Fair enough, but I can’t say that I see fielding their criticisms of other students’ comments (in office hours, or whatnot) as “positive reinforcement.” Then again, I’m sure you don’t handle them that way.

In spirit of Pryor’s insight, which is that positive reinforcement works loads better than negative reinforcement, I don’t want to encourage face-to-face criticism.

What I originally liked was that you get a + button but not a – button. I’m of course naively hoping that non-reinforced comments (which become by process of elimination just hot air) will whither on the vine. I think JL would (rightly) suggest that students who are hot-airing it up will be highly correlated with students who blissfully don’t give a crap what other people think.

I don’t see that the LoDA mitigates these pressures, except for the last, perhaps.

In your place, I’d be more likely to (1) encourage students to reprimand one another in class (i.e., face-to-face) for substance-less comments, rather than gossip to you (in part because I feel collegial disagreement is a skill they can learn in our classrooms–and should), and (2) switch around my own teaching style to try out other question formats, exercises, etc.

I also don’t feel like the students are the most qualified person in the room to gauge the quality of their peers’ comments. I am.

So, my response sounds a lot more like a contrast in pedagogical styles than a criticism of your idea, as such.

I am worried a lot about that personal charisma problem – that voting would be governed by status/charisma. On the other hand, I get enough private-channel commentary that some students monopolize conversation with inane comments, so I’m curious how that would work.

In my head, I picture discussion going as normal, and my noticing when 3 or 5 or 10 students make a gesture at the same time – I can even flourish it, to make the incentives clear.

If it gets to a formal, close-balloted system, I have already lost. I’m unwilling to put the time into monitoring that.

So you have nothing positive to recommend my experiment then? I’m worried that it just seems to you like a series of semi-predictable problems..I thought it was a clever idea.

The possibility of personal charisma or social status governing the voting system. Since often-speaking people tend to have these qualities, the censure you envision may not happen.

If voting were closed-ballot perhaps you could manage these more effectively, although you’d have to find a way to get feedback returned to students so they can self-monitor.

But that scene with her poking her head over the partition is magic.

Did you get pears?

Way too many songs, movies, books, and comedic routines to mention, but”Signed, Sealed, Delivered” and “Tell Me Something Good” (preferably the live version where Chaka is still playing with Rufus)–these almost always make me happy.

Rain.

Unexpected mail from someone who means me no harm.

Videos of cats falling off of things. Videos of animals sleeping. Videos of animals dressed as people.

Cleaning something dirty, straightening something crooked.

When my mother strokes my hair.

Revenge, served cold.

Not worrying about paying my bills.

Also, fresh-baked Challah, the thrill of a new book arriving in the mail, reading and re-reading stories by Jorge Luis Borges, and the smell of a new book bought from the store.

And to steal one of yours, the unbridled enthusiasm bit is really amazing.

The problem is that leaning on bloggers who cover these products is a natural extension of leaning on analysts who cover your company, reporters who cover your candidate, etc. Gruber is pretty up-front about his love (and sometimes not, but mostly love) of Apple, and his disdain (and sometimes praise, but mostly disdain) for other products.

But he sure does know it’s a problem (e.g., this jokey payola post).

Maybe I’m just being grumpy, and maybe this is the same shit as anywhere else, academia included. I mean, what else is pushing your cookie after all?

In fact, I expected the SEC-CFTC report about the flash-crash to pop up a ‘fat fingers’ explanation (that someone pushed the wrong button). But no, it really does seem that the current techno-system is permanently on the brink of structural rollercoaster.

I mean, could you imagine buying shares of the inverse S&P 500 VIX fund? I mean, holy mother, who is going to buy shares of an index that rises as short-term market volatility falls?

I think the part about tight coupling is really important. What’s interesting to me is that the market corrected itself as suddenly as it blew a hole in the stock price to begin with.