Comment by jedberg | Hacker News Reader

Comment by jedberg | Hacker News Reader

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I got 93% agreement based on a simple rule: It's a vehicle if it is touching the ground and powered with a motor.

And if I were moderating a community, which I have done a lot of in the past, I would clarify the rules as soon as this disagreement popped up. This isn't a great experiment because it doesn't involve any judgement calls -- you can apply a (pretty simple) objective ruleset here.

The main areas where I disagreed with the majority are a police car and ambulance. The police car and ambulance are clearly vehicles. People who said no were applying other rules. But again that rule is simple -- emergency services are exempt when responding to emergencies.

Moderating actual communities is a lot more difficult because there aren't a simple objective set of rules you can apply. Judgement calls are necessary. We ran this experiment on reddit for a while. We would present the user with a link and ask them "is this spam". It was rare for a link to get 100% (or even 98%) yes. Only the very most obvious cases. Otherwise most links would be closer to 60-70% if it were "spammy". And only things like wikipedia would get close to 0%. Everything else in between was a spectrum.

That is what makes moderating hard.

The conclusion of this experiment is correct, but I would say the methods are deeply flawed.

I think you're reading the chart wrong. The majority does say that police cars and ambulances are not allowed in based on that rule.

It is a bad chart though. I was confused too.

Well I said yes and the bar was red, which says to me I disagreed with the majority. I assumed the bar indicated how many people said it wasn't since I said it was and the bar was red.

But either way, when I said "is a vehicle" it said I disagreed with the majority.

/shrug

Yea it's a weird graph. The bar is red if you answer "yes" and brown if you answer "no." The percentage of people who say "yes, it violates the rule" is the y axis

Is the tank a vehicle?

The question specified that the tank can't move under its own power because it has no motor anymore, so no.

If the motor still worked and it was moved through the park with said motor, then yes.

The real question here is how did they move the tank? Most likely with a powered vehicle, which would of course violate the rule. But I'm sure there would be a permitting process for temporarily allowing certain vehicles in the park, such as construction equipment.

Okay so if we have tank with no motor is not a vehicle, and a tank with a motor is a vehicle then I have some follow up questions for you.

- Is a tank with a motor that doesn't function a vehicle?

- Is a tank with a functioning motor, but no keys in existence, a vehicle?

- Is a tank with a functioning motor, but no wheels, a vehicle?

- Is a tank, empty of gas (so unable to move by its own power), but otherwise functional a vehicle?

Your questions are irrelvant. It didn't ask "is this a vehicle". It asked "is this a vehicle in the park". Is the tank touching the ground (yes) moving under its own power:

- Is a tank with a motor that doesn't function a vehicle?

No

- Is a tank with a functioning motor, but no keys in existence, a vehicle?

No

- Is a tank with a functioning motor, but no wheels, a vehicle?

No

- Is a tank, empty of gas (so unable to move by its own power), but otherwise functional a vehicle?

No

Because in none of those cases can it move through the park under its own power.

Like I said, there is no subjectivity here. The rules are simple and clear.

> Your questions are irrelvant. It didn't ask "is this a vehicle". It asked "is this a vehicle in the park".

To be a vehicle in the park, it must first be a vehicle.

But your definition is bad. It basically hinges on it being able to move, which means it's "vehicle-ness" can come into an out of existence quiet flimsily (like if it's is out of gas, a tire gets popped, or the keys are lost suddenly an otherwise functional car/tank completely ceases to be a vehicle and just becomes metal?). So like you could imagine sitting there, putting gas into a car, siphoning it out, putting it back in, siphoning it back out, etc etc. Are you really in that process, changing something fundamental about the car?

Another interesting question, is let's say we go to a storage lot, and we find a car that's been in storage for awhile. It was working before, it has gas in it and keys and tires and all that. But we haven't run it for awhile, and cars sometimes breakdown over time when they are just left there. So before we have had a chance to verify that the car runs, there is some non-zero chance it doesnt work, some non-zero chance it does. Is that car a vehicle?

All interesting questions, all totally irrelevant.

The entire point of the experiment is to prove that people have different definitions of things and that's why moderation is hard.

But my contention is that "is this a vehicle in the park" is not a good experiment, because there is an easily applied objective rule:

Did it touch the ground and move under motorized power?

> To be a vehicle in the park, it must first be a vehicle.

Sure, but we don't need to explore every possible vehicle. We only care about the subset of vehicles that are capable of moving under their own motorized power. So we only have to determine if it is that subset of vehicle.

Your whole thing about taking gas in and out doesn't matter. If it's in the park and got there using its motor, it's a vehicle in the park.

The storage lot doesn't matter. It's not in the park.

The point is, this is a bad experiment. There is a simple rule to apply. This is nothing like moderating an online community.

It just happens to get to the right conclusion anyway, mainly because people refuse to apply the one and only rule that matters, and want to bring in all these extra rules an assumptions that aren't relevant.

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