Why is our meta participation so low?

2 or 3 votes, 1 answer, sometimes no answer. I feel silly even bothering.

@fredsbend Indeed, somewhat. But all specifics get lost in that way. It is trivial that the org uses a test they think valid to "determine howto decline the worst y% in that test" vs "'the IQ' of 83 (that you inhereted) is the absolute and unchaniging minimum necessary" (as it is neither ojectively, reliably, validly and all encompassing) measureable necessary".

The real crux is the IQ and how its treated. In that Q&A nobody sems to realise that this construct number isn't like water temperature. All the tests out there measure something different, and for all the 'different stuff' they are differently good. "Compares roughly to test X with corr 0.8" is a poor crook and not like a conversion from Fharenheit to Kelvin…

@fredsbend That's a disease I noticed on several sites, not this one alone.

And after noticing that on another site I was told that it is a useless "discussion forum". We can't go there and influence policy. Contrary to expectation.

Have you ever seen how anything is getting done there?

How does anyone determine what consensus emerged from the discussions there?

A user can't do that. There is no indicator for that. (In former times there was the magic of beginning and a FAQ for new users was created). But from the last 2 years, there was apparently nothing elevated to 'policy'?

I was also told that without "participation of a significant portion of the userbase" there cannot be anything done. Catch-22? No meta is there for people to vent steam over "why was comment deleted". Making meta a) some kind of painkiller, opium for the people, and b) an organised filibuster of silence over positive policy changes.

@LangLangC I think the lack of activity is too blame. What else can we do? Meta is the place for policy discussion and change. If no one's there, we're talking to ourselves.

So we must change this one thing before we can do anything else.

I have no ideas other than nagging people to read and vote.

One prior thing would be to get to know what counts as "is policy" and how that is marked on meta. What is the process, how does it work. The recent Q on meta is a good one. We're talking about a constitution when nobody ever has seen any document? (Even British constitutional law seems easier to get across)

Perhaps tags like "policy-feature request" with "status completed" and "status denied"? Dunno.

@LangLangC It's never occurred to me, but concepts like common law and unpapered constitutions are exactly what we have.

On sites where I felt it worked, it was more a feeling rather than a metric whether votes indicated "majority" or "consensus". Mods were only ones allowed to tag FAQ, and they did so only after time and lack of complaint occurred.

I was in the thick of it and meta participation regularly produced multiple answers and 10+ votes. I think it worked well, but the participation level was key to the whole thing.

If some of the meta posts I'd written yielded only 2 votes and 1 answer, I would have been disenfranchised myself, further contributing to the meta participation problem.

Now, we currently have low meta participation, so "increase it and everything gets better" doesn't actually help us at the moment.

@LangLangC Perhaps this would help in the meantime.

But then we'd have to lean on some authority, right? I guess the CMs could be that, or the mods. We could put things to a vote, a new question dedicated to the vote tally, timeframe limited, locked when out of time. If fixed to proposition style "enact this policy, yes or no", it might work.

When votes are on and needed, we promote it on main. We have several avenues to get things to show on main.

If you build it they will come!

(and then kick it down, jk).

Since I know you have an education in the topic, you might be interested enough to read my meta participation on Christianity SE. You will see the participation level is the critical factor there. Or it at least was. I've not been active for 2 or 3 years, for some reasons I've bitched about elsewhere on the interwebs.

@fredsbend Well, to be honest, I am only inferring from what I experience and, read and mods tell me. On MetaSE it looks different then on specific metas. On HistorySE I was told "get consensus", "post it to meta", "that high vote post you refer to is not policy", "your proposal may have gathered the relative majority but meta participation is too low"

@fredsbend I'd see that as one of the advantages of positive law. If written down, in a fixed place, that's sth to refer to, unambiguously. But even in the current SE, how is one to determine what policy is? Thing like CoC wsa largely handed down from CM heaven. Try to argue for a change in that and get shot down in flames on MetaSE. Ask on site metas about what CoC means for that site and how it should be applied and experience either what MetaSE has or watch tumbleweeds die of boredom?

Like on Skeptics meta I asked quite to the point "how is that supposed to work?" No answer as of yet, except "imperfect universe". Unless someone explains to me how I am in error, I maintain that first we need some kind of process fleshed out.

On the note of "Cultural Marxism" some have written stuff.

But unfortunately , this is assuredly not 'a mistake' on JPs half. How he misrepresents 'IQ', heritability, biologism, hierarchies is all pointing into the same direction. Very distasteful. Your note that he doesn't directly and openly states "da Jooden, Tomania" may be true (can't watch all of what he cranks out).

But the amount of dog whistling is impressive, In fact, I was quite amused to see him repeaetdly trying to shut down his fans in live audiences who ask in Q&A "And what about da Jooden…?"

And don't get me wrong, one can be of the opinion "a that leftist theory is bogus, I don't like it". But I guess we agree that seeing "behind all this" a group of holocaust survivors-by-fleeeing Jews who spun a perfiduous plan 80 years ago that is now fruiting to… is a bit too far off. It doesn't whiff of brown stuff by accident. It is.

These psychometrics have a very problematic heritage. Of racism, unscientific and unfounded justifications of inequality, and all that on quite weak science that repeatedly suffered catastrophic set-backs. Not least of outright scientific fraud On that notion, WP presenting a wofully false balance on this.

The recent answer may have weaknesses. And it quotes from law, regulation, experts in the filed, those like Kaufman who actually constructed IQ tests and respected statisticians. Do you think I really have to dumb that post down to JP claims that "mil requires having 10 apples which is equal to 83 oranges, thereby proving that food is the most important and heritable predictor for success in life"?

> And these conspiracy theorists are almost always anitsemites, sometimes without even knowing it, and almost always denying it. Partly as they do not understand or deny the concept of structural antisemitism.

For pol SE

I have trouble taking seriously posts that so quickly turn to Orwellian logic ...

My experience with the term is limited, and I can take you at your word that usual use is from antisemites. But the charge that you can actually hate and not know it is a bit crazy. But in today's world, simple biases stemming mostly from stereotypes puts you on equal footing with actual racists, so at least Orwellian worlds are consistent, albeit ridiculous.

Skimming a bit more through that post now and the comments, I find something a bit chilling: the conclusion that disagreement with far left and marxist politics is antisemitic.

Frankly, "the right side of the aisle is full of racists" is a frequently repeated meme that has derailed a lot of conversation. I'm suffering from mudslinging fatigue.