I also interpreted this comment as quite dismissive but I think most of that comes from the fact Max explicitly said he downvoted the post, rather than from the rest of the comment (which seems fine and reasonable).
I think I naturally interpret a downvote as meaning “I think this post/comment isn’t helpful and I generally want to discourage posts/comments like it.” That seems pretty harsh in this case, and at odds with the fact Max seems to think the post actually points at some important things worth taking seriously. I also naturally feel a bit concerned about the CEO of CEA seeming to discourage posts which suggest EA should be doing things differently, especially where they are reasonable and constructive like this one.
This is a minor point in some ways but I think explicitly stating “I downvoted this post” can say quite a lot (especially when coming from someone with a senior position in the community). I haven’t spent a lot of time on this forum recently so I’m wondering if other people think the norms around up/downvoting are different to my interpretation, and in particular whether Max you meant to use it differently?
[EDIT: I checked the norms on up/downvoting, which say to downvote if either “There’s an error”, or “The comment or post didn’t add to the conversation, and maybe actually distracted.” I personally think this post added something useful to the conversation about the scope and focus of EA, and it seems harsh to downvote it because it conflated a few different dimensions—and that’s why Max’s comment seemed a bit harsh/dismissive to me]
This is a minor point in some ways but I think explicitly stating “I downvoted this post” can say quite a lot (especially when coming from someone with a senior position in the community).
I ran the Forum for 3+ years (and, caveat, worked with Max). This is a complicated question.
Something I’ve seen many times: A post or comment is downvoted, and the author writes a comment asking why people downvoted (often seeming pretty confused/dispirited).
Some people really hate anonymous downvotes. I’ve heard multiple suggestions that we remove anonymity from votes, or require people to input a reason before downvoting (which is then presumably sent to the author), or just establish an informal culture where downvotes are expected to come with comments.
So I don’t think Max was necessarily being impolite here, especially since he and Luke are colleagues who know each other well. Instead, he was doing something that some people want a lot more of and other people don’t want at all. This seems like a matter of competing access needs (different people wanting different things from a shared resource).
In the end, I think it’s down to individual users to take their best guess at whether saying “I downvoted” or “I upvoted” would be helpful in a given case. And I’m still not sure whether having more such comments would be a net positive — probably depends on circumstance.
***
Max having a senior position in the community is also a complicated thing. On the one hand, there’s a risk that anything he says will be taken very seriously and lead to reactions he wouldn’t want. On the other hand, it seems good for leaders to share their honest opinions on public platforms (rather than doing everything via DM or deliberately softening their views).
There are still ways to write better or worse comments, but I thought Max’s was reasonable given the balancing act he’s trying to do (and the massive support Luke’s post had gotten already — I’d feel differently if Max had been joining a pile-on or something).
I think the problem isn’t with saying you downvoted a post and why (I personally share the view that people should aim to explain their downvotes).
The problem is the actual reason:
I think you’re pointing to some important issues… However, I worry that you’re conflating a few pretty different dimensions, so I downvoted this post.
The message that, for me, stands out from this is “If you have an important idea but can’t present it perfectly—it’s better not to write at all.” Which I think most of us would not endorse.
I didn’t get that message at all. If someone tells me they downvoted something I wrote, my default takeaway is “oh, I could have been more clear” or “huh, maybe I need to add something that was missing” — not “yikes, I shouldn’t have written this”. *
I read Max’s comment as “I thought this wasn’t written very clearly/got some things wrong”, not “I think you shouldn’t have written this at all”. The latter is, to me, almost the definition of a strong downvote.
If someone sees a post they think (a) points to important issues, and (b) gets important things wrong, any of upvote/downvote/decline-to-vote seems reasonable to me.
*This is partly because I’ve stopped feeling very nervous about Forum posts after years of experience. I know plenty of people who do have the “yikes” reaction. But that’s where the users’ identities and relationship comes into play — I’d feel somewhat differently had Max said the same thing to a new poster.
I don’t share your view about what a downvote means. However, regardless of what I think, it doesn’t actually have any fixed meaning beyond that which people a assign to it—so it’d be interesting to have some stats on how people on the forum interpret it.
But that’s where the users’ identities and relationship comes into play — I’d feel somewhat differently had Max said the same thing to a new poster.
