I think these are useful observations and questions. (Though I think “too many comments” should probably be much less of a worry than “too few”, at least if the comments make some effort to be polite and relevant, and except inasmuch as loads of comments on one thing sucks up time that could be spent commenting on other things where that’d be more useful.)
I think a few simple steps that could be taken by writers are:
People could more often send google doc drafts to a handful of people specifically selected for being more likely than average to (a) be interested in reading the draft and (b) have useful things to say about it
People could more often share google doc drafts in the Effective Altruism Editing & Review Facebook group
People could more often share google doc drafts in other Facebook groups, Slack workspaces, or the like
E.g., sharing a draft relevant to improving institutional decision-making in the corresponding Facebook group
People could more often make posts/shortforms that include an executive summary (or similar) and a link to the full google doc draft, saying that this is still like a draft and they’d appreciate comment
Roughly this has been done recently by Joe Carlsmith and Ben Garfinkel, for example
This could encourage more comments that just posting the whole thing to the Forum as a regular post, since (a) this conveys that this is still a work-in-progress and that comments are welcome, and (b) google docs make it easier to comment on specific points
When people do post full versions of things on the Forum (or wherever), they could explicitly indicate that they’re interested in feedback, indicate roughly what kinds of feedback would be most valuable, and indicate that they might update the post in light of feedback (if that’s true)
People could implement the advice given in these two good posts:
I think a few simple steps that could be taken by potential reviewers are:
As you suggest, people could adjust their behaviours a bit more towards commenting on posts without many prior comments, and save time to do that by commenting a bit less on posts with many comments
Likewise, people could adjust their behaviours a bit more towards commenting on drafts they come across where the author is seeking feedback (e.g., drafts that were sent to the person directly or shared in some group the person is part of), especially if they don’t yet have many prior comments
Sometimes people worry that a post idea might be missing some obvious, core insight, or just replicating some other writing you haven’t come across. I think this is mainly a problem only inasmuch as it could’ve been more efficient for you to learn things than slowly craft a post.
So if you can write (a rough version of) the post quickly, you could just do that.
Or you could ask around or make a quick Question post to outline the basic idea and ask if anyone knows of relevant things you should read.
I think these are useful observations and questions. (Though I think “too many comments” should probably be much less of a worry than “too few”, at least if the comments make some effort to be polite and relevant, and except inasmuch as loads of comments on one thing sucks up time that could be spent commenting on other things where that’d be more useful.)
I think a few simple steps that could be taken by writers are:
People could more often send google doc drafts to a handful of people specifically selected for being more likely than average to (a) be interested in reading the draft and (b) have useful things to say about it
People could more often share google doc drafts in the Effective Altruism Editing & Review Facebook group
People could more often share google doc drafts in other Facebook groups, Slack workspaces, or the like
E.g., sharing a draft relevant to improving institutional decision-making in the corresponding Facebook group
People could more often make posts/shortforms that include an executive summary (or similar) and a link to the full google doc draft, saying that this is still like a draft and they’d appreciate comment
Roughly this has been done recently by Joe Carlsmith and Ben Garfinkel, for example
This could encourage more comments that just posting the whole thing to the Forum as a regular post, since (a) this conveys that this is still a work-in-progress and that comments are welcome, and (b) google docs make it easier to comment on specific points
When people do post full versions of things on the Forum (or wherever), they could explicitly indicate that they’re interested in feedback, indicate roughly what kinds of feedback would be most valuable, and indicate that they might update the post in light of feedback (if that’s true)
People could implement the advice given in these two good posts:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/N3zd4FtGmRnMF7pfM/asking-for-advice
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/ZjiokgANEfu36LD6G/giving-and-receiving-feedback
I think a few simple steps that could be taken by potential reviewers are:
As you suggest, people could adjust their behaviours a bit more towards commenting on posts without many prior comments, and save time to do that by commenting a bit less on posts with many comments
Likewise, people could adjust their behaviours a bit more towards commenting on drafts they come across where the author is seeking feedback (e.g., drafts that were sent to the person directly or shared in some group the person is part of), especially if they don’t yet have many prior comments
People could implement the advice given in https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/ZjiokgANEfu36LD6G/giving-and-receiving-feedback
There are presumably also other options one could come up with. And maybe something more systematic/institutionalised would be good.
One other semi-relevant thing from my post Notes on EA-related research, writing, testing fit, learning, and the Forum: