This is a story submission that I made yesterday (that was rejected). Here's the summary:

According to an article published today in Science Magazine, overthinking important decisions is counter-productive. The study found that for unimportant decisions (such as buying shampoo), deliberation would yield useful results (people pick the best product), whereas for more complex and expensive decisions (such as buying furniture or a car), deliberation would tend to decrease the likelihood of picking the optimal product. From the Science Magazine news report: 'as the decisions become complex (more expensive items with many characteristics, such as cars), better decisions and happier ones come from not attending to the choices but allowing one's unconscious to sift through the many permutations for the optimal combination.'



More information on the research:

There is also news coverage of this study on Reuters and WebMD.

The actual Science paper citation is: Ap Dijksterhuis, Maarten W. Bos, Loran F. Nordgren, Rick B. van Baaren "On Making the Right Choice: The Deliberation-Without-Attention Effect" Science 17 February 2006: Vol. 311. no. 5763, pp. 1005 - 1007 (for those with subscriptions: DOI 10.1126/science.1121629). The abstract from the actual paper says:

Contrary to conventional wisdom, it is not always advantageous to engage in thorough conscious deliberation before choosing. On the basis of recent insights into the characteristics of conscious and unconscious thought, we tested the hypothesis that simple choices (such as between different towels or different sets of oven mitts) indeed produce better results after conscious thought, but that choices in complex matters (such as between different houses or different cars) should be left to unconscious thought. Named the ''deliberation-without-attention'' hypothesis, it was confirmed in four studies on consumer choice, both in the laboratory as well as among actual shoppers, that purchases of complex products were viewed more favorably when decisions had been made in the absence of attentive deliberation.

I find the result of this study very interesting. Anecdotally, I'm sure many of us have had the experience of trying to make a difficult decision, and going in circles: reconsidering the same data over and over again. Ultimately, I often just "make a choice!" and interestingly, this choice often turns out to be a good one. This study suggests that we should follow our instincts even more often. It's also possible that people would suffer from Buyer's remorse less intensely if they spent less time worrying about their purchases (both because their purchases were, on average, more optimal, and because they would not have stressed-out over the purchase in the first place quite so much).


Edit: Looks like someone else submitted the same news item.

This is not a rant about how slashdot has "sold out" with the recent inclusion of a "Vendors" section. Slashdot has always been a commercially-supported community-driven site (i.e.: we look at ads to support the bandwidth costs). That's fine. I actually think the "Vendors" section is a great idea. We get the slashvertisements put into a logical place, so that people can easily ignore them if need be.

However, the AMD vendor section (as of this writing there is only an AMD in the vendor list) is worthless. Apparently it's up to the vendor to post stories into their section, so AMD can decide what to post and how often to post. What have they chosen to do? They have wasted an opportunity by making their section useless and worthless. They have posted literally dozens of stories every day. All of the stories (of course) point to new AMD products, or articles about how AMD is cool and whatnot. This in and of itself is fine... but the fact is that they've killed the part of slashdot that actually makes it fun and useful: the comments. Each story has a comments section, but NO ONE ever posts comments.

The reason that people avoid it is simple. No, it's not because we dislike talking about commercial products (lots of stories are about our fav. commercial products)... it's because they've overloaded that section, making it impossible to find a good place to have a discussion about the product or news release.

It's too late. The damage is done. What they *should* have done is to release one (or two) stories when the vendor section first started. Slashdotters would have been intrigued, and we would have gone there and added some comments; had a few discussions (both about the vendor section, and AMD products, no doubt). As the days went by, people with an interest in AMD would go and look at the latest items, and probably interesting discussions would evolve in the AMD section. This would generate alot of interest in the products, as we would be able to advise each other on what to buy, etc.

Instead, every slashdotter (it would seem) has been turned off from the whole notion of using that section. Based on the number of comments that appear (which is to say, almost none), no one is interested in that section. And it's too late. AMD wasted their chance, and this also means that future vendors won't bother listing in the Slashdot vendor section, since it's obviously useless.

No one is reading those press releases, because there are hundreds and they are not differentiated. If only they had chosen a more sensible route, they could really have generated some interest in the community.

Oh well, another good idea destroyed by over-eager PR-types.

These messages will be kept in the system for only 31 days, whether they have been read or not. After 31 days, they will be deleted.

Messages marked with "*" are unread.

