The short version of my reaction is that when it comes to PR, it’s better to be right than to be quick.
I don’t understand how this could possibly be true, for any common notion of “better”. Imagine that British Petroleum responded only now to the leak disaster with a long, detailed technical report about how it was not their fault. The public opinion would have already set catastrophically against them.
Movement-building is categorically different from incident response. I agree that transparency and speed are the important features when it comes to incidents.
But when it comes to movement building, it seems like a bad first impression is difficult to remove, and questions of where to draw new adherents from has a significant impact on the community quality. One also has to deal with the fact that many people’s identities are defined at least in part negatively—if something is a thing that those people like, then they’ll dislike it because of the anticorrelation of their preferences with their enemies.
I’m curious why you think the effect will be small and negative. Here is the broad strategy that we have. I’d like your thoughts on it and how to optimize it—always looking for better ways to do things.
The short version of my reaction is that when it comes to PR, it’s better to be right than to be quick.
I expect II’s effect is small, but seems more likely to be negative than positive.
I don’t understand how this could possibly be true, for any common notion of “better”. Imagine that British Petroleum responded only now to the leak disaster with a long, detailed technical report about how it was not their fault.
The public opinion would have already set catastrophically against them.
Movement-building is categorically different from incident response. I agree that transparency and speed are the important features when it comes to incidents.
But when it comes to movement building, it seems like a bad first impression is difficult to remove, and questions of where to draw new adherents from has a significant impact on the community quality. One also has to deal with the fact that many people’s identities are defined at least in part negatively—if something is a thing that those people like, then they’ll dislike it because of the anticorrelation of their preferences with their enemies.
I think you might be treating the premise given in an uncharitable way.
If however you suggest that, more frequently than not—“it’s better to be quick than to be right” (the opposite opinion) - then carry on.
Which is it?
I’m curious why you think the effect will be small and negative. Here is the broad strategy that we have. I’d like your thoughts on it and how to optimize it—always looking for better ways to do things.