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Dennett has a nice article on this for written criticism: http://​​www.brainpickings.org/​​2014/​​03/​​28/​​daniel-dennett-rapoport-rules-criticism/​​

Here’s his checklist:

How to compose a successful critical commentary:

1. You should attempt to re-express your target’s position so clearly, vividly, and fairly that your target says, “Thanks, I wish I’d thought of putting it that way.

2. You should list any points of agreement (especially if they are not matters of general or widespread agreement).

3. You should mention anything you have learned from your target.

4. Only then are you permitted to say so much as a word of rebuttal or criticism.

This is nice and practical—it’s good that it focusses on specific behaviours that people can practice rather than saying anything that could come across as “you’re alienating people and you should feel bad”.

One thing I’d add to this is to try to debate less and be curious more. Often discussions can turn into person A defending one position and person B rebutting this position and defending their own. I’ve found that it is often more helpful for both people to collaborate on analysing different models of the world in a curious way. Person A proposes a model of how the world works and person B the starts trying to understand person A’s model—what its assumptions are, where it applies, and where it doesn’t. They can then contrast this with other models of the world and try to work together to find out which is best. If you want to get really into it, drawing diagrams can help both because it helps you think and because it increases the sense that you are working together on a problem, rather than arguing against one another. But it doesn’t have to be this formal—it could just be a friendly discussion about the strengths and weaknesses of different ideas.

On a related note, I think it’s important to realise that people don’t always believe the positions they’re arguing for. I’ll often tell my friends an idea because I’m interested in working out it’s strengths, weaknesses, and implications. If they’re dismissive and try to argue against it I feel that they’re missing the point—it would be more helpful to explore the idea’s strengths and weaknesses together rather than turning it into a debate. This would help us to be more accepting of new ideas that don’t come from the usual EA sources.

Great article! I really think it sets an excellent standard for us to all aspire to and work at.

I recently discovered a downside to hedging and being vulnerable in a public forum. In responding to a blog post I made, a commenter claimed I had an important figure wrong by 2-4 fold. He’d used an adjustment that I thought was not applicable and rather than say ‘no your calculation is wrong’ I hedged by saying I wasn’t an expert in field x and could be explain what calculation he’d used and why. Unfortunately that exchange was used by a critic of EA as proof of my—and the movement’s a ‘ignorance’.

The moral of this story is, I suppose, we risk vulnerability to unsupportive critics by taking these standards. I definitely think it’s a worthwhile trade, and one that will lead to better discussion and a more productive community.

Some of the comments on the forum don’t seem to have any purpose but to make the commenter sound smart/​morally superior. I try to only post comments that are useful, not just ones where I can prove someone wrong. It’s actually hard not to make unhelpful “you’re wrong” type of comments, as per human nature, but I think I have a good system to avoid them: I always write any comment I make in my word processor first, because it’s easier to edit, and then cut and paste it into the comment form. If I’m not sure whether my comment will be really useful (despite how right I think it is), I’ll just leave it in my word processor for a day or two, occasionally referring back to it. I’ll often decide to seriously edit the comment to make it more benign/​useful, but often I end up just dropping it altogether if I think it may not be that constructive. Replying to something as soon as you read it can lead to nonproductive comments – often routed in emotion – that come across as showing someone up.

Jess & Michelle: thanks for this excellent post. Three remarks I’d like to add:

1. We all need support, but individuals vary considerably in the kind of support they need in order to flourish. A kind of support that works well for one person might feel patronising, frustrating or stifling to another, or cold, distant and uncaring to a third. To be effectively supportive, we must be sensitive to individual needs.

2. Being supportive is difficult, so individuals in the community should help others support them. If the support you’re getting from the community is suboptimal, it’s unlikely that other individuals are entirely to blame.

3. As a community, we should create an atmosphere where it’s easy for people to ask for more or different kinds of support when they need to. Admitting vulnerability and requesting support is a sign of strength and maturity, not weakness, so we should praise, encourage and reward those who do this.

Michelle and Jess, thank you so much for continuing to write and think about these problems!

I’ve noticed recently that a lot of successful communities seem to succeed because people want to be in them for their own sake, even leaving aside the stated goals of the community. This kind of hard thinking about our social norms really help to push effective altruism towards that goal.

It might be particularly good to start and end your comment by telling the person what you like and admire about their post. This is particularly the case if you think the overall idea is a good one, though you think there are particular refinements that could be made. That way the person has an overall positive feeling toward your comment, which will hopefully leave them feeling enthused to carry out the specific suggestion you had.

