I think those things would be a step in the right direction, but I’d be surprised if they turned out to be sufficient. Remember, LessWrong already notifies the subset of the userbase most likely to reply (i.e. users who have already replied) when there are new comments, but those users choose to ignore them after ~2 weeks.
For things to actually change, I predict that we’d first need a widespread perception that this behaviour is a problem, then have various UI nudges put in place. The only way you’d get the desired behaviour change without that consensus is if the UI went beyond nudging and aggressively pushed it as the default.
For things to actually change, I predict that we’d first need a widespread perception that this behaviour is a problem, then have various UI nudges put in place. The only way you’d get the desired behaviour change without that consensus is if the UI went beyond nudging and aggressively pushed it as the default.
My apologies if I was being dense or if I was misunderstanding you before, but in reading this now, I agree and think it makes a lot of sense. So then, I think the question becomes much more social than technical. It’s not about how to design the UI, it’s about evolving cultural norms.
I suppose a good starting point there would be to have a post talk in more detail about why this would be a good thing (I didn’t really do that in this post). From there, maybe the next step would be if you started to see post authors do things like making pledges or holding office hours.
I think the question becomes much more social than technical. It’s not about how to design the UI, it’s about evolving cultural norms.
I would say it’s both, it’s getting users to want to do something and having the UI make it easy for them to do it.
(As a side note, for some reason people have become more reluctant in the past decade to rebel against interfaces and the implicit messages sent by its design choices. Like, until about last year you could not get people to use Discord as a tool for serious work, even though it was better than Slack, simply because it was associated with gamers.)
I suppose a good starting point there would be to have a post talk in more detail about why this would be a good thing
I think that would make sense as a next step.
From there, maybe the next step would be if you started to see post authors do things like making pledges or holding office hours.
I think the first question that needs to be explored here is why they are not already doing something like this already. I’ve only ever made a single post to LessWrong, and to me sticking around in the comment section seemed like the obvious thing to do. I didn’t do it out of a sense of duty, it just didn’t make sense to me to spend all that time writing a post and not hang around afterwards to talk about it. (One serious possibility is that most people who write posts are a lot more introverted than I am, so instead of seeing it as a reward for their efforts, they view answering questions as a necessary evil.)
I think those things would be a step in the right direction, but I’d be surprised if they turned out to be sufficient. Remember, LessWrong already notifies the subset of the userbase most likely to reply (i.e. users who have already replied) when there are new comments, but those users choose to ignore them after ~2 weeks.
For things to actually change, I predict that we’d first need a widespread perception that this behaviour is a problem, then have various UI nudges put in place. The only way you’d get the desired behaviour change without that consensus is if the UI went beyond nudging and aggressively pushed it as the default.
My apologies if I was being dense or if I was misunderstanding you before, but in reading this now, I agree and think it makes a lot of sense. So then, I think the question becomes much more social than technical. It’s not about how to design the UI, it’s about evolving cultural norms.
I suppose a good starting point there would be to have a post talk in more detail about why this would be a good thing (I didn’t really do that in this post). From there, maybe the next step would be if you started to see post authors do things like making pledges or holding office hours.
(As a side note, for some reason people have become more reluctant in the past decade to rebel against interfaces and the implicit messages sent by its design choices. Like, until about last year you could not get people to use Discord as a tool for serious work, even though it was better than Slack, simply because it was associated with gamers.)
Ah, great point. Seems obvious in retrospect, but it’s always good to talk to users. I agree that that would make sense as the first step.
If you don’t write a seperate post about it, you could reply to this comment with the results. (i have nothing further to add at this time.)