LucidFlight wrote:Oh, this is excellent information, worthy of a polite chuckle. Don't underestimate the power of the spiteful spender.

Good point. And spiteful spending would likely be proportionate to a population's disposable income, so results could vary with the economic strength of the population being tested.

Thommo wrote:

IHateYouTrebek wrote:I thought I'd let you all know (if you're curious), Xerographica tried his experiment on another forum that took him up on his challenge.

Wealth of Nations won when it came to voting, but Fifty Shades of Grey won when it came to spending - despite the fact that only one person liked fifty shades of grey and spent money on it, a number of other spent money on it just to make it beat wealth of nations.

Do you have a link to the forum thread? It's hard to make much of this when the forum population, and what they were told isn't shown.

I'm quite interested in why anyone would spend money on this at all!

Here's the link. In the previous thread I had stated that my belief in the superiority of spending would be falsified if voting ranked The Wealth of Nations higher than donating did. What I did not realize at the time is that many of the participants in that thread had many puppet accounts, which they used to vote for The Wealth of Nations. Plus, some members donated for 50 Shades of Grey, while I was the only one to donate for The Wealth of Nations.

The thing is, if somebody happens to randomly find that thread, they aren't going to know that both polls were majorly trolled, unless they happen to read the discussion.

In this thread I shared the results from donors ranking potential themes for the libertarian party (LP) convention...

$6,327.00 — I’m That Libertarian!
$5,200.00 — Building Bridges, Not Walls
$1,620.00 — Pro Choice on Everything
$1,377.77 — Empowering the Individual
$395.00 — The Power of Principle
$150.00 — Future of Freedom
$135.00 — Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness
$105.00 — Rise of the Libertarians
$75.00 — Free Lives Matter
$42.00 — Be Me, Be Free
$17.76 — Make Taxation Theft Again
$15.42 — Taxation is Theft
$15.00 — Jazzed About Liberty
$15.00 — All of Your Freedoms, All of the Time
$5.00 — Am I Being Detained!
$5.00 — Liberty Here and Now

Did anybody troll this? I have absolutely no idea. It's entirely possible that some liberals trolled the LP by spending $6,327 to put "I'm That Libertarian!" at the top. If so, it was a pretty subtle troll.

Recently I found a website where people can use their donations to rank photos. For example, here's a contest sponsored by the Cat Welfare Association. Did anybody troll this contest? I have no idea. Perhaps if a dog was #1 then I might guess that some dog lovers had trolled the contest.

This last weekend I went to the Fern and Exotic Plant Show at the Los Angeles Arboretum. I blogged about it and suggested that members of plant societies/forums use the 360 Photo Contest website, or a similar website, to have a plant contest that is judged by donors. How would I know if anybody trolled the contest? Well, if poison ivy won the contest then I might guess that some plant haters had trolled it.

Personally I think it's obviously beneficial to see an accurate reflection of what any given group of people truly cares about. It's equally obvious to me that donating will create a far more accurate reflection than voting will. Yes, it's also obvious that the accuracy of a donation reflection can be decreased by trolls. But groups aren't equally infested with trolls. The groups with the most trolls will suffer from brain drain while the groups with the least trolls will benefit from brain gain.

Amazing, so you didn't control your experiment and it turned out that mattered, and when you didn't get the result you wanted, you didn't change your view that you said you woud.

If only someone had seen that coming...

Thommo wrote:Amazing, so you didn't control your experiment and it turned out that mattered, and when you didn't get the result you wanted, you didn't change your view that you said you woud.

If only someone had seen that coming...

What, exactly, do you mean by "control" the experiment? Also, in the previous thread nobody suggested that participants should vote by replying to the thread.

Use appropriate experimental controls. I think we covered the point at some length.

Thommo wrote:Use appropriate experimental controls. I think we covered the point at some length.

Here's an idea for an experiment. Bob would sit near people eating and secretly play a recording of a stomach growling. In order to discern whether the recording has any effect on people's behavior, Frank would also sit near people eating but he would not play a recording of a stomach growling. In this experiment there's a control group... it's the people who Frank sits near to. It makes perfect sense for this experiment to have a control group.

But I don't see the sense in having a control group for testing the difference between voting and donating. Should I also create another thread with the same 10 books but people neither vote or donate for them? How would this be useful?

I said experimental controls not a control group (which is only one type of experimental control).

But seriously, since it's now been shown that even for you nothing as at stake with this "experiment", why are you even carrying on? Your bluff's been called and you didn't change your mind. That's the end of it.

Thommo wrote:I said experimental controls not a control group (which is only one type of experimental control).

Simply saying "experimental controls" really isn't useful. Try making specific suggestions as to how the experiment could have been improved.

Thommo wrote:But seriously, since it's now been shown that even for you nothing as at stake with this "experiment", why are you even carrying on? Your bluff's been called and you didn't change your mind. That's the end of it.

I said that my belief would be falsified if voting ranked the Wealth of Nations higher than donating did. In case you missed it, voting is one person one vote, which isn't what happened in that thread.

Xerographica wrote:

Thommo wrote:I said experimental controls not a control group (which is only one type of experimental control).

Simply saying "experimental controls" really isn't useful. Try making specific suggestions as to how the experiment could have been improved.

I did, at great length. You completely ignored it. I'm not going to repeat myself, you can just refer back to the previous conversation, it's still there.

Xerographica wrote:

Thommo wrote:But seriously, since it's now been shown that even for you nothing as at stake with this "experiment", why are you even carrying on? Your bluff's been called and you didn't change your mind. That's the end of it.

I said that my belief would be falsified if voting ranked the Wealth of Nations higher than donating did. In case you missed it, voting is one person one vote, which isn't what happened in that thread.

You said the experiment had the potential to change your mind. I told you that you were having a laugh. Again, it's all there in black and white if you want to go look.

We now know who was right.