The Idea of Chowk

OK, it IS true that they have chucked out human moderation and are trying a new method. Kudos to the chowkidars for trying.
Perhpas we should make some constructive suggestions.
What they are trying to do is set up a filter so we are not overwhelmed. This is an excellent idea. I cannot even see some posters because they are below the default threshold level. Unfortunately they may not be the posters I wish to avoid but someone like Urstruly who pretty much is some AI program that regurgitates the same thing and has little that is interesting to say.
By the same token, I`d be surprised if even 10% of the people visiting an article are interested in what i have to say.
Therefore, what would be nice is to be able to customize your list so you can filter out people that you don`t care to read. This may be too much to ask. There must be another way.
At any rate, this is a good beginning.

OK, it IS true that they have chucked out human moderation and are trying a new method. Kudos to the chowkidars for trying.
Perhpas we should make some constructive suggestions.
What they are trying to do is set up a filter so we are not overwhelmed. This is an excellent idea. I cannot even see some posters because they are below the default threshold level. Unfortunately they may not be the posters I wish to avoid but someone like Urstruly who pretty much is some AI program that regurgitates the same thing and has little that is interesting to say.
By the same token, I`d be surprised if even 10% of the people visiting an article are interested in what i have to say.
Therefore, what would be nice is to be able to customize your list so you can filter out people that you don`t care to read. This may be too much to ask. There must be another way.
At any rate, this is a good beginning.

Re: # 25

Alephji we think you have something here. But a little correction pliss. We just went back and logged in though one of our several other handles, a handle under which we have been published here but one which we haven’t used in many years. And that handle has an interact index of 2 and not 3 like you purported.

But we think you’re like totally on the right track, dude.

The scoring system is a gradation of persistent interaction and contribution on chowk while maintaining cursory civility. It is not a gradation of intellectual fortitude. If such were the case, then indeed as Amit says a rating of 1 ought to be a badge of honor what with the great chowk jester himself rated 1.

Anywhodeedoo.

Ali Sahib,

Please do not misquote out of context. What I recently commented on Unplugged was:

1. These scores, when we consider the manipulated system used to tabulate them, are at this point arbitrary. Your friend ``Salim`` (of whom you are incomprehensibly short sighted) has about 14 nicks which he has used to drive down the interactor ratings of people he dislikes. It doesnt particularly matter to me what my score is, I`m just pointing this technique out amd what effect it might have on the score average.

And do I deserve a ``6``? Considering that the score index is 1-5, a six would imply extraordinary self confidence. It seems you have misunderstood the post in which I pointed out I received a ``6`` (the highest score) for my logic, analysis and written explication of exam text for my GREs...I also remarked that those scores pay me rent, not chowk scores...try to stay focused, ali...

Urstruly,

We have truly reached the zenith of Dubya intellectualism if your scores are higher than mine...thank your Salim friends for the jacked up numbers...And no, as the womenfolk in my fam remind me, the last place for an educated Pakistani American women to look for affirmation is with most Pakistani men.

All the best!

ansari,

must you spoil all the fun with your moral anecdotes at this time. But the damage is done; You laid a guilt trip on me and now I have to go back to my old habbit of being nice to all people. why everybody is against me?

Here goes

I am appalled to see that I am being used as a benchmark for the Chowk scoring system by every tom dick and harry. I resent that. Every little thing I do at chowk is frowned upon by every one. Even if I write a short story, it is not the story but me who should be taken to the task. I feel like such an outcast here. I have no friends. Why? Why?

This is the for the country club-by the country club-of the country club chowk we have been told several times that Pakistanis wanted back. A microcosm of Pakistani society and governance, microcosm of the Ahmedi allegation and mandatory sentence for blasphemy imposed by insiders on nonconforming outsiders.

In my five years I remember first it was a spy fatwa, then it was a bigo_t fatwa then it was a hatemonger fawa, then it was a whore fatwa then they moved on to a CRIEP fatwa. In between someone wanted to call in the FBI too. All this was to avoid answering any point raised or acknowledging any reference provided. Now chowk has institutionalized the fatwa via the moderator-rating fatwa.

