I have posted on the forum quite a few times. It has sometimes been part of my job to write posts for the forum. I think that I am generally a strong writer, and I rarely feel imposter syndrome.
But even I find it intimidating to post on the forum. Some of what is written here is just really, really well written and thought out. It’s intimidating to think you are posting alongside those posts! I think in my case though, it’s a good thing I’m intimidated. If I wasn’t at all intimidated, I would innundate the forum with random ramblings, because my general bar for sharing thoughts in other contexts (e.g. with my friends in informal settings) is very low. I was the kind of person who used to write emails to administrators in middle school asking them for changes to the school’s caterpillar abatement policy (yes, actually). I am the kind of person who writes 50% of the texts in the group chat. And so on. You do not want somebody like me constantly posting on the EA forum!
I have several full length posts I’ve written that in the past year that I haven’t put up. I could post them, and maybe somebody could get value from them, but they aren’t finished according to my standards. And I won’t post them until they are, if they ever are.
I suspect there are many others who are the opposite of me. Their thoughts are just as good, or better, but their general bar for posting things is way too high and they should work on becoming less intimidated. That’s why it’s really hard to give generalized advice. If you say, “please, post, don’t worry about it!” people like me will post way too much. If you say, “the bar is so high, really think about it” people who aren’t like me will post way too little. That’s why the most helpful thing in my view is to just ask some friends for personalized advice. They probably have a pretty good idea of which side of this spectrum you might fall on.
I have posted on the forum quite a few times. It has sometimes been part of my job to write posts for the forum. I think that I am generally a strong writer, and I rarely feel imposter syndrome.
But even I find it intimidating to post on the forum. Some of what is written here is just really, really well written and thought out. It’s intimidating to think you are posting alongside those posts! I think in my case though, it’s a good thing I’m intimidated. If I wasn’t at all intimidated, I would innundate the forum with random ramblings, because my general bar for sharing thoughts in other contexts (e.g. with my friends in informal settings) is very low. I was the kind of person who used to write emails to administrators in middle school asking them for changes to the school’s caterpillar abatement policy (yes, actually). I am the kind of person who writes 50% of the texts in the group chat. And so on. You do not want somebody like me constantly posting on the EA forum!
I have several full length posts I’ve written that in the past year that I haven’t put up. I could post them, and maybe somebody could get value from them, but they aren’t finished according to my standards. And I won’t post them until they are, if they ever are.
I suspect there are many others who are the opposite of me. Their thoughts are just as good, or better, but their general bar for posting things is way too high and they should work on becoming less intimidated. That’s why it’s really hard to give generalized advice. If you say, “please, post, don’t worry about it!” people like me will post way too much. If you say, “the bar is so high, really think about it” people who aren’t like me will post way too little. That’s why the most helpful thing in my view is to just ask some friends for personalized advice. They probably have a pretty good idea of which side of this spectrum you might fall on.
I agree that personalized advice is the best in a lot of cases, thanks for raising this point Thomas.