I agree that drive-by unpleasant criticisms without substance (“Obtuse”) don’t seem productive, but I actually think some of the mild “tonally unpleasant” ones could be very valuable. It’s a way for an author to inexpensively let a commenter know that they didn’t appreciate the comment.
“Not what I meant” seems particularly valuable for when someone mis-summarizes or inferences wrongly what was written, and “Not worth getting into” seems useful when someone who unproductively deep on a fine-grained detail of something more macro oriented.
One challenge, though, is when you have mixed agreement with someone. I disagree on tonal unpleasantness and the grouping style—“Taboo your words” might be friendly, for instance, to keep sharpening discussion, and isn’t necessarily critical. But I agree with a meta/bikeshed and clearing up some of the ambiguous ones.
I clicked both “Disagree” and “Agree” on yours for partial agreement / mixed agreement, but that seems kind of unintuitive.
Most of my comments on tone were meant to suggest better phrasings or, in the case of ‘Not what I meant’, iconography, not to suggest they were not valuable.
The specific issue with ‘Not what I meant’ is that the icon reads as ‘you missed’ and not ‘we missed’. Communication is a two-way street and the default react should be at least neutral and non-accusatory.
The section titles were meant very broadly and eg. you’d probably want to put both ‘Locally Valid’ and ‘Locally Invalid’ in that section next to each other even though the former is also Positive. To do some word association if it helps,
Positive — encouragement, endorsement, good vibes, congratulations
I’d be hesitant to label as “Critical” pointing out that someone has an invalid argument, and having it implicitly contrasted against “Positive” — it implies they’re opposites or antithetical in some way, y’know?
Also, respectfully disagree with this -
“The specific issue with ‘Not what I meant’ is that the icon reads as ‘you missed’ and not ‘we missed’. Communication is a two-way street and the default react should be at least neutral and non-accusatory.”
Sometimes a commentor, especially someone new, is just badly off the mark. That’s not a two-way street problem, it’s a Well-Kept Garden problem...
I think signalling to someone that they’ve missed my intended point is most valuable if they are the kind of person to take it constructively, and if they are, I have no wish to be pointing fingers any more accusatorially than the minimum amount to bring that into focus.
I think a neutral reaction is still a plenty adequate signal in the case you mention and I value that it might do less social harm, whereas a harsher reaction is at least for me less universal as I will be disinclined to use it in prosocial interactions.
I’d be hesitant to label as “Critical” pointing out that someone has an invalid argument, and having it implicitly contrasted against “Positive” — it implies they’re opposites or antithetical in some way, y’know?
Yes but the choice of word used to describe the category is not a crux. As I was imagining the interface in my head, the sections were not titled at all, and if they were titled I don’t think I’d care about the choice.
I have some concern on enabling an easy-to-use feature that lazily encourages antisocial behavior, which could, if all the users of it were carefully being pro-social in their use of it, have a good use. Like… we want to keep some friction on antisocial behaviors since those can easily downward-spiral. For some things, it’s better to just have the person have to write it out, which also inherently makes it easier for them to add more nuance to what they are saying and why.
I agree. See my response to Razied that I think they might have value, and it’s interesting to see how they get used in practice. I think there’s a world where people abuse them to be mean, and a world where they’re used more judiciously. The ability to downvote reacts should also help here, I hope.
I think a top level grouping like this could make sense:
I was imagining something like that too.
There should be a Bikeshed emoji, for comments like this one
Quick feedback,
The icons aren’t all obviously interpretable to me
Not a crux — looks like a +, rec: ‘crux’ plus ‘🚫’
Please elaborate — unclear that it’s a request, rec: ‘..?’
What’s your prediction — rec: ‘P(x)?’
Examples, please — rec: ‘ex?’
Additional questions — rec: ‘??’
Obtuse — rec: remove
Some reactions seem tonally unpleasant:
Not what I meant — idea is good, but icon is accusatory
I already addressed this — icon is good, text could be ‘addressed elsewhere’
Muddled — maybe replace with ‘Unclear’?
Obtuse — maybe replace with ‘Too Long’?
Not worth getting into — feels like a meaner version of Not Planning to Respond
Note that I do like some critical reactions as-is, like Too Many Assumptions
There are too many to remember easily; perhaps
remove some partial redundancies, like Shrug + Seems Borderline?
add one-word summaries to the icon box, like [🕑 discussed 4]?
make it easier to see descriptions on mobile?