For example, I would point out that Jamat Ul Fuqra could kill Indians in the US since 1980s and hide out in Pakistan, and poster would refuse to acknowledge the information. I would differ on some Indian or Pakistan issue and be called a RSS fanatic. This would be done by a group of posters who wanted to invalidate my views and stop the discussion.

Now a chowk moderator is doing it for them and rest of chowk, by rating my arguments and relieving anyone I am arguing with of the need to counter them. On the other board, an interactor simply disappeared after making nasty allegations, now the chowk moderator is telling me on that interactors` behalf what he thinks of my reply.

The question remains, is there any meaning in my spending time in Pakistani society, with Pakistani mores being forced on me, subjecting myself to Pakistani fatwas? No. Thanks to chowk staff for clarifying the issue for me as never before.

I just saw that hamidm`s rating is 1. So urstruly`s ratings must be some kind of a software bug - a statistical outlier. We all know that comparing urstruly to hamidm is like comparing Sri Lanka to USA in terms of intellectual capability. Anyway, if it makes urstruly happy, good for him.

friend #12

It’s not too difficult to figure out how Chowk staff assigned the initial scores. Interactors who are also published Chowk authors were handed a default initial score of 3, those who are not were given a default initial score of 1. Chowk staff then went over the pool of current interactors boosting some favoured people up a peg and lowering some undesirables a rung (or in at least a couple of cases, two rungs, into the hell of –1). The default initial score rule plus Chowk staff-applied perturbations seem to adequately explain what you have observed.

I don’t think Chowk staff have begun to score most of the individual posts yet – all interacts by a particular interactor are displayed with the same score value. You would have to wait for a few days or weeks (depending on how prolific each individual poster is) for interact indices to converge to values more representative of long-term limits.

OK, so we’ve been on this site guised under one takhallus or another, pretty much since its inception. We are afraid that we have to interrupt our self-imposed hiatus today and in light of these extra-ordinary events issue a joint statement.

This scoring system idea blows! But the reaction of the chowkies blows even more! Who gives a rat’s tadoodle what score Urstruly gets and what score tricky nicki gets? In an Internet chat forum, the public discourse establishes stature or lack thereof. You chowkies need to simmer down. Yes, the scoring is a bad feature but we’ll all get used to it like our noses get used to the smell of our own wind-breakings. To carry that analogy forward, we may even grow to like it in a curious sort of a way.

This does mean that the postings are real time, which is great! Safwan Shah and Company have every right to make this site self-patrolling and self-sustaining. They have given enough of their very valuable time to all of us losers already!

So stop bitching Chowkies, stop complaining to the now non-existant chowk staff about the scores like little snot-nosed kids complain to their mommies about candy. Mummy, mummy how come pappu gets three and me only two, waaaaaaaaaaa! Snap out of it frochrissakes!

Signed Jointly,

Left & Right

Why cumulative rating? I don’t think an integrator’s history should matter when one is rating one individual post. Ali1, for example, is an asshole; but he does manage to come up with some great gems from time to time in spite of himself. But according to current chowk policy, even his good posts will get a rating of 1 because of his historical assholicness.

Urstruly,

We had a buzurg once who told us this story about an old man who used to live in a neighbourhood with these hooligans. Every time the man went out, the punks made it a point to ridicule him and every time they did that, the man responded in the most gracious and decent way by asking how they were and some such. One day a passerby happened to notice this exchange. He stopped the old man to ask how he could possibly be so civil with those punks when they made it a point to humiliate him. The old man replied, smilingly, ``If they can`t abandon their bad habits, how can I abandon my good ones?``

Does this mean that interacts are posted instantly without having to wait for them to go through some moderator? If that is not the case, then filtering is being done at two level. That does not make sense. If moderators think that a post deserves -1 or 0, why post it in the first place? Why not reject it outright? I hope that is not the case.
Secondly, posts should be rated by the readers. Peer rating of posts is more desirable than the rating given by some Godlike moderator, who, being a human will obviously biased. If ratings are made democratic, it will more likely represent the general view of chowk interactors than that of just a few elites.

chowk staff... I think you`ll lose most of your Indian readership. Every nathu ram thinks he is an intellectual, so either you assign an automatic score of 5 to any Indian sounding name, or say good bye to your Indian interactors.......

My personal preference would be ``good bye``....

Urstruly gets a 3? Why?