opinion:

does this and the following comments give the suspect that no one actually read the link I added?

I wouldn't be surprised if some people read it but couldn't find any schema to attach it to.

The Stack is built on a multitude of headless robots, it's such a default state that it becomes invisible for a lot of people.

And individualism means blaming people rather than systems for problems the system could solve.

One essay isn't going to shake most people out of unquestioned beliefs about how responsibility works.

But you may have planted seeds that will grow over time, and that's valuable.

@BESW I am starting to fear there is few hope for that.

Well, remember: the people who engage are a tiny fraction of the people who see.

In public discourse on the Internet, we're talking to the watchers as much as the engagers.

oh, that is true. I should probably say that I fear it won't reach the audience I had in mind.

Maybe it can still reach some passerby.

That said, I am starting to wondering if involving myself in the Bash isn't doing more harm than good.

I always seem to end up with a bitter aftertaste. Maybe I am playing the thing wrong.

For several years I'd grab an easy hat the first day and keep it but change my icon every day according to a hat-inspired theme, and post that.

But now I'm basically hands-off all of mainsite Stack except for the occasional action which seems like it's good for harm reduction or amplifying a marginalized voice.

I am just bugged by the repeated crafting of headless robots in some areas, and the apparent perception of that as "not a problem".

Take a trigger like this one.

> No edits or flags on a positive, open question asked during Winterbash for one week.

It both ask you to avoid improving your own posts and is bait for others to make minor edit just for spite and stopping you from getting the hat.

The thing I'm mindful of is that we're in a community that's driven by gamification; we are founded on the basis that if you award shinies for it, people will do it. The entire badge system is set up to carefully reward specific things and have blanks in certain places. That makes the "but nobody's forcing anyone" assertion unsatisfying: whether you're forced is beside the point.

Instead a reward gradient has been set up and people are following it, which we know they will, and in doing so those people are doing unhelpful things.

This is a conversation that's come up each year and has informed certain flags appearing or disappearing, so users are frustrated that hats that lead to bad side effects keep coming back.

It's quite possible that a structured conversation about the giant robot of offense being part of staff conversations over what hats will exist would be useful.

@doppelgreener oh, I know. The point there is that the hat by it selves aren't a problem. It is the hat as something that users want that cause misbehavior. And since many hats are headless we always end up with the same complaints every time.

The hat in and of itself is there to be a thing users want, though.

So the hat exists to be something users want. it has no function separate from that.

or, minimal function

But, yes, the hats missing the robot head is significant.

It's just the repeated adding of heads where nobody asked: "so if everyone's doing the thing we're asking them to do for this hat, and trying to maximize their chance of getting the hat with no concern for anything else, will site processes continue to happen as intended?"

@doppelgreener Again true. What I meant is that in an ideal world where no one would misuse the robot, the hat could even have a trigger like "downvote N post in 5 minutes" and it wouldn't be a problem, because no one would have the malevolence to do that just for the hat.

I don't think that ideal world is one we could be in.

The underlying principle of the Stack is that shiny incentives for behaviour promote that behaviour.

In a way it is like that old argument about a sword not being the one who kills people - don't remember the actual form but I think it is from bushido.

So within the scope of Stack Exchange, the consideration of a world in which gamification doesn't work is navel-gazing. That it does work is not only assumed, it's demonstrated.

so, hats aren't the problem, the incentivisation attached to them is, but that means we just drop the scavener hunt aspect or replace it fully with some other kind of game

but we gotta consider that the incentivisation will work

to whatever end

it really depends on the triggers.

Some can be useful and can't be abused that much.

Some are just annoying at most, requiring specific actions at specific times.

and then there are some who call for mass posting.

I haven't even seen a hat this year that I both know how to get and that wouldn't change my normal site Behavior