Regardless of whether I agree with the sentiment, as a moderator, I don’t think comments like these are generally helpful for promoting healthy discussion norms.
Lorenzo, Is your comment about Emre Kaplan’s comment or Daedalus?
If Emre Kaplan, I figure it’s okay if there are very very few such “strong emotions, low ‘substance’” type comments, which I believe is the case.
If Daedalus, I maybe agree. But is “True” that much different from comments that are like “+1″ and then just a couple words of justification*? (A potential answer is “yes, because comments that are like ‘+1 and then a couple words of justification’ are meaningfully harder to replicate/spam than “True” and less likely to slowly erode discussion norms.”)
*Edit: it appears I do have one comment I’ve made myself that’s just “+1” without any further justification haha. So maybe if “True” is not good, then maybe clearer discussion norms are required. I did a skim of (what I believe are) the Forum discussion norms and it does not appear to me that comments like “True” or “+1″ are addressed by anything in the “Strong discussion norms” or “Softer discussion norms and tips” sections.
Thanks for the feedback! My comment is about both, and I agree with you that as long as there are very few such comments, it’s not a big deal. This is not meant to be a warning for the users. My main reason for commenting here is to make sure that we stay in that situation, as the goal of the forum is to have collaborative discussions about how to do the most good we can. I think discussions that are mostly about reacting or venting — while they can be useful — can also lead to devolution of rigor and truth-seeking norms. Also to clarify: “comments that are like +1 and then a couple words of justification” are often encouraged, among other things because it can be useful feedback for the poster.
Regardless of whether I agree with the sentiment, as a moderator, I don’t think comments like these are generally helpful for promoting healthy discussion norms.
Sometimes “expressing emotions without much intellectual content” is the healthiest discussion.
Lorenzo, Is your comment about Emre Kaplan’s comment or Daedalus?
If Emre Kaplan, I figure it’s okay if there are very very few such “strong emotions, low ‘substance’” type comments, which I believe is the case.
If Daedalus, I maybe agree. But is “True” that much different from comments that are like “+1″ and then just a couple words of justification*? (A potential answer is “yes, because comments that are like ‘+1 and then a couple words of justification’ are meaningfully harder to replicate/spam than “True” and less likely to slowly erode discussion norms.”)
*Edit: it appears I do have one comment I’ve made myself that’s just “+1” without any further justification haha. So maybe if “True” is not good, then maybe clearer discussion norms are required. I did a skim of (what I believe are) the Forum discussion norms and it does not appear to me that comments like “True” or “+1″ are addressed by anything in the “Strong discussion norms” or “Softer discussion norms and tips” sections.
Thanks for the feedback!
My comment is about both, and I agree with you that as long as there are very few such comments, it’s not a big deal. This is not meant to be a warning for the users.
My main reason for commenting here is to make sure that we stay in that situation, as the goal of the forum is to have collaborative discussions about how to do the most good we can. I think discussions that are mostly about reacting or venting — while they can be useful — can also lead to devolution of rigor and truth-seeking norms.
Also to clarify: “comments that are like +1 and then a couple words of justification” are often encouraged, among other things because it can be useful feedback for the poster.
Where the you think discussions with the sometimes conflicting goal “serve whatever needs of the EA community” should take place?