It probably helps people feel welcome to the community.
For myself:
I’ve been mostly a lurker around international EA activities for about 5 years, feeling that all the orgs have some wow factor that I could never touch. I think this mostly changed because (A) I met some people in EAG (they were actually real people, which really surprised my brain), and (B) I got brave and posted something, and it got 70+ upvotes pretty quickly.
I know, this is stupid, I’m supposed to pretend not to care about upvotes, whatever. Looking back, I think this might have been pivotal for past-Yonatan’s sense of being accepted into a community, of having someone in the important EA community care at all for.. I don’t know, my attempts at helping? about me? And it lead me to, well, behave differently.
Looking at myself now, I am posting and commenting a lot, I have two more drafts almost ready to go (one for CEA! They asked me for something! Unimaginable if you’d ask me 6 months ago. I tried acting cool and said I’d be happy to help, if you’re curious. Hey Ben if you’re reading this! Ok I’m off topic).
Anyway if you’re reading my shortform, you now know my “dark secret” of caring a ton about upvotes, and I hope that my “coming out” will remind you that it’s probably true for many others too.
For myself, I try, when I remember, to upvote stuff a lot, only if I actually like it of course, but I try to be somewhat lighter on the trigger, especially with community members who are not yet so involved
Upvoting Is an Act of Community Building
It probably helps people feel welcome to the community.
For myself:
I’ve been mostly a lurker around international EA activities for about 5 years, feeling that all the orgs have some wow factor that I could never touch. I think this mostly changed because (A) I met some people in EAG (they were actually real people, which really surprised my brain), and (B) I got brave and posted something, and it got 70+ upvotes pretty quickly.
I know, this is stupid, I’m supposed to pretend not to care about upvotes, whatever. Looking back, I think this might have been pivotal for past-Yonatan’s sense of being accepted into a community, of having someone in the important EA community care at all for.. I don’t know, my attempts at helping? about me? And it lead me to, well, behave differently.
Looking at myself now, I am posting and commenting a lot, I have two more drafts almost ready to go (one for CEA! They asked me for something! Unimaginable if you’d ask me 6 months ago. I tried acting cool and said I’d be happy to help, if you’re curious. Hey Ben if you’re reading this! Ok I’m off topic).
Anyway if you’re reading my shortform, you now know my “dark secret” of caring a ton about upvotes, and I hope that my “coming out” will remind you that it’s probably true for many others too.
For myself, I try, when I remember, to upvote stuff a lot, only if I actually like it of course, but I try to be somewhat lighter on the trigger, especially with community members who are not yet so involved