I want to say that I didn’t downvote the post (I think its a relatively neat idea, and has garnered at least one good submission).
On the other hand, I find speculation on ‘why the downvotes?’ to be unproductive. Its reasonable to encourage people explain their opinions, but I’ve generally found that threads about downvotes are low quality with lots of guesses and trying to put words in other people’s mouths. I don’t think you’re doing that here very much, but it isn’t the kind of thread I’d like to see often if at all.
It also seems odd that there are so rarely threads in the other direction, asking people to explain why they liked a particular post :)
I agree that threads like this shouldn’t be common. But I’d like to make a case for this one.
As the head of the Forum, I spend a lot of time thinking about what content I should be encouraging, promoting, etc. Over the last three years, I think I’ve developed a pretty good instinct for what kinds of posts people tend to like, which helps me do my job.
That’s why posts like this (where the reactions surprise me and I don’t have even a “best guess” as to what provoked them) are so interesting!
I see these rare scenarios as a chance to learn more about how Forum voters (our most engaged readers) think. And if someone ever asks me for feedback on a similar idea, I’d like to be able to advise them on how to present it so that readers will find it valuable.
Fair enough. I would personally find it less off-putting if you framed it in terms of collecting feedback instead of focusing on the downvotes. For example, suppose I saw a thread starting with:
‘I’m curious on feedback to this post. Please take this survey[link]’
and then the survey itself has questions about the positions 1/2/3/4/5 mentioned, and a question on whether the respondent up/downvoted.
Then that seems like a fine thread. You’re collecting genuine feedback, maybe it seems a little over the top, but it doesn’t come across as speculation on why someone disliked something. There’s also an easy way for me to provide that feedback without making a public statement that people can then argue with. If I downvote something, there is a very good chance that I don’t want to spend time explaining my reasoning on a public thread where I’m in a social contract to reply to objections.
Very fair feedback! I’ll try to make that framing more explicit, though I don’t expect I’ll use a survey — it adds an extra step, stops the author from getting notified when feedback happens (I have to share with them separately), and risks promoting a norm of “don’t explain why you dislike things in public”, which I think is very unhealthy for the Forum.
(For example, a comment like Peter Hartree’s, particularly the useful suggestion of hiring a professional for the same price, is one I’m very glad to have be public, for this author and for other authors who might try something similar.)
I want to say that I didn’t downvote the post (I think its a relatively neat idea, and has garnered at least one good submission).
On the other hand, I find speculation on ‘why the downvotes?’ to be unproductive. Its reasonable to encourage people explain their opinions, but I’ve generally found that threads about downvotes are low quality with lots of guesses and trying to put words in other people’s mouths. I don’t think you’re doing that here very much, but it isn’t the kind of thread I’d like to see often if at all.
It also seems odd that there are so rarely threads in the other direction, asking people to explain why they liked a particular post :)
I agree that threads like this shouldn’t be common. But I’d like to make a case for this one.
As the head of the Forum, I spend a lot of time thinking about what content I should be encouraging, promoting, etc. Over the last three years, I think I’ve developed a pretty good instinct for what kinds of posts people tend to like, which helps me do my job.
That’s why posts like this (where the reactions surprise me and I don’t have even a “best guess” as to what provoked them) are so interesting!
I see these rare scenarios as a chance to learn more about how Forum voters (our most engaged readers) think. And if someone ever asks me for feedback on a similar idea, I’d like to be able to advise them on how to present it so that readers will find it valuable.
Fair enough. I would personally find it less off-putting if you framed it in terms of collecting feedback instead of focusing on the downvotes. For example, suppose I saw a thread starting with:
‘I’m curious on feedback to this post. Please take this survey[link]’
and then the survey itself has questions about the positions 1/2/3/4/5 mentioned, and a question on whether the respondent up/downvoted.
Then that seems like a fine thread. You’re collecting genuine feedback, maybe it seems a little over the top, but it doesn’t come across as speculation on why someone disliked something. There’s also an easy way for me to provide that feedback without making a public statement that people can then argue with. If I downvote something, there is a very good chance that I don’t want to spend time explaining my reasoning on a public thread where I’m in a social contract to reply to objections.
Very fair feedback! I’ll try to make that framing more explicit, though I don’t expect I’ll use a survey — it adds an extra step, stops the author from getting notified when feedback happens (I have to share with them separately), and risks promoting a norm of “don’t explain why you dislike things in public”, which I think is very unhealthy for the Forum.
(For example, a comment like Peter Hartree’s, particularly the useful suggestion of hiring a professional for the same price, is one I’m very glad to have be public, for this author and for other authors who might try something similar.)