4 Downvotes and no comments? I wager 1 bitcoin towards the singularity institute for every comment on this comment ;) that convinces me of the negative utility of my post.
For the grammar issue, i did make it clear that this was my first top level post and i dont have a beta i can just call up for editing. I’m constantly revising the article to make it more clear and i think that some measure of leniency should be afforded due to situational factors in this circumstance.
You are saying some of the same phrases that well-known LW-ers say, and want to do the same things some of them do. This is fine, and I’ve decided not to downvote you, but it’s not novel material, it’s fandom.
I have never seen a documentation of a quest to avoid Akrasia on LW.
I’ve seen summary’s of tips and tricks.
I’ve read Alicorn’s challenge.
I’ve seen reports of specific tools.
I was thinking more along the lines of a cognitive tale of me trying to control my mental state that others can use as a rope when they fall into the pit of despair. If it seems like I am falling into fandom because my lack of experience I can’t control your opinion. However, I think you are suffering from the same cognitive pattern that some others are
Unfortunately for you, many of us use “did the author take the time to get spelling and grammar correct” as a proxy for “did the author take the time to think about what she wrote”.
and therefore feeling undue condescension towards my work. I would appreciate specific examples as I said above so that I may better understand your position.
Whatever you want to call this post, I assure you that all the worthwhile bits have already been on LW. Maybe if your tale contained more than “I want to do nice-sounding stuff” it would be almost as interesting to read as those “tips and tricks,” or as they are sometimes called, actually going out and doing stuff.
And I mean that. You don’t absolutely have to give new information in the text to write a good post. Personal stories can be nice, both as entertainment and because of the information they contain in the subtext. But stories have to be stories. They have to have a beginning and a middle, and sometimes an end. They should probably have a character or two, and these characters should probably actually go out and do stuff.
It was probably downvoted for a combination of the large number of spelling errors and the fact that you posted to the wrong place (as I mentioned above, this belongs in Discussion, not the front page).
I think that its more grammar than spelling. I cant find any spelling errors :( but if you do please message me about them and i am constantly updating it as i find any such errors.
Mainly, you consistently forget to capitalize words. I don’t have time to point out all the instances, but I’m sure you can find them.
It’s also unclear how your current goals relate to “saving the world”, which could be another one of the problems. (There’s nothing wrong with having non-world-saving goals as well, but it is just that your introduction doesn’t fit the rest of the post in this sense.)
I find it helpful to point out a few specific examples to clarify a point that fades quickly as its changed. For instance i have trouble finding my own errors and when you say that there are “many” without giving me any examples i feel very confused and have trouble realizing how you justify a down-vote for a flaw that will be easily fixed as its updated with future information. I also have trouble understanding how you dont see the connection between overcoming Akrasia and Saving the world. Maybe I’m just biased because i wrote the article but i thought the connection was quite clear.
You are free to choose as you wish, we obviously have very different priors here and I’m just looking for clarification on a issue that i dont understand as well as you do.
Unfortunately for you, many of us use “did the author take the time to get spelling and grammar correct” as a proxy for “did the author take the time to think about what she wrote”.
i have trouble
i feel very confused
i dont understand
Capitalize the word “I”.
as its changed
as its updated
The word “its” is possessive, you want “it’s”, the contraction.
I have trouble editing my own work, I recognize these flaws when I beta for others but when it comes to my own work I tend to get lost in my own train of thought. Now that I have people finally offering to beta my work maybe I can surpass these flaws for good.
Also, I’m used to I capitalizing on it’s own for some reason my spell-check is not working on I’s today.
Overcoming akrasia is about more effectively achieving your goals. Those goals don’t necessarily have to involve saving the world. All the goals you listed were of the non-world-saving variety. Again, that doesn’t make them bad goals, but it does make it unclear what the overall point of the post is (since the first and second halves seem to contradict each other).
I did not downvote the post, and personally think it is silly to downvote due to spelling errors (since good spelling seems like more of a way of demonstrating status than communicating effectively). I was merely trying to answer your question based on my best guess.
I’ve edited it to make the relationship between overcoming Akrasia and saving the world more clear, but when I asked for comments earlier I was focusing on people who down-voted so I trade for their opinions with possible expected utility. I greatly appreciate your commentary on my article though because its helped it grow to become something much more stable as a LessWrongian piece.