I think a top level grouping like this could make sense:
Positive — eg. Thanks, Important, Exciting, Clear
Critical — eg. Taboo, Harsh, Non Sequitur
Informational — eg. Will/Won’t Reply Later, Agree to This, Shrug
There should be a Bikeshed emoji, for comments like this one
I agree that drive-by unpleasant criticisms without substance (“Obtuse”) don’t seem productive, but I actually think some of the mild “tonally unpleasant” ones could be very valuable. It’s a way for an author to inexpensively let a commenter know that they didn’t appreciate the comment.
“Not what I meant” seems particularly valuable for when someone mis-summarizes or inferences wrongly what was written, and “Not worth getting into” seems useful when someone who unproductively deep on a fine-grained detail of something more macro oriented.
One challenge, though, is when you have mixed agreement with someone. I disagree on tonal unpleasantness and the grouping style—“Taboo your words” might be friendly, for instance, to keep sharpening discussion, and isn’t necessarily critical. But I agree with a meta/bikeshed and clearing up some of the ambiguous ones.
I clicked both “Disagree” and “Agree” on yours for partial agreement / mixed agreement, but that seems kind of unintuitive.
Perhaps helping with the mixed stuff, we might prototype “inline reacts” where you select text and your react only applies to that.
Most of my comments on tone were meant to suggest better phrasings or, in the case of ‘Not what I meant’, iconography, not to suggest they were not valuable.
The specific issue with ‘Not what I meant’ is that the icon reads as ‘you missed’ and not ‘we missed’. Communication is a two-way street and the default react should be at least neutral and non-accusatory.
The section titles were meant very broadly and eg. you’d probably want to put both ‘Locally Valid’ and ‘Locally Invalid’ in that section next to each other even though the former is also Positive. To do some word association if it helps,
Positive — encouragement, endorsement, good vibes, congratulations
Critical — technical commentary, analysis, moderation, validity
Informational — personal actions, takes, directions, neutral
but also to be clear, I’m not wedded to this, and there are no doubt many ways to split it.
Partial agreement seems like a valuable icon to me!
Partially agreed again.
I’d be hesitant to label as “Critical” pointing out that someone has an invalid argument, and having it implicitly contrasted against “Positive” — it implies they’re opposites or antithetical in some way, y’know?
Also, respectfully disagree with this -
Sometimes a commentor, especially someone new, is just badly off the mark. That’s not a two-way street problem, it’s a Well-Kept Garden problem...
I think signalling to someone that they’ve missed my intended point is most valuable if they are the kind of person to take it constructively, and if they are, I have no wish to be pointing fingers any more accusatorially than the minimum amount to bring that into focus.
I think a neutral reaction is still a plenty adequate signal in the case you mention and I value that it might do less social harm, whereas a harsher reaction is at least for me less universal as I will be disinclined to use it in prosocial interactions.
Yes but the choice of word used to describe the category is not a crux. As I was imagining the interface in my head, the sections were not titled at all, and if they were titled I don’t think I’d care about the choice.
Use case I was imagining is in a conversation, someone attempting to summarize the other.
I have some concern on enabling an easy-to-use feature that lazily encourages antisocial behavior, which could, if all the users of it were carefully being pro-social in their use of it, have a good use. Like… we want to keep some friction on antisocial behaviors since those can easily downward-spiral. For some things, it’s better to just have the person have to write it out, which also inherently makes it easier for them to add more nuance to what they are saying and why.
I want a bikeshed emoji so bad and if we had line-level reacts I wouldn’t have had to write this comment
yeah but it would need to look right, maybe we need a 150 person commitee and $10,000 to figure out the right one
Yeah, honestly all these pictograms become confusing.
Also I am liable to use Elephant not because I have more questions, but as a sign of approval. That was nice, here, have an elephant!
But have you considered “that was nice, here, have a paperclip!”
I agree. See my response to Razied that I think they might have value, and it’s interesting to see how they get used in practice. I think there’s a world where people abuse them to be mean, and a world where they’re used more judiciously. The ability to downvote reacts should also help here, I hope.
I was imagining something like that too.
:laugh-react: