Your post jumps into the middle of the discussion assuming, wrongly, that the reader knows all about the topic you are discussing. Suggest you rewrite. Too many LW posts are like this.
No a link to another long and meandering blog post is not a substitute for a clear explanation here.
I actually really like that LW is a place where deep discussions can take place that require a lot of context. Yes that means not every post is for everyone, and when that is the case posts try to explain where people can go to learn more if they want more context. There seems room enough here for both kinds of topics, as one person’s unbridgeable inferrential gap is another persons inferrential stepping stone.
If you could say more specifically what confused you, I might be able to explain or edit the post to include an explanation. As it is, I’m sort of looking at this comment in puzzlement going “did I leave this reader with the mistaken impression that they’re supposed to know all about Sorting Hat Chats to read this post? Does waveman want a quick review of what normative ethics is and why people argue about it before the post starts? Is the concept of scrupulosity confusing? Maybe I’m insufficiently inclusive of people who don’t read Harry Potter? Maybe it’s something I’m not thinking of because the connection is obvious to me?”
Another datapoint: I think this post is in fact reasonably self-contained, but gives the impression of not being. That is, it begins with a reference to something that (I guess) most of us have never heard of, and a link to a Tumblr; then in the next paragraph it makes reference to another thing that most of us have heard of but some are probably not familiar with; and then it goes on to do what at first glance looks like “elaborate a bit on the characteristics of these groups that are supposed to have been defined elsewhere” but turns out to be more like “give descriptions of these groups that are pretty much self-contained”. So the problem isn’t that it actually depends on the prior discussion elsewhere, it’s that it looks rather as if it’s going to.
I think that if it had begun with something like this:
There are many systems for classifying people into a smallish number of personality types [perhaps insert links to MBTI, that post about MTG colours, etc. here]. I’d like to describe one that seems to me to work inexplicably well for classifying people’s opinions about normative ethics and scrupulosity. It’s part of the Sorting Hat Chats [NB link] system, but you can read the following without knowing anything more about that (or about the actual Hogwarts Houses, which this system resembles only vaguely) than that we’re going to put people into four buckets labelled Ravenclaw, Gryffindor, Hufflepuff and Slytherin.
… but continued more or less exactly as it now is, then waveman and lifelonglearner might have been much happier with it. (But I am not them and could be wrong about that.)
As a counterbalance: for me the clarity of the post, and wordiness of explanation were both as close to perfect as I could reasonably expect from almost anyone.
From a pursely selfish point of view, please continue to use the same meta-heuristics for your writing, because they are totally awesome. There are too little posts like this on LW.
For me (but perhaps not for waveman), there’s a general attitude throughout the essay of assuming that I know the specific connotation of the Hogwarts houses, which seems different than the stereotypes in my head. The essay doesn’t read like how I might explain this system to a friend, but more to someone who’s already familiar with these ideas. Maybe more examples would also help.
Your post jumps into the middle of the discussion assuming, wrongly, that the reader knows all about the topic you are discussing. Suggest you rewrite. Too many LW posts are like this.
No a link to another long and meandering blog post is not a substitute for a clear explanation here.
I actually really like that LW is a place where deep discussions can take place that require a lot of context. Yes that means not every post is for everyone, and when that is the case posts try to explain where people can go to learn more if they want more context. There seems room enough here for both kinds of topics, as one person’s unbridgeable inferrential gap is another persons inferrential stepping stone.
If you could say more specifically what confused you, I might be able to explain or edit the post to include an explanation. As it is, I’m sort of looking at this comment in puzzlement going “did I leave this reader with the mistaken impression that they’re supposed to know all about Sorting Hat Chats to read this post? Does waveman want a quick review of what normative ethics is and why people argue about it before the post starts? Is the concept of scrupulosity confusing? Maybe I’m insufficiently inclusive of people who don’t read Harry Potter? Maybe it’s something I’m not thinking of because the connection is obvious to me?”
Another datapoint: I think this post is in fact reasonably self-contained, but gives the impression of not being. That is, it begins with a reference to something that (I guess) most of us have never heard of, and a link to a Tumblr; then in the next paragraph it makes reference to another thing that most of us have heard of but some are probably not familiar with; and then it goes on to do what at first glance looks like “elaborate a bit on the characteristics of these groups that are supposed to have been defined elsewhere” but turns out to be more like “give descriptions of these groups that are pretty much self-contained”. So the problem isn’t that it actually depends on the prior discussion elsewhere, it’s that it looks rather as if it’s going to.
I think that if it had begun with something like this:
… but continued more or less exactly as it now is, then waveman and lifelonglearner might have been much happier with it. (But I am not them and could be wrong about that.)
I’ve edited the post in light of these criticisms; if the solution didn’t address people’s concerns, I’m happy to hear about them.
As a counterbalance: for me the clarity of the post, and wordiness of explanation were both as close to perfect as I could reasonably expect from almost anyone.
From a pursely selfish point of view, please continue to use the same meta-heuristics for your writing, because they are totally awesome. There are too little posts like this on LW.
For me (but perhaps not for waveman), there’s a general attitude throughout the essay of assuming that I know the specific connotation of the Hogwarts houses, which seems different than the stereotypes in my head. The essay doesn’t read like how I might explain this system to a friend, but more to someone who’s already familiar with these ideas. Maybe more examples would also help.