4 Downvotes and no comments? I wager 1 bitcoin towards the singularity institute for every comment on this comment ;) that convinces me of the negative utility of my post. For the grammar issue, i did make it clear that this was my first top level post and i dont have a beta i can just call up for editing. I’m constantly revising the article to make it more clear and i think that some measure of leniency should be afforded due to situational factors in this circumstance.
You are saying some of the same phrases that well-known LW-ers say, and want to do the same things some of them do. This is fine, and I’ve decided not to downvote you, but it’s not novel material, it’s fandom.
I have never seen a documentation of a quest to avoid Akrasia on LW. I’ve seen summary’s of tips and tricks. I’ve read Alicorn’s challenge. I’ve seen reports of specific tools. I was thinking more along the lines of a cognitive tale of me trying to control my mental state that others can use as a rope when they fall into the pit of despair. If it seems like I am falling into fandom because my lack of experience I can’t control your opinion. However, I think you are suffering from the same cognitive pattern that some others are
and therefore feeling undue condescension towards my work. I would appreciate specific examples as I said above so that I may better understand your position.
Whatever you want to call this post, I assure you that all the worthwhile bits have already been on LW. Maybe if your tale contained more than “I want to do nice-sounding stuff” it would be almost as interesting to read as those “tips and tricks,” or as they are sometimes called, actually going out and doing stuff.
And I mean that. You don’t absolutely have to give new information in the text to write a good post. Personal stories can be nice, both as entertainment and because of the information they contain in the subtext. But stories have to be stories. They have to have a beginning and a middle, and sometimes an end. They should probably have a character or two, and these characters should probably actually go out and do stuff.
It was probably downvoted for a combination of the large number of spelling errors and the fact that you posted to the wrong place (as I mentioned above, this belongs in Discussion, not the front page).
I think that its more grammar than spelling. I cant find any spelling errors :( but if you do please message me about them and i am constantly updating it as i find any such errors.
Mainly, you consistently forget to capitalize words. I don’t have time to point out all the instances, but I’m sure you can find them.
It’s also unclear how your current goals relate to “saving the world”, which could be another one of the problems. (There’s nothing wrong with having non-world-saving goals as well, but it is just that your introduction doesn’t fit the rest of the post in this sense.)
I find it helpful to point out a few specific examples to clarify a point that fades quickly as its changed. For instance i have trouble finding my own errors and when you say that there are “many” without giving me any examples i feel very confused and have trouble realizing how you justify a down-vote for a flaw that will be easily fixed as its updated with future information. I also have trouble understanding how you dont see the connection between overcoming Akrasia and Saving the world. Maybe I’m just biased because i wrote the article but i thought the connection was quite clear.
You are free to choose as you wish, we obviously have very different priors here and I’m just looking for clarification on a issue that i dont understand as well as you do.
Unfortunately for you, many of us use “did the author take the time to get spelling and grammar correct” as a proxy for “did the author take the time to think about what she wrote”.
Capitalize the word “I”.
The word “its” is possessive, you want “it’s”, the contraction.
The word “don’t” has an apostrophe.
Before “issue”, you want “an” rather than “a”.
I have trouble editing my own work, I recognize these flaws when I beta for others but when it comes to my own work I tend to get lost in my own train of thought. Now that I have people finally offering to beta my work maybe I can surpass these flaws for good. Also, I’m used to I capitalizing on it’s own for some reason my spell-check is not working on I’s today.
Now, see, here you don’t want the apostrophe. :-)
Also, speaking of capitalization: “akrasia”, “journey”, and “rationality” are not proper nouns and should not be capitalized.
I learned the moral of the story, don’t post to top level without a beta/substantially clear thesis of why your content should be there.
Overcoming akrasia is about more effectively achieving your goals. Those goals don’t necessarily have to involve saving the world. All the goals you listed were of the non-world-saving variety. Again, that doesn’t make them bad goals, but it does make it unclear what the overall point of the post is (since the first and second halves seem to contradict each other).
I did not downvote the post, and personally think it is silly to downvote due to spelling errors (since good spelling seems like more of a way of demonstrating status than communicating effectively). I was merely trying to answer your question based on my best guess.
I’ve edited it to make the relationship between overcoming Akrasia and saving the world more clear, but when I asked for comments earlier I was focusing on people who down-voted so I trade for their opinions with possible expected utility. I greatly appreciate your commentary on my article though because its helped it grow to become something much more stable as a LessWrongian piece.