EA Forum Bot Site
EA Forum

Hide table of contents
Comment Permalink
by Will Payne
3 min read 14

154

Building effective altruismCommunityEffective Altruism Forum
Frontpage

TLDR: I'd like to have the ability to hide the author(s) of all the posts on my news feed so that I see can read the content without knowing about the source. I have some intuitions for why this might be good but mainly I think adding the feature is easy and it lets us check whether or not it's good.

Is this the right place to post this? I can't remember if there's an obvious place to suggest forum features (I think there might have been a survey a while back but I might have imagined it). Since the bulk of this post is closer to "Why you might want this" than "Why you should add this to the forum you maintain" I think it's better posted publically. Also it seems likely this can be quickly made with a chrome extension[1].

The feature

I'd like to be able to blur out author names wherever they appear like this...

One example of how this could look

(It could also be black boxes of regular size or random strings of nonsense characters like this ⏁⊑⟟⌇ ⟟⌇ ⋏⍜⋏⌇⟒⋏⌇⟒[2])

I'd like to be able to click on names to reveal them but would be ok with an easy toggle for the feature.

A larger project would be for folks at CEA to run an AB test where post authors are hidden for one group of users and not hidden for another and publish click through rates and karma from different groups. I think there will be a difference I'm not sure which setting I'd advocate for as a norm though (I'll go into why below).

EDIT: Since a lot of people are suggesting extensions / greaterwrong style solutions. One benefit of an integrated into the forum solution is the ability to separate blinded Karma from unblinded Karma (even if this is only on the back end). I'm mostly interested in what the frontpage looks like when karma is driven only by post content and not by authorship. 

Why I might (or might not) want this

I don't think I say anything super surprising in this section, you're welcome to skip it.

It seems pretty obvious that the authorship of a post affects my click through rate. There are good reasons for this. If I recognise a name as someone who I've read content from before and found that content useful I think it's more likely I'll find their new content useful too. This is the same logic that led me to watch the new Game of Thrones spin off, buy a second pair of Levi jeans, and listen to the latest Dodie album.

However this policy makes me less great at exploring new sources of insight. Historically I'm significantly more likely to re-read Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality than pick up any specific book on my to-read list[3]. 

This actually doesn't just affect me but also, through the karma system, everyone else. FYI this is the factor which made me decide to post this[4]. I can think of a few examples off hand where I opened a post I might not have otherwise because I know the author personally and want to know what they're up to, I then end up upvoting the post. If I extrapolate my policy to everyone else on the forum I'd expect posts from authors who have a lot of friends in the community to do better than the exact same post posted anonymously[5]. I could train myself to stop doing this (and suggest others do so) but it would be a lot easier to just anonymise posts.

Separately once I open a post I'd guess there are a bunch of associations happening at a level of my thinking I'm not aware of when I read a name I recognise at the top of a post (ala Halo/Horn effect). I mostly guessing about what these would be but I expect people I like / have agreed with before get more of the benefit of the doubt and are engaged with less critically. This would mean I'd be more open to novel or unintuitive seeming proposals from people I know who are already established in the community. I think this effect still exists when I do the obvious thing and approach posts with an open mind, you typically can't fix a bias by knowing about it.

Here are some other reasons I might or might not want this feature:

  • Anonymising the forum lets EA community builders see it a bit more like newcomers to the community would (although we can't remove your jargon dictionary)
  • Relying on just titles might incentivise better titles from authors
  • Some posts might be upvoted purely because it's valuable for the community to know what influential person/org in EA is doing at the moment. If the posts are anonymised it might make these posts less visible which might be bad for coordination in the community
  1. ^

    Here's some code which when run in the chrome console will blur authors on the front page, it might not work forever.

    arr = Array.prototype.slice.call(document.getElementsByClassName("PostsUserAndCoauthors-lengthLimited"))
arr.forEach(v => {
       v.style.color = "transparent"  
       v.style.textShadow = "0 0 10px rgba(0,0,0,0.5)"
})
  2. ^

    I actually spent an embarrassingly long time looking for nice looking alien character translators and these aren't up to my standard but sadly I couldn't find any that were aesthetic enough so maybe we should stick with blur.

  3. ^

    Probably the most embarrassing real world example in this post 

  1. ^

    E.g I consider this factor to be sufficient to suggest this feature and experiment but I don't know if it's necessary (in other words I don't know if none of the other factors would have been sufficient on their own).

  2. ^

    Actually I tend to click on anonymous posts because I'm curious about why they're anonymous. I'd expect a post would do better with a popular author than it would under a pseudonym.

