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Averting Toxic Chats: Computer Model Predicts When Online Conversations Turn Sour
The internet offers the potential for constructive dialogue and cooperation, but online conversations too often degenerate into personal attacks. In hopes that those attacks can be averted, researchers have created a model to predict which civil conversations might take a turn and derail.
After analyzing hundreds of exchanges between Wikipedia editors, the researchers developed a computer program that scans for warning signs in the language used by participants at the start of a conversation -- such as repeated, direct questioning or use of the word "you" -- to predict which initially civil conversations would go awry.
Early exchanges that included greetings, expressions of gratitude, hedges such as "it seems," and the words "I" and "we" were more likely to remain civil, the study found.
"We, as humans, have an intuition of whether a conversation is about to go awry, but it's often just a suspicion. We can't do it 100 percent of the time. We wonder if we can build systems to replicate or even go beyond this intuition," Danescu-Niculescu-Mizil[*] said.
The computer model, which also considered Google's Perspective, a machine-learning tool for evaluating "toxicity," was correct around 65 percent of the time. Humans guessed correctly 72 percent of the time.
[...] The study analyzed 1,270 conversations that began civilly but degenerated into personal attacks, culled from 50 million conversations across 16 million Wikipedia "talk" pages, where editors discuss articles or other issues. They examined exchanges in pairs, comparing each conversation that ended badly with one that succeeded on the same topic, so the results weren't skewed by sensitive subject matter such as politics.
[*] Cristian Danescu-Niculescu-Mizil: assistant professor of information science and co-author of the paper Conversations Gone Awry: Detecting Early Signs of Conversational Failure. (pdf)
The technique sounds useful for non-internet conversations, too... is there an app for that?
(Score: 5, Informative) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday July 25 2018, @03:26PM (4 children)
Not so. I've tried to explain this elsewhere, let me try it again.
I'm a somewhat hi-vis person here. Some of the lefties hate me, some of the lefties dislike me, and of the remaining people, I think most are close to neutral, with a few people liking me. I have no fear of jumping into a conversation, and I reap the downmods from those who hate me the most, plus I get some from the people who dislike me. And, TBH, sometimes I get downmods from neutral people, and even a few from people who probably like me.
But, unless you make an effort to be censored into oblivion, there are enough moderators who are rational, and fair, to pull your stuff out of obscurity.
Just because 3, 9, or even 12 people mod me a troll, does NOT mean that my post becomes invisible.
Somewhere, back in the mists of time (meaning more than a couple days ago) TMB posted the list of the recipients of the most troll mods. TMB and I were both near the top of that list. Neither of us has disappeared, or dried up and blown away as a result.
If you are contributing meaningfully, don't worry about detractors. Keep up the good work, and people will show their appreciation.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 0, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 25 2018, @04:12PM (3 children)
Oh, gosh. I was hoping you'd be sleeping your hangover in a sewage drain and let me be spared of your babble. You can't abstain, can you?
In your dreams perhaps. It's the visibility of an annoying mosquito in a hot tropical night.
Hardly can call most of your posts a "conversation" Mostly noise, like those short wave russian stations bleeding into a neighbouring frequency.
This assumes your post having something worth saving - a big assumption when it comes to your posts. But yeah there are weird people with a fetish for bullshit.
It doesn't make it bear a meaning either. I suspect those who save your bullshit from oblivion are doing it to have some examples to teach their grandkids how not to behave.
Ironic, ain't it. All this thread starting from a whiny AC post. Meaningful contribution indeed.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 25 2018, @04:47PM (1 child)
Jelly?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 25 2018, @10:30PM
Nope. Jerky
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 25 2018, @05:49PM
I disagree with Runaway all the time and believe he makes lots of shitposts without fully being aware, yet your little tit-for-tat list there is the height of lame bitchy whining. It is no surprise what part of your personality is causing the downmods.