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The list goes on, but I don't want to turn my own journal into a page-lengthening post

The last few months I have been doing some research into the trolling phenomenon on slashdot.org. In order to do this as thoroughly as possible, I have written both normal and troll posts, 1st posts, etc., both logged in and anonymously, and I have found these rather shocking results:

• More moderator points are being used to mod posts down than up. Furthermore, when modding a post up, every moderator seems to follow previous moderators in their choices, even when it's not a particularly interesting or clever post. There are a LOT more +5 posts than +3 or +4.
• Logged in people are modded down faster than anonymous cowards. Presumably these Nazi Moderators think it's more important to burn a user's existing karma, to silence that individual for the future, than to use the moderation system for what it's meant for : identifying "good" and "bad" posts (Notice how nearly all oppressive governments in the past and present do the same thing : marking individuals as bad and untrustworthy because they have conflicting opinions, instead of engaging in a public discussion about these opinions)
• Once you have a karma of -4 or -5, your posts have a score of -1 by default. When this is the case, no-one bothers to mod you down anymore. This means a logged in user can keep on trolling as much as he (or she) likes, without risking a ban to post on slashdot. When trolling as an anonymous user, every post starts at score 0, and you will be modded down to -1 ON EVERY POST. When you are modded down a certain number of times in 24 hour, you cannot post anymore from your current IP for a day or so. So, for successful trolling, ALWAYS log in.
• A lot of the modded down posts are actually quite clever, funny, etc., and they are only modded down because they are offtopic. Now, on a news site like slashdot, where the number of different topics of discussion can be counted on 1 hand, I must say I quite like the distraction these posts offer. But no, when the topic is yet another minor version change of the Linux kernel, they only expect ooohs and aaahs about this great feat of engineering. Look at the moderation done in this thread to see what I mean.
• Digging deep into the history of slashdot, I found this poll, which clearly indicates the vast majority does NOT want the moderation we have here today. 'nuff said.

Feel free to use this information to your advantage. I thank you for your time.

Update 2001-01-17:
Moderation Totals: Offtopic=30, Troll=1, Redundant=2, Insightful=8, Interesting=21, Informative=7, Overrated=2, Total=71
My posting of this same entry has brought about a somewhat bigger response than expected. After an initial rise to a score of +4, it has been hovering between -1 and 4 for some time, causing my karma to rise to as high as -2 at times, until suddenly the entire thread (40+ direct replies) was modded to -1 : offtopic.
I have never been someone who believes every conspiracy theory about /. editors abusing their powers to mod down anything that doesn't fit into their viewpoint, but this struck me as extremely odd. (My karma dropped down to -13 in 5 minutes or so.)
Don't get me wrong, I couldn't care less about these karma points (I'd say the username is a bit of a giveaway), but trying to mod a thread that has caused so much upheavel into oblivion classifies as censorship in my book.
Remember, although admittedly this post was somewhat trollish in appearance, it clearely voiced the opinion of many on slashdot, and many either approved of it, or at least had very clear reasons why they didn't. All of them got modded down in the same sweep of -1:offtopic

Think about it, editors

Another update 2001-01-17:
The thread seems to have settled now, and the original post is back at +5:interesting:
Moderation Totals: Offtopic=34, Flamebait=1, Troll=2, Redundant=2, Insightful=8, Interesting=27, Informative=8, Overrated=2, Underrated=2, Total=86.

Well, I submitted a story, asking the editors to explain more about how and when they moderate. I don't expect to hear about it though.

Yet another update 2001-01-17 (last one today, I promise):
Moderation Totals: Offtopic=47, Flamebait=1, Troll=3, Redundant=2, Insightful=9, Interesting=32, Informative=9, Funny=2, Overrated=2, Underrated=3, Total=110

No surprise, my story was rejected

After another threadslap the entire thread is back at -1:offtopic, and I'm back at -13 karma. I'll just lay low for a while, as I can't post anymore (and with the ongoing moderation being done : +1:interesting, 1 minute later -1:offtopic, it doesn't seem like that's gonna change soon.)

Sad, very sad. I can't even comment on my own journal

Update 2001-01-18:
Moderation Totals: Offtopic=130, Flamebait=3, Troll=4, Redundant=3, Insightful=24, Interesting=76, Informative=17, Funny=3, Overrated=2, Underrated=20, Total=282, and no sign of slowing down.

I heard kuro5hin.org has a story about this little episode, and to my surprise I found an explanation there by Jamie McCarthy. Why he would say this on K5 instead of on /. (This journal would be a good place) is beyond me, perhaps he likes K5 better than /. anyway.