Following up on this note: below is a non-exhaustive list of other potentially-relevant assumptions that I won’t bother discussing but that I might rely on (to different degrees) in this post:
Criticism of someone’s work is more likely than other kinds of critical writing (like disagreement with someone’s written arguments) to be wrong or misleading because of an information asymmetry. It’s pretty common for criticism to be at least somewhat misleading (even if it still has significant and useful points).
When you’re writing about work that isn’t an entirely public output (communication/research that everyone can access), you’re more likely to simply lack context or be wrong about what you’re writing about. You can’t just reference specific parts of the work; the person or people who’ve done the work know things that you don’t.
It’s useful to help people orient towards criticism of their work in healthy and positive ways, which can mean trying to make the process less stressful for them. This isn’t against the critical spirit or the like.
Wrong or somewhat misleading criticism of people’s work can be pretty harmful, especially if a response from those criticized doesn’t come right away.
Readers come away with incorrect (and extremely negative) opinions of the work being criticized.
It can be harder for readers to tell for themselves whose side or claims they should believe than if this were a disagreement about public content (similar to the dynamics outlined in Assumption 1); they, too, lack information and will be potentially more susceptible to believing one side or the other based on who sounds more convincing or based on biases they already have.
Readers could interpret the criticism as a broad and very negative judgement of all the work ever done by the relevant people, even if it’s not meant that way.
If a lot of readers start incorrectly believing that someone’s work is bad in certain ways, this can harm that person’s ability to do other work.
It’s really stressful when someone shares incorrect criticism of your work publicly, especially if you don’t feel like you have the chance to defend yourself in time for people to see your counterpoints.
Stress or negative experiences like this lead people to be overall more negative about criticism, even when it’s accurate, productive, kindly presented, etc.
Responses from the people criticized are worth showing alongside the criticism even if we think that the criticism is on point. In particular, it’s useful to give them the chance to write them in time to post an early comment on your post.
Showing responses alongside criticism lets readers form more independent opinions.
Showing responses like this helps make the criticism feel more collaborative.
People writing criticism in EA are often in a collaborative relationship with the people whose work they’re criticizing; this isn’t a zero-sum relationship, they have common goals, they don’t want to cause unnecessary harm, etc..
People who have less context on a project or who are missing significant information can still have incredibly useful perspectives and suggestions to contribute.
Maybe the work could be improved in a way you have special experience with, or you’ve spotted mistakes others missed — the people working on a project could be biased, and not tracking relevant information, etc.
Criticism should not be suppressed.
Indefinite or extended delays (of criticism and of other stuff) are pretty dangerous and can result in ~silent vetoes. They should be avoided.
People doing work in EA are humans whose feelings matter and can be helped in productive ways.
Appendix 3. Other assumptions for the post
Following up on this note: below is a non-exhaustive list of other potentially-relevant assumptions that I won’t bother discussing but that I might rely on (to different degrees) in this post:
Criticism of someone’s work is more likely than other kinds of critical writing (like disagreement with someone’s written arguments) to be wrong or misleading because of an information asymmetry. It’s pretty common for criticism to be at least somewhat misleading (even if it still has significant and useful points).
When you’re writing about work that isn’t an entirely public output (communication/research that everyone can access), you’re more likely to simply lack context or be wrong about what you’re writing about. You can’t just reference specific parts of the work; the person or people who’ve done the work know things that you don’t.
It’s useful to help people orient towards criticism of their work in healthy and positive ways, which can mean trying to make the process less stressful for them. This isn’t against the critical spirit or the like.
Wrong or somewhat misleading criticism of people’s work can be pretty harmful, especially if a response from those criticized doesn’t come right away.
Readers come away with incorrect (and extremely negative) opinions of the work being criticized.
It can be harder for readers to tell for themselves whose side or claims they should believe than if this were a disagreement about public content (similar to the dynamics outlined in Assumption 1); they, too, lack information and will be potentially more susceptible to believing one side or the other based on who sounds more convincing or based on biases they already have.
Readers could interpret the criticism as a broad and very negative judgement of all the work ever done by the relevant people, even if it’s not meant that way.
If a lot of readers start incorrectly believing that someone’s work is bad in certain ways, this can harm that person’s ability to do other work.
It’s really stressful when someone shares incorrect criticism of your work publicly, especially if you don’t feel like you have the chance to defend yourself in time for people to see your counterpoints.
Stress or negative experiences like this lead people to be overall more negative about criticism, even when it’s accurate, productive, kindly presented, etc.
Responses from the people criticized are worth showing alongside the criticism even if we think that the criticism is on point. In particular, it’s useful to give them the chance to write them in time to post an early comment on your post.
Showing responses alongside criticism lets readers form more independent opinions.
Showing responses like this helps make the criticism feel more collaborative.
People writing criticism in EA are often in a collaborative relationship with the people whose work they’re criticizing; this isn’t a zero-sum relationship, they have common goals, they don’t want to cause unnecessary harm, etc..
People who have less context on a project or who are missing significant information can still have incredibly useful perspectives and suggestions to contribute.
Maybe the work could be improved in a way you have special experience with, or you’ve spotted mistakes others missed — the people working on a project could be biased, and not tracking relevant information, etc.
Criticism should not be suppressed.
Indefinite or extended delays (of criticism and of other stuff) are pretty dangerous and can result in ~silent vetoes. They should be avoided.
People doing work in EA are humans whose feelings matter and can be helped in productive ways.
(There’s almost certainly more.)