I don’t think it’s fair or accurate to describe downvoting as derisive. I think it’s pretty important people get to not value content very much without it being an expression of contempt towards the author.
One advantage of downvoting over commenting is that it’s less work. Another is that it doesn’t draw attention to the exact thing you think isn’t a good use of people’s attention. That’s a bigger issue when the post is harmfully wrong rather than just poorly written, but it matters even then. Attention is precious.
I agree that low karma can feel really bad and drive away new writers who would have become valuable contributors. I’m not sure what to do about it. Blocking downvotes on new posts incentivizes creating a new account whenever you want to say something controversial.
OTOH, we may not need something that heavy weight. Right now the new author symbol isn’t prominent, isn’t visible at all on many screens, and includes longtime posters who just never accrued much karma. Maybe making the new user symbol more prominent and asking for a norm of leniency would go pretty far.
I have a second concern, that if someone is never going to do well on the forum it’s kinder to let them know earlier. But some time to acclimate seems reasonable.
It seems useful to talk about why I think it’s important that downvoting be an option, and not inherently a social attack, so let me do that. Attention is a precious resource, karma is a tool to manage attention, and downvoting is an important part of karma management. There are plenty of people who are wonderful in many aspects of their lives, who do lots of good, and write posts that people don’t find useful. No one is good at everything. Forum karma is supposed to reflect the quality of the post alone, not be a judgment on their overall character or even necessarily the quality of their ideas.
You’ve argued that harshness against early posts comes at the cost of preventing more valuable posts later. I agree that’s a concern. You haven’t (yet) argued that those posts deserved more karma on their merits, and I think that makes any discussion about their karma incomplete.
I think your arguments are strong and I’ve changed my mind to some extent. I agree with most of your arguments, even though it makes me a bit uncomfortable
I’ll try and articulate why - if these two arguments of yours really hold...
”I have a second concern, that if someone is never going to do well on the forum it’s kinder to let them know earlier. But some time to acclimate seems reasonable.
It seems useful to talk about why I think it’s important that downvoting be an option, and not inherently a social attack, so let me do that. Attention is a precious resource, karma is a tool to manage attention, and downvoting is an important part of karma management. There are plenty of people who are wonderful in many aspects of their lives, who do lots of good, and write posts that people don’t find useful. No one is good at everything. Forum karma is supposed to reflect the quality of the post alone, not be a judgment on their overall character or even necessarily the quality of their ideas. ”
then realistically we are going to exclude most of the global south, because they simply may not write well enough right now by forum norms/standards. Someone who is “good” at writing by local standards here in Uganda, may still not be able to write a compelling forum post—not because of their ability, but because different writing styles are valued here, and they may have not been fortunate enough to hone their writing abilities in a far better education system that many of us are fortunate to have experienced.
If they were encouraged and nurtured, perhaps after a few months or years and a bunch of ‘non-useful’ posts and comments, then they might begin to write at a level which most forum users would consider “useful”. I kind of wish karma could reflect more than just the “quality of the post alone”, but also (to a lesser extent) intention and effort and perhaps even the background of the poster—but that’s probably too hard.
Otherwise something like this Forum competition for African contributors could even lead to more discouragement than encouragement, as many posters with good ideas and intentions who want to dip their toes in the Forum (which for many of us is a fountain of life) might not (yet) have the ability to write what we would consider a compelling post.
I think you’re right—I have failed to make an argument that these posts necessarily deserved more karma on their merits, but I was hoping for a more nurturing and uplifting experience for entrants, which might be difficult to achieve.
I feel strongly that letting people bounce off the forum needs to be an option (and that being on the EAF should be one option among many for people- I think we do everyone a disservice by seeing EA as the be all and end all of impacful work and community). But I also agree that the loss is really sad, potentially anti-impact, and worth trying to fix. Maybe there are ways to onboard people such that it’s a good experience for them and they become good.
Off the top of my head:
have the contest focus on comments or quick takes rather than full posts. People are kinder to those, and it hurts less when they are mean because you put less of yourself into the work. I think the contest probably did participants a disservice but encouraging them to jump straight into big posts.
use an interview format or co-author
offer intensive editing services
spin-off forum. Perhaps in a different language, although if you’re trying to include multiple countries it probably is more efficient to use a colonial language rather than a local one.
Have everyone on the same forum website but with mild partitions by language. Not siloed, but filtered by default. As a bonus, this would stop my feed from being flooded with translated articles.
Onboarding guides for how to write to the forum. I think these technically exist already but don’t reflect actual voting patterns
I like the quick takes idea, extensive editing idea and the co authoring idea. This competition did actually cover a number of your suggestions, including offering free coaching for those who wanted it, and also encouraged co-written articles.
I’m not sure the language suggestions are so important. English is the dominant language of education for the majority of African countries, including I think almost all the origin countries for those entering the contest.
With all this discussion about negative aspects I don’t want to make our like it’s all doom and gloom. A couple of first time posters, for example Natkillu with her amazing reflections on longtermists from an African perspective were both insightful and very well received.
I’d imagine it’s fairly straightforward to use ChatGPT to make a post more seamless for people on the forum to read (by which I mean to include following EA/rat linguistic norms)
I don’t think it’s fair or accurate to describe downvoting as derisive. I think it’s pretty important people get to not value content very much without it being an expression of contempt towards the author.
