September 26 E Hi Said, This is Elizabeth from the moderation team. I sent you a message using the LessWrong PM system but didn't hear back, which isn't surprising given how terrible the messaging system is. S Hi, just saw this What's up (I don't know where the PM system is or how to use it, sorry) Oh hey I found it (I mean I found the message) (Still not sure how I'd find this without someone having linked me to the inbox page, though I guess you guys are working on that part) Well anyway, I can't really tell when you sent me this message here, so I am not sure if you're going to see this soon or anything, and I have to afk for a while, but I can easily be reached by email (obormot@obormot.net) or on IRC (Obormot on Freenode); the latter is preferable, if you're looking to real-time chat with me I guess I'll check back here once in a while too September 28 E yeah, the inbox set up is pretty terrible right now, it's on the list but not on top S Oh, hello You guys keep odd hours… E yeah, I'm not thrilled about being awake right now but it seems to be what I'm doing I'm looking at your comment about CFAR on the double crux thread, and honestly, I'm extremely torn. On one hand, there's already a high tax on criticizing ingroup institutions like CFAR, and I want that to be easy. On the other hand, I think gjm is correct that it diverts attention from the topic of the post (double cruxing) to personal opinions about CFAR In a nutshell: LW *does* have a requirement for somewhat prosocial wording, although lawrahn may be wrong that this particular comment was antisocial S What does "prosocial wording" mean exactly Huh, I just wrote a reply and could've sworn I saw it send, but now it's gone Whoa there it goes E that's a good question and is still evolving- you're the first person we're trying to work with on this. Let me pick some examples in an attempt to show where the line is does the concern about "changing the topic from double crux to CFAR" make sense? S Yeah hang though before I answer that can I tangent real quick and ask - is there any way of expanding this Intercome chat window dealie? It's super awkward to chat in this little thing :/ *hang on E not to my knowledge :( I don't have IRC set up, if you're on the discord channel we could use that S I don't use Discord, no. Ok, I'll put up with it Anyway... About that subthread (I'm reading it now)... it seems to me like, going off on a tangent about whether a particular sentence I said in my comment is or is not prosocial, or, whether it's a hidden attack, or not a hidden attack, or what is it for, etc., dissecting it, all that sort of thing... I'm reasonably sure it's more damaging to discussion than not only anything I actually said, but even any hypothetical stronger/meaner thing (like "P.S. btw CFAR sux lol, you're all terrible" - I wouldn't say that, but just an example) Also, and, I guess, more importantly Here's the thing about both that subthread, and also this discussion we're having right now I don't necessarily disagree with you about the idea that that comment of mine, or other comments I've made, had things in it that I could've said more tactfully, or taken the time to phrase in a less confrontational way, or moderated or obscured my views to ensure that fewer people's feelings were hurt, etc. This is all plausible in general - I don't think discussing specific cases is necessary / important - but yeah that's totally a plausible thing But The thing is that, if, when I post/comment on LW, I have to be taking this level of care to be "prosocial" or tactful or non-offensive or etc. etc., if I have to stop and consider my tone and so on to this degree Well, what will actually happen is that I just won't post or comment And I say that not in any sort of, like, "yeah well you guys suck anyway" sense, you know? I've been reading LW since before it was LW, I don't even remember when I registered and started posting but it's certainly been some years, so I'm invested in, broadly speaking, the community E Raising the cost of a thing means you do it less. I get that. S Buuuut what's going on here is that - and this is imo unfortunate - the website you guys have built is such that posting or commenting on it provides me with a fairly low amount of value This is something I really do find disappointing, but it is what it is (for now? things change, of course) So again it's not that I disagree with you about anything you've said But the sort of care / attention / effort w.r.t. tone and wording and tact and so on, that you're asking, raises the cost of participation for me above the benefit (Another aspect of this is that if I have to NOT say what I actually think, even on e.g. the CFAR thing w.r.t. Double Crux, well, again, what then is the point) (I can say things I don't really believe anywhere) E I think there are some fairly learnable things that would make your posts much more palatable without taking much more energy. In fact it seems like you already know how to do the thing, since you're doing it now, although I don't know how much energy that's taking you But if you're saying "it's comment exactly as you are, or nothing"... I honestly don't know what our decision is, I'd have to talk with the other mods S It's certainly nonzero, and I'm doing it in the hope that my comments might benefit you guys, or provide some sort of insight into at least one user's perspective, or help you in some way at all E your utility function is what it is S If the takeaway here is that I have to learn things or change my behavior, well - I'm not averse in principle to doing that ever under any circumstances, but it has to be worth my while, if you see what I mean Currently it is not I hope to see that change, of course! Do you see what