Hm, I’m finding it difficult to think in the abstract about the question of “extended discussion in the comments section vs having a follow up post”. I feel like it’s the sort of thing where it’s easier to think about a concrete example. Fortunately, I just came across one!
At this point in my conversation with bendini, I agreed with their point about a shift in cultural norms needing to come before any UI changes. I feel like this would be a good time to continue via a follow up post. However, before reaching this point, I think the back and forth discussion in the comments section worked well. I sense that in practice, using your judgement for this question of comment section vs follow up post would work out well.
But more to the point, I think my original idea of having these crazy month long discussions via the comments section is probably wrong. It’d probably make sense to continue via a follow up post before the discussion gets that long. Maybe not 100% of the time, but most of the time.
Writing top-level posts can be intimidating, and can be a lot of work. (They can be intimidating because they’re a lot of work—one feels daunted at the prospect. They can be a lot of work because they’re intimidating—fear of writing something unsatisfactory motivates research and polishing. This parenthesis is really just for fun.) Perhaps there’s space for something intermediate between a comment and a post, somehow, for exactly this situation? But I’m not sure what it would be, how it would work, or whether it would actually end up feeling like something intermediate.
This is a great point. I agree that this is an important barrier. I think the LW team has tried to address this with the concepts of personal blog posts having a low bar, and then also with shortform posts. And in some sense, with the concept of asking a question too. However, piggybacking off of bendini, I think that the real crux of the problem is social/cultural shifts, not UI shifts.
But it seems to me that quickfire back-and-forth of the sort that’s better staying in comments is seldom productive when extended beyond (say) a week, both because purely mechanically it becomes difficult and unpleasant to follow in a nested comment-thread setup
Agreed. This is an important practical consideration that I overlooked. Thanks for bringing it up.
and also because quick back-and-forth comments are mostly about what you might call “easy” responses:
I think I am more bullish than you about back-and-forth comments being useful/productive, but I don’t see it as an important point to discuss further, because big picture I agree that after however many days, it’ll usually make sense to continue the discussion by writing up a new post.
Hm, I’m finding it difficult to think in the abstract about the question of “extended discussion in the comments section vs having a follow up post”. I feel like it’s the sort of thing where it’s easier to think about a concrete example. Fortunately, I just came across one!
At this point in my conversation with bendini, I agreed with their point about a shift in cultural norms needing to come before any UI changes. I feel like this would be a good time to continue via a follow up post. However, before reaching this point, I think the back and forth discussion in the comments section worked well. I sense that in practice, using your judgement for this question of comment section vs follow up post would work out well.
But more to the point, I think my original idea of having these crazy month long discussions via the comments section is probably wrong. It’d probably make sense to continue via a follow up post before the discussion gets that long. Maybe not 100% of the time, but most of the time.
This is a great point. I agree that this is an important barrier. I think the LW team has tried to address this with the concepts of personal blog posts having a low bar, and then also with shortform posts. And in some sense, with the concept of asking a question too. However, piggybacking off of bendini, I think that the real crux of the problem is social/cultural shifts, not UI shifts.
Agreed. This is an important practical consideration that I overlooked. Thanks for bringing it up.
I think I am more bullish than you about back-and-forth comments being useful/productive, but I don’t see it as an important point to discuss further, because big picture I agree that after however many days, it’ll usually make sense to continue the discussion by writing up a new post.
maybe scheduled a chat? text or audio or something like that to discuss an article?
Makes sense.