One advantage of downvoting over commenting is that it’s less work. Another is that it doesn’t draw attention to the exact thing you think isn’t a good use of people’s attention. That’s a bigger issue when the post is harmfully wrong rather than just poorly written, but it matters even then. Attention is precious.
I agree that low karma can feel really bad and drive away new writers who would have become valuable contributors. I’m not sure what to do about it. Blocking downvotes on new posts incentivizes creating a new account whenever you want to say something controversial.
OTOH, we may not need something that heavy weight. Right now the new author symbol isn’t prominent, isn’t visible at all on many screens, and includes longtime posters who just never accrued much karma. Maybe making the new user symbol more prominent and asking for a norm of leniency would go pretty far.
I have a second concern, that if someone is never going to do well on the forum it’s kinder to let them know earlier. But some time to acclimate seems reasonable.
It seems useful to talk about why I think it’s important that downvoting be an option, and not inherently a social attack, so let me do that. Attention is a precious resource, karma is a tool to manage attention, and downvoting is an important part of karma management. There are plenty of people who are wonderful in many aspects of their lives, who do lots of good, and write posts that people don’t find useful. No one is good at everything. Forum karma is supposed to reflect the quality of the post alone, not be a judgment on their overall character or even necessarily the quality of their ideas.
You’ve argued that harshness against early posts comes at the cost of preventing more valuable posts later. I agree that’s a concern. You haven’t (yet) argued that those posts deserved more karma on their merits, and I think that makes any discussion about their karma incomplete.
Thanks Elizabeth, that’s excellent
I think your arguments are strong and I’ve changed my mind to some extent. I agree with most of your arguments, even though it makes me a bit uncomfortable
I’ll try and articulate why - if these two arguments of yours really hold...
”I have a second concern, that if someone is never going to do well on the forum it’s kinder to let them know earlier. But some time to acclimate seems reasonable.
It seems useful to talk about why I think it’s important that downvoting be an option, and not inherently a social attack, so let me do that. Attention is a precious resource, karma is a tool to manage attention, and downvoting is an important part of karma management. There are plenty of people who are wonderful in many aspects of their lives, who do lots of good, and write posts that people don’t find useful. No one is good at everything. Forum karma is supposed to reflect the quality of the post alone, not be a judgment on their overall character or even necessarily the quality of their ideas. ”
then realistically we are going to exclude most of the global south, because they simply may not write well enough right now by forum norms/standards. Someone who is “good” at writing by local standards here in Uganda, may still not be able to write a compelling forum post—not because of their ability, but because different writing styles are valued here, and they may have not been fortunate enough to hone their writing abilities in a far better education system that many of us are fortunate to have experienced.
If they were encouraged and nurtured, perhaps after a few months or years and a bunch of ‘non-useful’ posts and comments, then they might begin to write at a level which most forum users would consider “useful”. I kind of wish karma could reflect more than just the “quality of the post alone”, but also (to a lesser extent) intention and effort and perhaps even the background of the poster—but that’s probably too hard.
Otherwise something like this Forum competition for African contributors could even lead to more discouragement than encouragement, as many posters with good ideas and intentions who want to dip their toes in the Forum (which for many of us is a fountain of life) might not (yet) have the ability to write what we would consider a compelling post.
I think you’re right—I have failed to make an argument that these posts necessarily deserved more karma on their merits, but I was hoping for a more nurturing and uplifting experience for entrants, which might be difficult to achieve.
I appreciate this a lot.
I feel strongly that letting people bounce off the forum needs to be an option (and that being on the EAF should be one option among many for people- I think we do everyone a disservice by seeing EA as the be all and end all of impacful work and community). But I also agree that the loss is really sad, potentially anti-impact, and worth trying to fix. Maybe there are ways to onboard people such that it’s a good experience for them and they become good.
Off the top of my head:
have the contest focus on comments or quick takes rather than full posts. People are kinder to those, and it hurts less when they are mean because you put less of yourself into the work. I think the contest probably did participants a disservice but encouraging them to jump straight into big posts.
use an interview format or co-author
offer intensive editing services
spin-off forum. Perhaps in a different language, although if you’re trying to include multiple countries it probably is more efficient to use a colonial language rather than a local one.
Have everyone on the same forum website but with mild partitions by language. Not siloed, but filtered by default. As a bonus, this would stop my feed from being flooded with translated articles.
Onboarding guides for how to write to the forum. I think these technically exist already but don’t reflect actual voting patterns
Nice one again.
I like the quick takes idea, extensive editing idea and the co authoring idea. This competition did actually cover a number of your suggestions, including offering free coaching for those who wanted it, and also encouraged co-written articles.
I’m not sure the language suggestions are so important. English is the dominant language of education for the majority of African countries, including I think almost all the origin countries for those entering the contest.
With all this discussion about negative aspects I don’t want to make our like it’s all doom and gloom. A couple of first time posters, for example Natkillu with her amazing reflections on longtermists from an African perspective were both insightful and very well received.
I’d imagine it’s fairly straightforward to use ChatGPT to make a post more seamless for people on the forum to read (by which I mean to include following EA/rat linguistic norms)