Most(?) readers won’t know who either of them is, not to mention their relationship.
I don’t share your view about what a downvote means.
What does a downvote mean to you? If it means “you shouldn’t have written this”, what does a strong downvote mean to you? The same thing, but with more emphasis?
It’d be interesting to have some stats on how people on the forum interpret it.
Why not create a poll? I would, but I’m not sure exactly which question you’d want asked.
Most(?) readers won’t know who either of them is, not to mention their relationship.
Which brings up another question — to what extent should a comment be written for an author vs. the audience?
Max’s comment seemed very directed at Luke — it was mostly about the style of Luke’s writing and his way of drawing conclusions. Other comments feel more audience-directed.
Personally, I primarily downvote posts/comments where I generally think “reading this post/comment will on average make forum readers be worse at thinking about this problem than if they didn’t read this post/comment, assuming that the time spent reading this post/comment is free.”
I basically never strong downvote posts unless it’s obvious spam or otherwise an extremely bad offender in the “worsens thinking” direction.
It’s been over a week so I guess I should answer even if I don’t have time for a longer reply.
What does a downvote mean to you? If it means “you shouldn’t have written this”, what does a strong downvote mean to you? The same thing, but with more emphasis?
I think so, but I’m not very confident.
to what extent should a comment be written for an author vs. the audience?
I don’t think private conversations can exist on a public platform. If it’s not a DM, there’s always an audience, and in most contexts, I’d expect much of a comment’s impact to come from its effects on that audience.
Why not create a poll?
The polls in that specific group look like they have a very small and probably unrepresentative sample size. Though I don’t we’ll be able to get a much larger one on such a question, I guess.
Thanks for sharing that perspective—that makes sense. Possibly I was holding this to too high a standard—I think that I held it to a higher standard partly because Luke is also an organization/community leader, and probably I shouldn’t have taken that into account. Still, overall my best guess is that this post distracted from the conversation, rather than adding to it (though others clearly disagree). Roughly, I think that the data points/perspectives were important but not particularly novel, and that the conflation of different questions could lead to people coming away more confused, or to making inaccurate inferences. But I agree that this is a pretty high standard, and maybe I should just comment in circumstances like this.
I also think I should have been more careful re seeming to discourage suggestions about EA. I wanted to signal “this particular set of suggestions seems muddled” not “suggestions are bad”, but I definitely see how my post above could make people feel more hesitant to share suggestions, and that seems like a mistake on my part. To be clear: I would love feedback and suggestions!
I also interpreted this comment as quite dismissive but I think most of that comes from the fact Max explicitly said he downvoted the post, rather than from the rest of the comment (which seems fine and reasonable).
I think I naturally interpret a downvote as meaning “I think this post/comment isn’t helpful and I generally want to discourage posts/comments like it.” That seems pretty harsh in this case, and at odds with the fact Max seems to think the post actually points at some important things worth taking seriously. I also naturally feel a bit concerned about the CEO of CEA seeming to discourage posts which suggest EA should be doing things differently, especially where they are reasonable and constructive like this one.
This is a minor point in some ways but I think explicitly stating “I downvoted this post” can say quite a lot (especially when coming from someone with a senior position in the community). I haven’t spent a lot of time on this forum recently so I’m wondering if other people think the norms around up/downvoting are different to my interpretation, and in particular whether Max you meant to use it differently?
[EDIT: I checked the norms on up/downvoting, which say to downvote if either “There’s an error”, or “The comment or post didn’t add to the conversation, and maybe actually distracted.” I personally think this post added something useful to the conversation about the scope and focus of EA, and it seems harsh to downvote it because it conflated a few different dimensions—and that’s why Max’s comment seemed a bit harsh/dismissive to me]
I ran the Forum for 3+ years (and, caveat, worked with Max). This is a complicated question.
Something I’ve seen many times: A post or comment is downvoted, and the author writes a comment asking why people downvoted (often seeming pretty confused/dispirited).
Some people really hate anonymous downvotes. I’ve heard multiple suggestions that we remove anonymity from votes, or require people to input a reason before downvoting (which is then presumably sent to the author), or just establish an informal culture where downvotes are expected to come with comments.
