One approach is to identify high-status contributors and look for systematic differences between your way of expressing yourself and theirs, then experiment with adopting theirs.
Be that as it may (or mayn’t), that’s a clever way of making the intended message more palatable, including yourself in the deprecation. But you’re right. Aren’t we all pathetic, eh?
Look at your most upvoted contributions (ETA: or better, look at contributions with a positive score in general—see replies to this comment). Look at your most downvoted contributions. Compare and contrast.
Most downvoted, yes, but on the positive side I’d instead suggest looking at your comments one or two sigma east of average and no higher: they’re likely to be more reproducible. If they’re anything like mine, your most highly upvoted posts are probably high risk/high reward type comments—jokes, cultural criticism, pithy Deep Wisdom—and it’ll probably be a lot harder to identify and cultivate what made them successful.
A refinement of this is to look at the pattern of votes around the contributions as well, if they are comments. Comparing the absolute ranking of different contributions is tricky, because they frequently reflect the visibility of the thread as much as they do the popularity of the comment. (At one time, my most-upvoted contributions were random observations on the Harry Potter discussion threads, for example.)
Rationality quotes might be a helpful way of figuring out how to get upvoted, but it is not particularly helpful in figuring out how to be more competent.
A deeper observation and question: I appear to be stupid at the moment. Where can I go to learn to be less socially stupid on this site?
One approach is to identify high-status contributors and look for systematic differences between your way of expressing yourself and theirs, then experiment with adopting theirs.
Ya lol works awsome, look at my awsome bla-bla (lol!) ye mighty, and despair.
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
Alas, you and I are not in the same league as Yvain, TheOtherDave, fubarobfusco, or Jack.
Be that as it may (or mayn’t), that’s a clever way of making the intended message more palatable, including yourself in the deprecation. But you’re right. Aren’t we all pathetic, eh?
Look at your most upvoted contributions (ETA: or better, look at contributions with a positive score in general—see replies to this comment). Look at your most downvoted contributions. Compare and contrast.
Most downvoted, yes, but on the positive side I’d instead suggest looking at your comments one or two sigma east of average and no higher: they’re likely to be more reproducible. If they’re anything like mine, your most highly upvoted posts are probably high risk/high reward type comments—jokes, cultural criticism, pithy Deep Wisdom—and it’ll probably be a lot harder to identify and cultivate what made them successful.
A refinement of this is to look at the pattern of votes around the contributions as well, if they are comments. Comparing the absolute ranking of different contributions is tricky, because they frequently reflect the visibility of the thread as much as they do the popularity of the comment. (At one time, my most-upvoted contributions were random observations on the Harry Potter discussion threads, for example.)
Not to mention Rationality Quotes threads...
Rationality quotes might be a helpful way of figuring out how to get upvoted, but it is not particularly helpful in figuring out how to be more competent.
Edit: Oops. Misunderstood the comment.
Actually, I was agreeing with TheOtherDave. (I’ve edited my comment to quote the part of its parent I was elaborating upon; is that clearer now?)