If one does not speak much English at all, then one should probably play in a different sandbox.
I would not discuss philosophy in Chinese, because I do not know the language. If there was a sufficiently awesome website in Chinese, then perhaps I could be inspired to learn the language. Perhaps I could return, and participate later.
Less Wrong has lower tolerance for sloppy thinking and sloppy writing than most other playgrounds on the Internet. This is great for at least two reasons. A high bar for entry helps weed out trolls. A high bar for entry gives one an incentive to improve.
Because SL4 is liable to die quite soon, because many readers will not be familiar with it, and because the moderation policy includes some good writing advice, I find it pertinent to quote an excerpt here:
Our high standards:
It is the explicit policy of this list not to rehash the basics. SL4 is for advanced topics in futurism and technology. If we’ve discussed it once before, or if it’s something we think posters should already know, you may be courteously referred to the archives, or to another list.
Check your spelling. Check your grammar. Check your punctuation and capitalization. Use apostrophes and commas. Don’t quote entire messages in your reply. Don’t use HTML. Don’t post one-line replies. (If it’s not worth a well-written paragraph, is it really worth posting?) Don’t send attachments to the list. Around 200 people read this (as of September ’02), so if it takes you one minute to save each reader two seconds, you’ve saved well over six minutes total.
Lurk for a week or read a few archived messages before you begin posting.
This is a science-literate mailing list. If you’re still unclear about whether humans evolved or were planted on Earth by flying saucers, you’re welcome to read SL4, but you probably won’t like what you read, and your first post will probably be your last. There could be an exception to this rule. We just haven’t encountered it yet.
Sniper-based moderation
“I had assumed that the function of a moderator was more akin to a sheepdog herding the outlying members than a sniper picking off the fringe.”
—Mike Deering inadvertantly sums up SL4′s exact philosophy of moderation.
English is not my mother tongue. As a non-native English user, I feel that my English mastery is good enough for most everywhere on the Internet other than Less Wrong.
It is frustrating to be called out on silly mistakes you would never make in your native language. Seize the opportunity to level up in English, be hard on yourself, use reference tools, and your fluency will slowly increase. Near-fluency will give way to fluency, you will be better off from the effort.
SUGGESTION: For speakers of foreign tongues who want to improve, maybe add an “editorial input solicited”—tag. As a signal that you welcome the picking of nits and other improvements. A “Crocker’s Rules” of wordcraft? If there was one I would happily apply it to this reply.
“Editorial input solicited” is perhaps not a super catchy term. Better suggestions are welcome.
This allergy toward sloppiness harkens back to the unique and interesting moderation policy of Eliezer Yudkowsky’s SL4.org, and its mailing list. Compared to SL4, Less Wrong is a welcoming and friendly place.
(Actual quality of discussion on SL4 was significantly worse, so this seems to be a fake explanation.)
Without controlling for anything, including topic selection. Worse general impression (which I can’t easily parse in terms of “per comment”), significant portion of low quality comments (comments that bad are rare here), and less high quality participation (but then, overall volume was smaller as well).
and less high quality participation (but then, overall volume was smaller as well).
Don’t underestimate the impact of voting mechanisms in their ability to screen out poorer-quality discussion. (As someone who is frequently downvoted on LW, I can state from personal experience that while this is often done persistently on the basis of individual sentiment rather than in terms of contribution to the dialogue, the impact is relatively equivalent either way: by seeing the opinions of others to the comments of others, we learn how to better sculpt our own comments.)
I really don’t like this idea, from personal experience. I thought: given my snail’s pace in learning English, since I learned it at school and already know it at such a level that there is no pleasant feeling of novelty, then at the current pace I will finish in 5 years, plus any costs … Ok, I’ll be back in ten years, when I will have a decent level of English. Although learning German is much more interesting, and in any case I will learn English for a very long time, and knowledge of languages speeds up the learning of new ones, especially since German and English are similar … I’ll be back in 15 years. (I wonder what is the probability that the end of the world would not have come in this time?) Fortunately, now, 10 years later, there are online translators, and I had the “impertinence” not only to read, but also to try to write through them. The SL4 rules mentioned are something that can be done quickly, for some moments a minute, for some a week, but learning a new language at a level with good literacy is a matter of several years. It is too long. If other points allow you to spend a little of your time to preserve better material for centuries and to save time for thousands of people, and a minute and even a week are clearly worth it, then years are clearly not.
The “Crocker’s Rules” of wordcraft is a great suggestion, it would be of great use to anyone who may be less confident with their English. It may help people who may not be as willing to post to become less timid as it acts in a way as a disclaimer of English ability.
I know that I personally spent a lot of time lurking before posting due to my lack of confidence that I would be able to contribute effectively due to a number of reasons, but this suggestion could definitely reduce that list of reasons for other unconfident lurkers by one; a positive step for welcoming more potential rationalists into the community.
I definitely think this is a valuable concept to expand on. A catchier term would be great, or perhaps abbreviations could become commonplace some time in the future. Perhaps someone could even be able to engineer the site so that people could choose to display an icon next to their name if they welcomed such input?
For speakers of foreign tongues, who want to improve,
Cut the first comma to make your clause restrictive.
(In standard usage, the phrase as written implies that all speakers of foreign tongues want to improve; without a comma, it refers only to those speakers of foreign tongues who actually want to improve.
Wouldn’t this create a lot of annoying clutter in threads? Maybe create a dedicated discussion post where people correct the posts of people who invoked Crocker’s Rules of wordcraft. This would probably require that whoever corrects a mistake also sends a PM to the non-native speaker in question.
