Somewhat ironically, given all the strong upvotes that this is getting, I want to (gently) push back a bit. I would ask those who disagree with me to not downvote me too strongly[1] or at least explain why (disagree vote away though).
I feel like thereâs a mostly unstated opinion in this post that the posts getting high karma are actually not the highest quality ones, or the ones that the community cares about, or the ones that Forum readers should care about. I think terms like âlowest common denominatorâ and âbikesheddingâ imply this quite heavily. But my fear is that this could be used, perhaps unintentionally, to shut down debates on issues, especially from newer users or those new to EA.
For example, the top-voted comment on the Wytham Abbey post writes the whole community response off as bikeshedding[2]. This comment seems linked to the use of âbad epistemicsâ which I feel often assumes a conclusion. See this post, which I mostly agree with, for further discussion on this issue. My emotional reaction is that it all feels a bit like subtweeting[3], unless there are examples given of âthis specific post had too much karma and was over-rated by the forumâ and âthis specific post was undervalued and dropped from the frontpage too quicklyâ.
Furthermore, itâs not clear that valuing community-oriented topics is bad in-and-of-itself. âBuilding effective altruismâ is currently number 3 on 80,000 Hourâs list of most pressing problems. To the extent that these posts involving the whole community lead to community improvement, then it might be positive. Iâm not necessarily arguing that this is true, but I do dispute that the issues discussed in community posts are not âreal-worldâ issues.
As for the practical solutions proposed, I think 2 & 3 sound fine. Potentially you could add a section similar to âRecommendationsâ that might be something like âCEA Online Choiceâ or âCuratedâ or somethingâwhere the Online Team selects high-quality, valuable niche posts that arenât getting viewed and displays them more prominently?
Finally, this reminds me of the discourse around âOpen EA Globalâ and the CEA response. There seemed to be a misunderstanding between a large part of the community and CEA regarding what the purpose of EAG was, and perhaps this is true of the forum as well? I would welcome thoughts on this or any of the above, or people providing more information and corrections to what Iâve written
I can see how all of this can feel related to the discussion about âbad epistemicsâ or a claim that the community as a whole is overly navel-gazing, etc. Thanks for flagging that youâre concerned about this.
To be clear, though, one of the issues here (and use of the term âbike-sheddingâ) is more specific than those broader discussions. I think, given whatever it is that the community cares about (without opining about whether that prioritization is âcorrectâ), the issues described in the post will appear.
Take the example of the Forum itself as a topic thatâs relevant to building EA and a topic of interest to the EA community.
Within that broad topic, some sub-topics will get more attention than others for reasons that donât track how much the community actually values them (in ~total). Suppose there are two discussions that could (and potentially should) happen: a discussion about the fonts on the site, and a discussion on how to improve fact-checking (or how to improve the Forum experience for newcomers, or how to nurture a culture that welcomes criticism, or something like that). Iâd claim that the latter (sub)topic(s) is likely more important to discuss and get right than the former, but, because itâs harder, and harder to participate in than a discussion about the font â something everyone interacts with all the time â it might get less attention.
Moreover, posts that are more like âI dislike the font, do you?â will often get more engagement than posts like âthe font is bad for people with dyslexia, based on these 5 studies â here are some suggestions and some reasons to doubt the studies,â because (likely) fewer people will feel like they can weigh in on the latter kind of post. This is where bike-shedding comes in. I think we can probably do better, but itâll require a bit of testing and tweaking.
ââ[Writing just for myself, not my employer or even my team. I am working on the Forum, and thatâs probably hard to separate from my views on this topicâ but this is a quickly-written comment, not something that I feedback on from the rest of the team, etc.]
Somewhat ironically, given all the strong upvotes that this is getting, I want to (gently) push back a bit. I would ask those who disagree with me to not downvote me too strongly[1] or at least explain why (disagree vote away though).
I feel like thereâs a mostly unstated opinion in this post that the posts getting high karma are actually not the highest quality ones, or the ones that the community cares about, or the ones that Forum readers should care about. I think terms like âlowest common denominatorâ and âbikesheddingâ imply this quite heavily. But my fear is that this could be used, perhaps unintentionally, to shut down debates on issues, especially from newer users or those new to EA.
For example, the top-voted comment on the Wytham Abbey post writes the whole community response off as bikeshedding[2]. This comment seems linked to the use of âbad epistemicsâ which I feel often assumes a conclusion. See this post, which I mostly agree with, for further discussion on this issue. My emotional reaction is that it all feels a bit like subtweeting[3], unless there are examples given of âthis specific post had too much karma and was over-rated by the forumâ and âthis specific post was undervalued and dropped from the frontpage too quicklyâ.
Furthermore, itâs not clear that valuing community-oriented topics is bad in-and-of-itself. âBuilding effective altruismâ is currently number 3 on 80,000 Hourâs list of most pressing problems. To the extent that these posts involving the whole community lead to community improvement, then it might be positive. Iâm not necessarily arguing that this is true, but I do dispute that the issues discussed in community posts are not âreal-worldâ issues.
As for the practical solutions proposed, I think 2 & 3 sound fine. Potentially you could add a section similar to âRecommendationsâ that might be something like âCEA Online Choiceâ or âCuratedâ or somethingâwhere the Online Team selects high-quality, valuable niche posts that arenât getting viewed and displays them more prominently?
Finally, this reminds me of the discourse around âOpen EA Globalâ and the CEA response. There seemed to be a misunderstanding between a large part of the community and CEA regarding what the purpose of EAG was, and perhaps this is true of the forum as well? I would welcome thoughts on this or any of the above, or people providing more information and corrections to what Iâve written
Yeah, I hate how much this sounds like âI know Iâll get downvoted for this but...â too smh
Though I was pleased to see that there was strong pushback to this characterisation in the replies
Personal to me. I donât want to imply that âsubtweetingâ is actually happening
I can see how all of this can feel related to the discussion about âbad epistemicsâ or a claim that the community as a whole is overly navel-gazing, etc. Thanks for flagging that youâre concerned about this.
To be clear, though, one of the issues here (and use of the term âbike-sheddingâ) is more specific than those broader discussions. I think, given whatever it is that the community cares about (without opining about whether that prioritization is âcorrectâ), the issues described in the post will appear.
Take the example of the Forum itself as a topic thatâs relevant to building EA and a topic of interest to the EA community.
Within that broad topic, some sub-topics will get more attention than others for reasons that donât track how much the community actually values them (in ~total). Suppose there are two discussions that could (and potentially should) happen: a discussion about the fonts on the site, and a discussion on how to improve fact-checking (or how to improve the Forum experience for newcomers, or how to nurture a culture that welcomes criticism, or something like that). Iâd claim that the latter (sub)topic(s) is likely more important to discuss and get right than the former, but, because itâs harder, and harder to participate in than a discussion about the font â something everyone interacts with all the time â it might get less attention.
Moreover, posts that are more like âI dislike the font, do you?â will often get more engagement than posts like âthe font is bad for people with dyslexia, based on these 5 studies â here are some suggestions and some reasons to doubt the studies,â because (likely) fewer people will feel like they can weigh in on the latter kind of post. This is where bike-shedding comes in. I think we can probably do better, but itâll require a bit of testing and tweaking.
ââ[Writing just for myself, not my employer or even my team. I am working on the Forum, and thatâs probably hard to separate from my views on this topicâ but this is a quickly-written comment, not something that I feedback on from the rest of the team, etc.]