1. I really like the idea! I think epistemic statuses are really useful to readers, and I think that they can often times make authors feel comfortable writing things that they otherwise wouldn’t write. Ie. I think a lot of people are hesitant to post things that aren’t authoritative. But if there was an explicit field for “exploratory” or “my best guess”, it is obvious that “oh, ok, I’m allowed to write something like that”.
Another thing I like is that it can make the writing smoother. Without epistemic statuses, it can be tempting to have a lot of “I have a reasonably strong impression”-like qualifiers throughout a post. Whereas with an epistemic status of My Best Guess, you could probably leave out most of those qualifiers while still communicating that your statements are reasonably strong impressions, rather than statements of truth.
2. Although I like the idea, I don’t think it’s completely obvious that it’s a good feature to include. However, I feel pretty confident in saying that it’s worth running an experiment on. Maybe try it out for a month and see how it goes. If people aren’t liking it you leave users slightly frustrated for a month. But if it does work, I think the upside is pretty large, and it is multiplied across a much larger period of time. I guess the same arguments could be made for most potential features—and I think that there are many things worth experimenting with! - but I think this one is particularly high upside, in contrast to something like a UI change I guess.
3. I think that there should be an option for a freeform epistemic status, eg. one that isn’t Empty, Exploratory, My Best Guess or Authoritative. Sometimes the epistemic status doesn’t quite fit in to one of those buckets. In general, I think it’s pretty hard to predict in advance what all of the possible buckets for things are. And so I feel especially strongly about this as a ways to start off. Perhaps after a few months of use, if it is clear that Empty, Exploratory, My Best Guess and Authoritative are the buckets, it would be appropriate to get rid of the freeform option, but it seems prudent to test it out before making that assumption.
I suppose the big downside to this is that, with a freeform field, authors may say confusing things, whereas if there wasn’t a freeform field, they would have to choose something (and then perhaps add additional text to their choice), and that would be easier for readers. I don’t see this as a big downside because I think that authors on LessWrong are pretty capable as writers. Of course, they’re not perfect and there will be moments of confusion, but overall I don’t think there will be too much. And I think that issue can be addressed in other ways.
4. I agree that there are times when epistemic statuses are used to be witty and clever rather than clearly communicate the epistemic status, but I haven’t found this to be a big problem at all. And when it is a problem, you can easily skim/skip through it.
1. I really like the idea! I think epistemic statuses are really useful to readers, and I think that they can often times make authors feel comfortable writing things that they otherwise wouldn’t write. Ie. I think a lot of people are hesitant to post things that aren’t authoritative. But if there was an explicit field for “exploratory” or “my best guess”, it is obvious that “oh, ok, I’m allowed to write something like that”.
Another thing I like is that it can make the writing smoother. Without epistemic statuses, it can be tempting to have a lot of “I have a reasonably strong impression”-like qualifiers throughout a post. Whereas with an epistemic status of My Best Guess, you could probably leave out most of those qualifiers while still communicating that your statements are reasonably strong impressions, rather than statements of truth.
2. Although I like the idea, I don’t think it’s completely obvious that it’s a good feature to include. However, I feel pretty confident in saying that it’s worth running an experiment on. Maybe try it out for a month and see how it goes. If people aren’t liking it you leave users slightly frustrated for a month. But if it does work, I think the upside is pretty large, and it is multiplied across a much larger period of time. I guess the same arguments could be made for most potential features—and I think that there are many things worth experimenting with! - but I think this one is particularly high upside, in contrast to something like a UI change I guess.
3. I think that there should be an option for a freeform epistemic status, eg. one that isn’t Empty, Exploratory, My Best Guess or Authoritative. Sometimes the epistemic status doesn’t quite fit in to one of those buckets. In general, I think it’s pretty hard to predict in advance what all of the possible buckets for things are. And so I feel especially strongly about this as a ways to start off. Perhaps after a few months of use, if it is clear that Empty, Exploratory, My Best Guess and Authoritative are the buckets, it would be appropriate to get rid of the freeform option, but it seems prudent to test it out before making that assumption.
I suppose the big downside to this is that, with a freeform field, authors may say confusing things, whereas if there wasn’t a freeform field, they would have to choose something (and then perhaps add additional text to their choice), and that would be easier for readers. I don’t see this as a big downside because I think that authors on LessWrong are pretty capable as writers. Of course, they’re not perfect and there will be moments of confusion, but overall I don’t think there will be too much. And I think that issue can be addressed in other ways.
4. I agree that there are times when epistemic statuses are used to be witty and clever rather than clearly communicate the epistemic status, but I haven’t found this to be a big problem at all. And when it is a problem, you can easily skim/skip through it.