Receiving a couple of suggestions for minor corrections made me realise the same thing. Discussions will bulk up with suggestions that are useful to the recipient. Enough of these could add more perceived noise to the comments than they will improve the signal of the target post. Private messaging the poster avoids this. But is less rewarding than to point out other peoples mistakes in public.
A straightforward approach might be a means of tagging comments, and filtering/searching based on tags? That way, if I want the substance of the conversation I can filter out wordsmithery, and if I am looking to improve my writing I can see what suggestions others needed?
If one does not speak much English at all,
then one should probably play in a different sandbox.
I would not discuss philosophy in Chinese, because I do not know the language. If there was a sufficiently awesome website in Chinese, then perhaps I could be inspired to learn the language. Perhaps I could return, and participate later.
Less Wrong has lower tolerance for sloppy thinking and sloppy writing than most other playgrounds on the Internet. This is great for at least two reasons. A high bar for entry helps weed out trolls. A high bar for entry gives one an incentive to improve.
The allergy to sloppiness likely harkens back to the unique and interesting moderation policy of Eliezer Yudkowsky’s SL4.org, and its mailing list. Compared to SL4, Less Wrong is a welcoming and friendly place.
Because SL4 is liable to die quite soon, because many readers will not be familiar with it, and because the moderation policy includes some good writing advice, I find it pertinent to quote an excerpt here:
English is not my mother tongue. As a non-native English user, I feel that my English mastery is good enough for most everywhere on the Internet other than Less Wrong.
It is frustrating to be called out on silly mistakes you would never make in your native language. Seize the opportunity to level up in English, be hard on yourself, use reference tools, and your fluency will slowly increase. Near-fluency will give way to fluency, you will be better off from the effort.
SUGGESTION: For speakers of foreign tongues who want to improve, maybe add an “editorial input solicited”—tag. As a signal that you welcome the picking of nits and other improvements. A “Crocker’s Rules” of wordcraft? If there was one I would happily apply it to this reply.
“Editorial input solicited” is perhaps not a super catchy term. Better suggestions are welcome.
(Actual quality of discussion on SL4 was significantly worse, so this seems to be a fake explanation.)
Worse total or worse per comment?
Worse considering what ideas were available at the time or worse regardless?
Without controlling for anything, including topic selection. Worse general impression (which I can’t easily parse in terms of “per comment”), significant portion of low quality comments (comments that bad are rare here), and less high quality participation (but then, overall volume was smaller as well).
Don’t underestimate the impact of voting mechanisms in their ability to screen out poorer-quality discussion. (As someone who is frequently downvoted on LW, I can state from personal experience that while this is often done persistently on the basis of individual sentiment rather than in terms of contribution to the dialogue, the impact is relatively equivalent either way: by seeing the opinions of others to the comments of others, we learn how to better sculpt our own comments.)
I really don’t like this idea, from personal experience. I thought: given my snail’s pace in learning English, since I learned it at school and already know it at such a level that there is no pleasant feeling of novelty, then at the current pace I will finish in 5 years, plus any costs … Ok, I’ll be back in ten years, when I will have a decent level of English. Although learning German is much more interesting, and in any case I will learn English for a very long time, and knowledge of languages speeds up the learning of new ones, especially since German and English are similar … I’ll be back in 15 years. (I wonder what is the probability that the end of the world would not have come in this time?) Fortunately, now, 10 years later, there are online translators, and I had the “impertinence” not only to read, but also to try to write through them. The SL4 rules mentioned are something that can be done quickly, for some moments a minute, for some a week, but learning a new language at a level with good literacy is a matter of several years. It is too long. If other points allow you to spend a little of your time to preserve better material for centuries and to save time for thousands of people, and a minute and even a week are clearly worth it, then years are clearly not.
Well, OK, since you asked: should be “you will be better off from the effort”
I had written off as of. How sloppy of me. Thanks for your assistance.
The “Crocker’s Rules” of wordcraft is a great suggestion, it would be of great use to anyone who may be less confident with their English. It may help people who may not be as willing to post to become less timid as it acts in a way as a disclaimer of English ability.
I know that I personally spent a lot of time lurking before posting due to my lack of confidence that I would be able to contribute effectively due to a number of reasons, but this suggestion could definitely reduce that list of reasons for other unconfident lurkers by one; a positive step for welcoming more potential rationalists into the community.
I definitely think this is a valuable concept to expand on. A catchier term would be great, or perhaps abbreviations could become commonplace some time in the future. Perhaps someone could even be able to engineer the site so that people could choose to display an icon next to their name if they welcomed such input?
I like your suggestion.
Here’s another point:
Cut the first comma to make your clause restrictive.
(In standard usage, the phrase as written implies that all speakers of foreign tongues want to improve; without a comma, it refers only to those speakers of foreign tongues who actually want to improve.
Wouldn’t this create a lot of annoying clutter in threads? Maybe create a dedicated discussion post where people correct the posts of people who invoked Crocker’s Rules of wordcraft. This would probably require that whoever corrects a mistake also sends a PM to the non-native speaker in question.
(I’m happy if anyone corrects my posts.)
Receiving a couple of suggestions for minor corrections made me realise the same thing. Discussions will bulk up with suggestions that are useful to the recipient. Enough of these could add more perceived noise to the comments than they will improve the signal of the target post. Private messaging the poster avoids this. But is less rewarding than to point out other peoples mistakes in public.
A straightforward approach might be a means of tagging comments, and filtering/searching based on tags? That way, if I want the substance of the conversation I can filter out wordsmithery, and if I am looking to improve my writing I can see what suggestions others needed?