I'm saying, though, at all? About the incentive to participate? Separately from the cost, I mean Like, if you have a user of your product saying "yeah you know what guys, I basically don't care whether I get to keep using this or not", that's relevant, right? E Yes, absolutely. My absence of comment on that is that I'm taking your report as a given. S Great I'm glad to hear it I'm sure you guys will make some reasonable decision w.r.t. to my participation, no hard feelings either way But, of course, I'll be disappointed if the incentives stay as they are E I think "make website better" is everyone's shared goal that we can't count on to dodge trade offs S Not sure what you mean About "dodge trade offs"? E we can't say "just make commenting on the website more rewarding" to dodge the issue of deciding what to do with users that are both high value and high cost to the community S Well… why not, actually? E because it was already a goal everyone is trying really hard for for many reasons, including in order to attract better comments S Sure, but what I'm saying here is that the result is insufficient Now if you're holding the rewardingness/quality of the website or of participation constant Then yeah totally you're right But in that case, well, there's nothing more to talk about, I guess i.e. if what you're saying is "this is as good as it gets, we can't improve, we have to figure out how to do the best with this" - yes, your view makes sense then, but also in that case I guess there's not much reason for me to participate anyway? Does that make sense? Or did I misunderstand you E I'm saying "we'll just make everything awesome" would be a cop-out on a hard decision S But that's the point! It's like How do we ration this food Do we give it to the best people, or our neighbors, or what E What do you think would make the site better, that's not already being done? S Well we could just invent this new technique that grows 10x more food! Historically, that's been the best way to solve such problems... Anyway, as far as what I think would make the site better Gosh I mean I have a lot of opinions on this I could talk to you all day about that Definitely would have to do it in a more convenient venue than this chat thingy Like, you said that "make everything awesome" would be a cop-out But actually I think that's the main problem? It's not awesome enough (see, by the way, that is an example of being tactful ;) (my actual opinion is, let's say, a little stronger than that) (and also, of course, tremendously more detailed) (I'm not sure if you know from reading my comments at all but I'm a UX designer / front-end developer / ex-HCI-researcher, so my views/comments re: the website come largely from that background) E oh, you mean like make the physical infrastructure better. things that can be done by fiat. S I'm not sure what you mean by "physical infrastructure" here E as opposed to "get higher quality posts" S Both! User experience, usability, content (they are not entirely unrelated!) Purpose Community management Everything There are many opportunities for improvement, imo Here's maybe an illustrative example What makes SlateStarCodex awesome? That it IS awesome needs no proof, I hope! Sometimes people come to that site and they post mean things and Scott just bans them outright And then They come BACK And evade the ban To keep commenting So the question to consider here is Suppose you banned some people from LW 2.0 How much ban-evasion would you see? Would people try to evade bans to come back and keep commenting because they just really want to participate? Or would they shrug and go "lol ok w/e"? I don't know, but I suspect the balance skews more toward the latter than it does among the SSC commentariat E If this conversation goes on I'm going to get sarcastic, and that's going to undercut my "please be nicer when you comment" stance. I'll talk to the other mods and let you know what we decide on how much effort to be nice we expect from you on comments, with the understanding that this may drive you away, although of course we hope to get good enough to bring you back S Heh, alright :) By the way As a sort of postscript I think that community norms that say, e.g., "don't make comments like that one about CFAR because it's not prosocial" Are a bad thing I would, as I said above, tolerate such things, if the incentives for participation were high enough But I do also just think they're straight-up bad I actually think this is a much smaller problem than the overall "insufficient awesomeness" thing (or maybe it's one relatively small component of it - depends on your perspective, I guess) But there you have it Ok, I'm going to go ahead and close this browser window now - or was there something else you intended to say? I don't want to cut you off You know what, I just scrolled up a bit and I think something I didn't sufficiently convey is - I think that there's a lot of room for improvement of LW 2.0, AND, I would love to be of any assistance I could in that improvement (and, from conversations with other folks who've been using the site, this is also true of more people than just me) Anyway, I do wish you guys the best of luck in making the site maximally awesome o/ E Thanks. I'll pass on that offer to the design/eng team, and let you know our decision on your comments. E Hi Said, The mod team has talked about it, and we're going to insist you comment with the same level of tact you showed while talking with me. If that makes it not worth your while to comment on the new LW that's regrettable and we hope someday the quality makes it worth your while to come back on these terms, but we understand and there are no hard feelings. S Alright, thanks for letting me know E you're welcome
