Search Ideas

I don’t think so, no.

The BoI chapter 1 glossary defines empiricism as “The misconception that we ‘derive’ all our knowledge from sensory experience.” I’m not saying empirical fields derive knowledge from sensory experience.

There’s a difference between ‘empiricism’ and ‘empirical’.

I see, interesting. If only empirical fields can correspond to facts/truth, isn't that a form of empiricism?

This approach is more complex for the bounty initiator than just indicating a total amount they are willing to spend (#3474). It’s best not to require users to do math.

Given the need for a deadline, all critics get paid at the same time anyway.

There could be a UI component showing estimated payout based on current number of criticisms, with a warning that actual payout could be less.

Then it’s less clear to contributors how much money they can expect.

Could pay out to only first x criticisms, where x is small enough the payout for each criticism is high enough to cover transaction costs (and then some).

I can roll out the feature to a few trusted users. Then I can reevaluate later with more experience to judge actual risks rather than speculate ahead of time.

Need to address the risk of people submitting arbitrary counter-criticisms just before the deadline to exclude competing criticisms from the bounty.

The grace period for the initiator unfortunately does not address this risk since he may decide not to review problematic criticisms.

See #3452. Other critics have an incentive to report abuse. People found to abuse deadlines could become ineligible for payouts and excluded from participating in future bounties.

A modification of #2513 could work. Say you start a bounty. Your card is authorized for twice the ceiling. If you’re a good citizen, you’ll be charged the ceiling, at most. But if you’re found to submit arbitrary criticisms to avoid paying, your card is charged the full authorization. Admins can even decide to stop the bounty early if they detect abuse before the grace period beings.

Need to address the risk of people submitting arbitrary counter-criticisms just before the deadline to exclude criticisms from the bounty.

The grace period for the initiator unfortunately does not address this risk since he may decide not to review problematic criticisms.

People who feel cheated can reach out to admins to report bad bounty initiators. Admins can then prevent such initiators from starting more bounties in the future.

There could be an additional grace period for admins to review the initiator’s selections.

Need to address the risk of the initiator himself being a bad actor who rejects pending criticisms for arbitrary reasons just to avoid paying.

Need to address the risk of people submitting arbitrary counter-criticisms just before the deadline to exclude criticisms from the bounty.

The grace period prevents abuse from people other than the bounty initiator.

It doesn’t. It only prevents abuse of the initiator. It doesn’t prevent others from submitting arbitrary counter-criticisms just before the deadline to exclude criticisms from the bounty.

The grace period prevents abuse from people other than the bounty initiator.
But the initiator himself could be a bad actor who rejects pending criticisms for arbitrary reasons just to avoid paying.

Feature idea: pay people to criticize your idea.

You start a ‘criticism bounty’ of ten bucks, say, per pending criticism received by some deadline.

The amount should be arbitrarily customizable (while covering transaction costs). The user also indicates a ceiling for the maximum amount they are willing to spend.

There could then be a page for bounties at /bounties. And a page listing a user’s bounties at /:username/bounties.

When starting a bounty, the user indicates terms such as what kinds of criticism they want. This way, they avoid having to pay people pointing out typos, say.

Anyone can start a bounty on any idea. There can only be one bounty per idea at a time.

To ensure a criticism is worthy of the bounty, the initiator gets a grace period of 24 hours at the end to review pending criticisms. They may even award a bounty to problematic criticisms, at their discretion. Inaction automatically awards the bounty to all pending criticisms at the end of the grace period. If doing so would exceed the ceiling, more recent criticisms do not get the bounty.

People can speculate, but if there’s a grace period, they won’t know how many pending criticisms there will be in the end. So they may still get a payout.

Unlike #3424, however, having a set amount per pending criticism means there’s zero incentive for anyone to submit more criticisms, whereas divvying up the amount among pending criticisms means the incentive is reduced only gradually, and it’s up to people to decide for themselves whether contributions are still worth making.

Feature idea: pay people to criticize your idea.

You submit an idea with a ‘criticism bounty’ of ten bucks per pending criticism received, say.

The amount should be arbitrarily customizable (while covering transaction costs).

There could then be a page for bounties at /bounties. And a page listing a user’s bounties at /:username/bounties.

When starting a bounty, the user indicates terms such as what kinds of criticism they want. This way, they avoid having to pay people pointing out typos, say.

Anyone can start a bounty on any idea. There can only be one bounty per idea at a time.

Rather than set a fixed amount for each pending criticism (#3421), the ceiling could be divided among all pending criticisms equally.

The initiator of the bounty could choose a ceiling for the total they are willing to spend. They could additionally specify the amount per pending criticism.

For example, a user would indicate that they are willing to spend a total of $100 at $10 per criticism.

Rather than set a fixed amount for each pending criticism (#3421), the ceiling could be divided among all unproblematic criticisms equally.