I don’t know that there’s been that much downvoting, when on balance the score is −1, but it does say that it’s been 55% downvoted, so that implies that before I arrived there were 4 up, 5 down, most likely. First, I’ll say that the top link you provide is about encouraging more voting behavior, not discouraging downvotes.
Second, I’ll provide my best guess on the reasons for downvotes.
This author has been posting… a lot. This is the third post in the last 48 hours, and the EA Forum often goes 48 hours without any posts at all. Furthermore, each post is also shared on 3-5+ EA Facebook groups.
This would be fine but, at the risk of overgeneralizing, the posts seem to score just so-so on some key considerations that make some other posts on the EA Forum great. Things these posts score just so-so on are compellingness/proof, understanding/engagement/knowledge of EA, relevance to EA, non-obviousness, and uniqueness. It doesn’t help that they seem to pattern-match quite strongly for self-promotion, and that the author is new to the community with unknown background (meaning there’s a higher hurdle for believability in expertise and engagement).
I think it’s great for people new to the community to put their thoughts out there, but as often as this has occurred, in this manner, and on the EA Forum, perhaps aren’t the best fit. EA Hangout and EA Movement Building are two Facebook groups that might be a better match, although I’d also suggest that these types of posts would benefit from more humility/restraint as well.
As someone who’s still on the newish side of EA, I’ve been struggling with some of these same things as well, learning how to craft a post that is really compelling with the EA community. I’m working to improve myself, and while I maybe haven’t gotten the downvotes that this one received, I’ve gotten feedback that’s been highly upvoted on my other posts and has shown that I have work to do in my writing here.
Regarding the self-promotional stuff, I will repeat what I stated earlier. I generally have an approach of saying the things that I will do, and then doing them, and then getting feedback from the community about them. My goal is to try to improve based on feedback. This helps explain the multiple posts, I think.
I can see how it might come off as self-promotional to some, though—they can’t read my mind about my motivations. Having gotten some feedback about the perception of self-promotional just a bit earlier, I will aim to mention Intentional Insights less in my posts—for example, in the post above, I did not mention it once. I will also decrease the number of EA forum postings.
Regarding FB groups, I find that many people find it easier to engage on FB than in the EA forum, and so I make a longer post on the EA forum, and then let folks know about it on FB. It promotes a more dynamic form of discussion. Similar to what Tom did with raising the question regarding downvoting on FB, in some ways. I do hear what you’re saying about posting to several groups, though, and will keep in mind to reduce the FB group posts.
I don’t know that there’s been that much downvoting, when on balance the score is −1, but it does say that it’s been 55% downvoted, so that implies that before I arrived there were 4 up, 5 down, most likely. First, I’ll say that the top link you provide is about encouraging more voting behavior, not discouraging downvotes.
Second, I’ll provide my best guess on the reasons for downvotes.
This author has been posting… a lot. This is the third post in the last 48 hours, and the EA Forum often goes 48 hours without any posts at all. Furthermore, each post is also shared on 3-5+ EA Facebook groups.
This would be fine but, at the risk of overgeneralizing, the posts seem to score just so-so on some key considerations that make some other posts on the EA Forum great. Things these posts score just so-so on are compellingness/proof, understanding/engagement/knowledge of EA, relevance to EA, non-obviousness, and uniqueness. It doesn’t help that they seem to pattern-match quite strongly for self-promotion, and that the author is new to the community with unknown background (meaning there’s a higher hurdle for believability in expertise and engagement).
I think it’s great for people new to the community to put their thoughts out there, but as often as this has occurred, in this manner, and on the EA Forum, perhaps aren’t the best fit. EA Hangout and EA Movement Building are two Facebook groups that might be a better match, although I’d also suggest that these types of posts would benefit from more humility/restraint as well.
As someone who’s still on the newish side of EA, I’ve been struggling with some of these same things as well, learning how to craft a post that is really compelling with the EA community. I’m working to improve myself, and while I maybe haven’t gotten the downvotes that this one received, I’ve gotten feedback that’s been highly upvoted on my other posts and has shown that I have work to do in my writing here.
Thanks for the feedback, helpful stuff!
Regarding the self-promotional stuff, I will repeat what I stated earlier. I generally have an approach of saying the things that I will do, and then doing them, and then getting feedback from the community about them. My goal is to try to improve based on feedback. This helps explain the multiple posts, I think.
I can see how it might come off as self-promotional to some, though—they can’t read my mind about my motivations. Having gotten some feedback about the perception of self-promotional just a bit earlier, I will aim to mention Intentional Insights less in my posts—for example, in the post above, I did not mention it once. I will also decrease the number of EA forum postings.
Regarding FB groups, I find that many people find it easier to engage on FB than in the EA forum, and so I make a longer post on the EA forum, and then let folks know about it on FB. It promotes a more dynamic form of discussion. Similar to what Tom did with raising the question regarding downvoting on FB, in some ways. I do hear what you’re saying about posting to several groups, though, and will keep in mind to reduce the FB group posts.