Bias

[carolynwhite2]

--- In HPFGU-Catalogue at yahoogroups.com, "dungrollin" 
<spotthedungbeetle at h...> wrote:
> 
> Does anybody else find themselves biased against certain posters?  
> I'm trying ever so hard not to be, but it's turning out to be more 
> difficult than I imagined.  
<snip>
< But is it worth coding a post if there's only one decent sentence 
in it?  The alternative in this particular case would (I think) 
generally be 'predictions, no canon' (since there's no 'opinions, no 
canon' category).  Does anyone else find themselves biased against a 
 particular person or style of post, and if so, how do you make sure 
 you're being fair?  

Carolyn:
It is certainly tricky. To look at it another way, I know I give some 
people the benefit of the doubt because I'm amused, not because they 
are on-topic. There are also some people who repeatedly post runs of 
short, uninformed points to a series of posts as they come across 
them. I give them short shrift most of the time, whatever they are 
posting on.

As I think I said someplace, the best perspective is to think how 
useful the reply is in the context of the thread. I am fairly hard on 
embedded itty-bitty reply posts that are very hard to read and don't 
yield very much value for the effort.

The other thing to bear in mind is that since we are dealing with 
posts in quite small chunks at the moment (100 at a time mostly), 
there is a constant change of reviewer all the time. Another person  
down thread might be more lenient. 

That said, as Kelly has just raised here (and Jen has raised with me 
offlist), there is sometimes a big discrepancy in how things are 
getting coded; it would be best to bring that up if you come across 
examples, so we can discuss what the best approach is. 

> 
> While I'm at it - the distinction between 'mere agreement' and
> 'adds nothing new' has got me a mite confused.  And do we 
code 'mere  disagreement' under the former or the latter? Or, since 
they're all  being rejected anyway, does it not matter?

Carolyn:
Well, obviously it doesn't matter enormously, in the scheme of 
things, but I'd say the distinction was that 'mere agreement' was 
exactly that eg 'I agree'/'you said it'..type of comment, 
whereas 'adds nothing new' is more for posts which add no new ideas 
to the thread being coded, and probably also repeat points that have 
been made many times before.

> 
> Dot
> Argh – two very small children in the house so been up since 5.  
> Unfortunately they're related to me so I can't demand they be 
> removed.

I find my cats are very useful in these situations. They. Don't. 
Like. Babies. In reply to anxious enquiries from mothers about 
whether they will bite or scratch, I just say 'yes', unhelpfully, 
possibly also suggesting that they might have fleas. 

Result, horrified mother has to hang around protecting babies from 
potential molestation, and I can go and sit with the cats, usually 
somewhere warm and comfortable, and read the paper...