't really match up to reality, it's just repeated ad nauseam until it becomes conventional wisdom, at which point it actually serves to mask what issues we do have here. People scoff at the state of reproductive rights, marriage equality (etc. etc.) in the states, but we're far from fixing these issues ourselves, and it's actually pretty hard to address them when people want to keep up the fantasy that discrimination is something that only exists elsewhere in the world.

 

Fair enough, of course we have these issues as well, and of course (now more than ever), they're in dire need of fixing, NOW. The scumbag opinions are definitely there. I see them daily now, and they scare the shit out of me. Still, in determining the political spectrum of different countries, I draw the circles quite differently. In fact, looking at our far too conservative government, I'm fairly certain that from an informed US perspective you could call it socialist. :mellow:

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Oh yeah, in a lot of ways you are. We have our own particular strain of conservative here though that seems deeply embedded in the fact that we got all of your zealot Puritans those years ago. But you definitely have xenophobia, racism and sexism in Europe as far as I can tell, heh.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

In the time I spent with a French guy who had recently moved to America, I had to explain that French society was deeply racist several times. He would bring up how Americans seem to be having all these race problems these days, but at least they were past all that in France -- but, like, no they're super not?????

 

It was extremely frustrating. I don't understand that part of the European mindset.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
Guest
This topic is now closed to further replies.

×