I can see how all of this can feel related to the discussion about “bad epistemics” or a claim that the community as a whole is overly navel-gazing, etc. Thanks for flagging that you’re concerned about this.
To be clear, though, one of the issues here (and use of the term “bike-shedding”) 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 “correct”), the issues described in the post will appear.
Take the example of the Forum itself as a topic that’s 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 don’t 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). I’d claim that the latter (sub)topic(s) is likely more important to discuss and get right than the former, but, because it’s harder, and harder to participate in than a discussion about the font — something everyone interacts with all the time — it might get less attention.
Moreover, posts that are more like “I dislike the font, do you?” will often get more engagement than posts like “the font is bad for people with dyslexia, based on these 5 studies — here are some suggestions and some reasons to doubt the studies,” 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 it’ll require a bit of testing and tweaking.
[Writing just for myself, not my employer or even my team. I am working on the Forum, and that’s probably hard to separate from my views on this topic— but this is a quickly-written comment, not something that I feedback on from the rest of the team, etc.]
I can see how all of this can feel related to the discussion about “bad epistemics” or a claim that the community as a whole is overly navel-gazing, etc. Thanks for flagging that you’re concerned about this.
To be clear, though, one of the issues here (and use of the term “bike-shedding”) 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 “correct”), the issues described in the post will appear.
Take the example of the Forum itself as a topic that’s 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 don’t 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). I’d claim that the latter (sub)topic(s) is likely more important to discuss and get right than the former, but, because it’s harder, and harder to participate in than a discussion about the font — something everyone interacts with all the time — it might get less attention.
Moreover, posts that are more like “I dislike the font, do you?” will often get more engagement than posts like “the font is bad for people with dyslexia, based on these 5 studies — here are some suggestions and some reasons to doubt the studies,” 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 it’ll require a bit of testing and tweaking.
[Writing just for myself, not my employer or even my team. I am working on the Forum, and that’s probably hard to separate from my views on this topic— but this is a quickly-written comment, not something that I feedback on from the rest of the team, etc.]