So I don’t think Max was necessarily being impolite here, especially since he and Luke are colleagues who know each other well. Instead, he was doing something that some people want a lot more of and other people don’t want at all. This seems like a matter of competing access needs (different people wanting different things from a shared resource).
In the end, I think it’s down to individual users to take their best guess at whether saying “I downvoted” or “I upvoted” would be helpful in a given case. And I’m still not sure whether having more such comments would be a net positive — probably depends on circumstance.
***
Max having a senior position in the community is also a complicated thing. On the one hand, there’s a risk that anything he says will be taken very seriously and lead to reactions he wouldn’t want. On the other hand, it seems good for leaders to share their honest opinions on public platforms (rather than doing everything via DM or deliberately softening their views).
There are still ways to write better or worse comments, but I thought Max’s was reasonable given the balancing act he’s trying to do (and the massive support Luke’s post had gotten already — I’d feel differently if Max had been joining a pile-on or something).
I think the problem isn’t with saying you downvoted a post and why (I personally share the view that people should aim to explain their downvotes).
The problem is the actual reason:
The message that, for me, stands out from this is “If you have an important idea but can’t present it perfectly—it’s better not to write at all.” Which I think most of us would not endorse.
I didn’t get that message at all. If someone tells me they downvoted something I wrote, my default takeaway is “oh, I could have been more clear” or “huh, maybe I need to add something that was missing” — not “yikes, I shouldn’t have written this”. *
I read Max’s comment as “I thought this wasn’t written very clearly/got some things wrong”, not “I think you shouldn’t have written this at all”. The latter is, to me, almost the definition of a strong downvote.
If someone sees a post they think (a) points to important issues, and (b) gets important things wrong, any of upvote/downvote/decline-to-vote seems reasonable to me.
*This is partly because I’ve stopped feeling very nervous about Forum posts after years of experience. I know plenty of people who do have the “yikes” reaction. But that’s where the users’ identities and relationship comes into play — I’d feel somewhat differently had Max said the same thing to a new poster.
I don’t share your view about what a downvote means. However, regardless of what I think, it doesn’t actually have any fixed meaning beyond that which people a assign to it—so it’d be interesting to have some stats on how people on the forum interpret it.
Most(?) readers won’t know who either of them is, not to mention their relationship.
What does a downvote mean to you? If it means “you shouldn’t have written this”, what does a strong downvote mean to you? The same thing, but with more emphasis?
Why not create a poll? I would, but I’m not sure exactly which question you’d want asked.
Which brings up another question — to what extent should a comment be written for an author vs. the audience?
Max’s comment seemed very directed at Luke — it was mostly about the style of Luke’s writing and his way of drawing conclusions. Other comments feel more audience-directed.
Personally, I primarily downvote posts/comments where I generally think “reading this post/comment will on average make forum readers be worse at thinking about this problem than if they didn’t read this post/comment, assuming that the time spent reading this post/comment is free.”
I basically never strong downvote posts unless it’s obvious spam or otherwise an extremely bad offender in the “worsens thinking” direction.
It’s been over a week so I guess I should answer even if I don’t have time for a longer reply.
I think so, but I’m not very confident.
I don’t think private conversations can exist on a public platform. If it’s not a DM, there’s always an audience, and in most contexts, I’d expect much of a comment’s impact to come from its effects on that audience.
The polls in that specific group look like they have a very small and probably unrepresentative sample size. Though I don’t we’ll be able to get a much larger one on such a question, I guess.
Nice to see you on the Forum again!
Thanks for sharing that perspective—that makes sense. Possibly I was holding this to too high a standard—I think that I held it to a higher standard partly because Luke is also an organization/community leader, and probably I shouldn’t have taken that into account. Still, overall my best guess is that this post distracted from the conversation, rather than adding to it (though others clearly disagree). Roughly, I think that the data points/perspectives were important but not particularly novel, and that the conflation of different questions could lead to people coming away more confused, or to making inaccurate inferences. But I agree that this is a pretty high standard, and maybe I should just comment in circumstances like this.
I also think I should have been more careful re seeming to discourage suggestions about EA. I wanted to signal “this particular set of suggestions seems muddled” not “suggestions are bad”, but I definitely see how my post above could make people feel more hesitant to share suggestions, and that seems like a mistake on my part. To be clear: I would love feedback and suggestions!