If you need a handy name for this technique, I’ve heard it called the “compliment sandwich” :)

I’ve discovered with these that it feels really important to get the compliments right—not just “great post!” or something but taking the time to put together something specific, thoughtful, and relevant. (For instance, see my attempt above.) Otherwise, if the person you’re talking to is familiar with the compliment sandwich, it can come off as slightly insincere.

Of course, this is hard, but the skill of giving compliments that are sincere, topical, and meaningful will take you very far. And as I mentioned above, I think they also have huge benefits for EA culture at large, in terms of making this a community that people want to participate in.

Highlighting areas of agreement

I think another (underrated) benefit of this, is that it stops the other person from rounding off what you’re saying to the closest argument they’re used to hearing. For instance, if I were trying to persuade a friend that, say, global poverty causes were probably higher-impact than environmental ones, I would be very careful to say that I agreed that anthropogenic climate change was a serious problem, etc., so that the friend didn’t get distracted and start hashing out carefully-rehearsed anti-climate-denial arguments.

As another tip—in informal communication, I’m a big booster of using smiley faces [:)] when I say something that could be read ambiguously. For instance, if I say something that could be read sarcastically, I’ll often end with a smiley to make sure it’s not taken the wrong way.

Nice article! I also think all of these factors are important, not only to build to strengthen our ability to be supportive of another, but also because they simply make us better decision-makers. Here’s an interesting experiment on the “collective intelligence” of groups and what factors contribute to it:

Psychologists have repeatedly shown that a single statistical factor—often called “general intelligence”—emerges from the correlations among people’s performance on a wide variety of cognitive tasks. But no one has systematically examined whether a similar kind of “collective intelligence” exists for groups of people. In two studies with 699 people, working in groups of two to five, we find converging evidence of a general collective intelligence factor that explains a group’s performance on a wide variety of tasks. This “c factor” is not strongly correlated with the average or maximum individual intelligence of group members but is correlated with the average social sensitivity of group members, the equality in distribution of conversational turn-taking, and the proportion of females in the group.

My emphasis.

Here’s the article (Science) and here’s a test of social sensitivity.

Thanks for the post! I really liked it, and it helped me further internalize a lot of what I had read elsewhere (e.g., How to Win Friends and Influence People). I definitely need to think about that again and figure out how to actually integrate it into my list.

Maybe a mandatory criticism checklist before I criticize anyone, with a negative HabitRPG habit if I catch myself having criticized without going through the checklist? Or just a negative HabitRPG habit for all criticism? (I like to think of negative HabitRPG habits as things which are unvirtuous (figuratively soul damaging), and I think giving criticism is that, regardless of how needed it is.)

I’m also reminded of Slate Star Codex’s comment policy: “There is an ancient Sufi saying beloved of the Buddha, which like a surprising number of ancient Sufi sayings beloved of the Buddha, originates from a book of preachy Victorian poetry. It goes: ‘Before you speak, let your words pass through three gates; At the first gate, ask yourself, is is true? At the second gate ask, is it necessary? At the third gate ask, is it kind?’ Slate Star Codex has lower standards than either ancient Sufis or preachy Victorians, and so we only require you to pass at least two of those three gates.”

Err … I like your article. Thanks for the hard work. :)

The above was my main reaction to reading this! Then I thought my comment would be more apposite if it also contained a grain of criticism, so I started looking for something you might have improved.

The only thing I have is that perhaps it would help to lead with a paragraph summarising the recommendations, so that people who don’t read the whole thing still get some of the value, and people who do are more likely to remember it.

Thanks, Michelle!

How to Win Friends and Influence People

I have not read the book, but this seems like a good summary.

I think people perceive differences in their treatment more than they perceive the absolute harshness or kindness of their treatment. If everyone receives harsh criticism from their teacher or boss, in my experience this results in little resentment, and it makes the praise that much better. When I did ballet, the criticism was almost comically harsh. The teacher would say our dancing was “ugly” or “stupid” and that she “hated” it. Sometimes she would just laugh at us. Praise was very rare and very mild (“not half-bad”). But it was the same for everyone, so almost all of us just reacted with amusement at the harshness, and I think we did become much better dancers as a result. Contrast that with the way girls treated one another: some were popular, some were the target of cruel remarks, and in general it was very unequal. This led to a lot of unhappiness, of course.

I’m not saying that over-the-top cruelty is the best way to deliver criticism, but I think people perceive who’s popular and who’s not, even if the criticism is implicit. (Keep in mind that “implicit” sometimes just means passive-aggressive, which can be even more destructive.)

Also keep in mind that people perceive differences in praise. Sometimes the EA community feels a bit clique-ish. For example, it feels kind of hurtful when someone will post statuses naming their favorite people in the EA community.

So the lesson is: don’t be driven by grudges or favoritism. (I know this is one thing I need to be better about myself.)