Show all footnotes

154

0
0

Reactions

0
0
Mentioned in

More posts like this

Comments14


Sorted by
New & upvoted
Click to highlight new comments since:
Xing Shi Cai13
0
0

If you use Firefox, you can use a customized user CSS file following these steps -- https://superuser.com/a/319322

In your CSS, put

@-moz-document domain(forum.effectivealtruism.org) {
    .UsersNameDisplay-userName {
        opacity: %0 !important;
    }
}
Reply
finnhambly2
0
0

Thanks for this!

For others, as well as fixing/removing the misplaced percent symbol, you also need to do the following:

  1. In a new tab, type or paste about:config in the address bar and press Enter/Return. Click the button accepting the risk.
  2. In the search box above the list, type or paste userprof and pause while the list is filtered. If you do not see anything on the list, please ignore the rest of these instructions. You can close this tab now.
  3. Double-click the toolkit.legacyUserProfileCustomizations.stylesheets preference to switch the value from false to true.

I can see this getting a bit annoying/confusing, as it also blocks out commenters' usernames, but you can always hover over the empty space and read it from the link preview on the bottom-left of the window.

Reply
JP Addison🔸9
1
0

Jim Babcock and I built this feature! You can enable it in your account settings,  under Site Customizations. Let me know if you have any feedback!

(Because it un-blinds you based on mouse-hovers, you will not be able to un-blind yourself well on mobile.)

(I actually built it ~a month ago but forgot to write about it here.)

Reply
Evan R. Murphy8
2
0

The extension for blinding karma and author names has been a game changer for me. Massively improves my forum experience. Strong upvote, it'd be great to have these as native features so that they are much more accessible and others can enjoy the debiasing and mental health benefits.

I tend to prefer blinding karma instead of the author name. But they're both useful at different times. I think adding both and making independently controllable would be a huge step forward. Then the community can experiment with favorite configurations for different contexts.

Thanks to the OP, I've been meaning to post about this for months. And thanks to the forum devs who are doing a ton of work behind the scenes to make everything on these forums possible.

Reply
Charles He3
0
0

I think adding both and making independently controllable would be a huge step forward. 

Some thoughts, not entirely related:

There was another post about blinding karma (maybe not names), at the post level (so no one can see the karma). This might have some good effects on norms and experiences about voting. 

IIRC, this idea about post-level blinding produced a disagreement about practicalities or transparency, and the conversation stopped.

  • This objection about the transparency/practicalities is solved by a system that blinds karma/names for a fixed, limited, time, say, 1/2/7 days, after which everything is revealed. 
    • Also, you can just have a user option (maybe requiring a token effort, like strong voting requires an effort) to unblind. 
    • Reddit actually implements this temporary system, so that you can't see recent karma.

There's many other details that are important. 

But basically if you implement a post level system as something authors can opt into, that seems like a win and another way to roll out this feature.

Reply
Will Payne8
5
0

I'd be interested to hear if my experience is similar to others. Use agree-disagree voting on my replies to this comment to vote in this poll.

Reply
Will Payne2
9
6

For times when the authorship of a post probably affected how I interacted with it. I think those effects were negative. (E.g they were closer to biasing against novel ideas from newcomers to the movement than correctly promoting important updates about influential people/organisations in the movement to the frontpage)

Reply
Will Payne1
30
0

I can think of a time where the authorship of a post probably affected how I interacted with it

Reply
Charlie_Guthmann5
0
0

I posted something similar and there's a few comments if you want to check them out. 

Reply
Will Payne3
0
0

(Posting here so people who just read this post can easily see) 
 

From the comments I think the consideration I hadn't considered was names on posts hold people accountable for the content of their post.

Reply
Michael3
0
0

One quick hack to do this could be using an ad-blocking extension such as uBlock Origin. It has an option to selectively block parts of the website (Right click on the element and choose "Block element..." and then "Create")

