Modification talk:Sciento-2019-0007

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Commenting on this modification is closed; the modification is accepted.


Ameer Sarwar

52 months ago
Score 0

This is one of two modifications that I am most uncomfortable with. The point of science in my view is to unearth truth. Voting is an inappropriate way of doing so. As a practical matter, though, I can see that we need to stimulate discussion, have a way of deciding on what should be accepted, etc. So what I will say below addresses some of these worries.

We need to keep in mind who votes and how many people vote. It was suggested in the paper that everyone gets the chance to vote. Though I am sympathetic to this idea's underlying egalitarianism, I am not quite convinced that people who have been inactive for the past few years would be well-informed to vote. Perhaps, we could only allow those people to vote on a given modification who comment on that modification. (One comment qualifies them to vote.) This obviously means that we would have less participation than we would like. That is something that we will have to wait for until the suggestions in modifications 2019-0002 and 2019-0003 are implemented in practice. If, say, we do have increased participation, then we may say something like, "to accept a modification we need to have 60% votes from all those who commented and a minimum of, say, 10 comments by different people." I think that modificaion 2019-0007 is somewhat motivated to quickly advance scientonomic knowledge (and increase participation), but I think it unwittingly undermines the process of acquiring reliable knowledge by delegating it to a democracy. My recommendation would be to wait till the practical suggestions concerning increased participation take their effect. If they do, we may not need this modification. If they do not, then I would have been wrong.

For now, though, I take this modification to be too strong and ill-conceived vis-a-vis the scientific aims of this community, and I accordingly vote to reject it.

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