Reply
More from Will Payne
47
Custom iPhone Widget to Encourage EA Forum Use
Will Payne
· · 2m read
1
1
View more
Curated and popular this week
Paul Present
 ·  · 28m read
 · 
Note: I am not a malaria expert. This is my best-faith attempt at answering a question that was bothering me, but this field is a large and complex field, and I’ve almost certainly misunderstood something somewhere along the way. Summary While the world made incredible progress in reducing malaria cases from 2000 to 2015, the past 10 years have seen malaria cases stop declining and start rising. I investigated potential reasons behind this increase through reading the existing literature and looking at publicly available data, and I identified three key factors explaining the rise: 1. Population Growth: Africa's population has increased by approximately 75% since 2000. This alone explains most of the increase in absolute case numbers, while cases per capita have remained relatively flat since 2015. 2. Stagnant Funding: After rapid growth starting in 2000, funding for malaria prevention plateaued around 2010. 3. Insecticide Resistance: Mosquitoes have become increasingly resistant to the insecticides used in bednets over the past 20 years. This has made older models of bednets less effective, although they still have some effect. Newer models of bednets developed in response to insecticide resistance are more effective but still not widely deployed.  I very crudely estimate that without any of these factors, there would be 55% fewer malaria cases in the world than what we see today. I think all three of these factors are roughly equally important in explaining the difference.  Alternative explanations like removal of PFAS, climate change, or invasive mosquito species don't appear to be major contributors.  Overall this investigation made me more convinced that bednets are an effective global health intervention.  Introduction In 2015, malaria rates were down, and EAs were celebrating. Giving What We Can posted this incredible gif showing the decrease in malaria cases across Africa since 2000: Giving What We Can said that > The reduction in malaria has be
LewisBollard
 ·  · 8m read
 · 
> How the dismal science can help us end the dismal treatment of farm animals By Martin Gould ---------------------------------------- Note: This post was crossposted from the Open Philanthropy Farm Animal Welfare Research Newsletter by the Forum team, with the author's permission. The author may not see or respond to comments on this post. ---------------------------------------- This year we’ll be sharing a few notes from my colleagues on their areas of expertise. The first is from Martin. I’ll be back next month. - Lewis In 2024, Denmark announced plans to introduce the world’s first carbon tax on cow, sheep, and pig farming. Climate advocates celebrated, but animal advocates should be much more cautious. When Denmark’s Aarhus municipality tested a similar tax in 2022, beef purchases dropped by 40% while demand for chicken and pork increased. Beef is the most emissions-intensive meat, so carbon taxes hit it hardest — and Denmark’s policies don’t even cover chicken or fish. When the price of beef rises, consumers mostly shift to other meats like chicken. And replacing beef with chicken means more animals suffer in worse conditions — about 190 chickens are needed to match the meat from one cow, and chickens are raised in much worse conditions. It may be possible to design carbon taxes which avoid this outcome; a recent paper argues that a broad carbon tax would reduce all meat production (although it omits impacts on egg or dairy production). But with cows ten times more emissions-intensive than chicken per kilogram of meat, other governments may follow Denmark’s lead — focusing taxes on the highest emitters while ignoring the welfare implications. Beef is easily the most emissions-intensive meat, but also requires the fewest animals for a given amount. The graph shows climate emissions per tonne of meat on the right-hand side, and the number of animals needed to produce a kilogram of meat on the left. The fish “lives lost” number varies significantly by
Neel Nanda
 ·  · 1m read
 · 
TL;DR Having a good research track record is some evidence of good big-picture takes, but it's weak evidence. Strategic thinking is hard, and requires different skills. But people often conflate these skills, leading to excessive deference to researchers in the field, without evidence that that person is good at strategic thinking specifically. I certainly try to have good strategic takes, but it's hard, and you shouldn't assume I succeed! Introduction I often find myself giving talks or Q&As about mechanistic interpretability research. But inevitably, I'll get questions about the big picture: "What's the theory of change for interpretability?", "Is this really going to help with alignment?", "Does any of this matter if we can’t ensure all labs take alignment seriously?". And I think people take my answers to these way too seriously. These are great questions, and I'm happy to try answering them. But I've noticed a bit of a pathology: people seem to assume that because I'm (hopefully!) good at the research, I'm automatically well-qualified to answer these broader strategic questions. I think this is a mistake, a form of undue deference that is both incorrect and unhelpful. I certainly try to have good strategic takes, and I think this makes me better at my job, but this is far from sufficient. Being good at research and being good at high level strategic thinking are just fairly different skillsets! But isn’t someone being good at research strong evidence they’re also good at strategic thinking? I personally think it’s moderate evidence, but far from sufficient. One key factor is that a very hard part of strategic thinking is the lack of feedback. Your reasoning about confusing long-term factors need to extrapolate from past trends and make analogies from things you do understand better, and it can be quite hard to tell if what you're saying is complete bullshit or not. In an empirical science like mechanistic interpretability, however, you can get a lot more fe
Recent opportunities in Building effective altruism
41
EA Global Referral Program
Ivan Burduk
· · 2m read
0
0
10
EAGxNordics in Norway: apply now
Amalie Farestvedt 🔸
· · 3m read
1
1
32
Introducing Effective Accountability: Project and Job Search Accountability Groups
2 authors
· · 2m read
1
1
View more