With some further thinking, I’m realizing one of my concerns is that this is an unfortunate direction for LW. I LIKE that LW is text-heavy. I LIKE that the norm is to use complete sentences, and to leave actual comments when there are questions or clarifications to the main point.
I don’t think adding more mechanisms for low-effort low-information-content (what, 5 bits per react?) will make LW better, and in fact could make it much worse, if it substitutes for some amount of comments. Cutesy icon debates are fun, but don’t actually add value.
[ note: partly posted to see if I can get some downvotes or negative reacts. but also because it’s a real concern, though I don’t think I understand the dynamics well enough to know if this is actually a problem for this feature. ]
I am also skeptical about this feature for a similar reason (i.e. that high-effort high-bandwidth replies will not get written because a low-effort low-bandwidth react is available instead).
I’m slightly reminded of the section in Digital Minimalism where Cal Newport says to stop clicking “like” on facebook posts, because you’ll trick your brain into thinking that you are contributing to a conversation when you’re not. (The fact that karma and approval votes are anonymous mitigates that problem, maybe.)
Low confidence on all this though. Maybe I’m just biased towards what I’m used to.
Separately, I’m skeptical of this feature because I fear the prospect of getting this kind of feedback would be draining and aversive and distracting.
NEGATIVE FEEDBACK: LW has a feature to see karma upvotes but not downvotes in the top corner periodically. I think it’s the default. It’s a great feature! Negative feedback is helpful but also exhausting; low-bandwidth negative feedback has all the emotional energy costs without much of the benefits. Here we’re making negative feedback very on-the-nose / difficult to ignore, and coming from specific people, which makes it worse I think.
POSITIVE FEEDBACK: Is also an issue!! I have issues checking feedback over and over when I have better things to do. I’m mostly managing the issue on LW, with the help of a browser tweak that hides karma and approval on my user page. I feel like I’m a recovering alcoholic and this feature is putting a bottle of wine on my nightstand. Two things in particular: the lack of anonymity and ability to request clarification etc. would make me feel like I should check over and over because it’s part of an active conversation. Like, I already have issues checking feedback when there’s no logical reason to! Second, also related to the anonymity, I think there’s a bigger dopamine hit when I’m getting complimented by a person I know. Maybe that’s why I have a harder time with checking for likes on Facebook and Twitter after posting, than with checking for karma / approval on LW after posting. Of course I compensate by tweeting or facebooking much less than I otherwise would.
I wouldn’t ask anyone to design their site around my stupid unresolved self-control issues, so feel free to ignore.
Harmful, mostly replacing high-quality comments with modest-quality reacts
Very harmful, with interest in the site draining away as commenting becomes abnormal
Helpful, with silence or low-quality comments (which could include inflammatory comments) replaced with modest-quality reacts
Very helpful, as the continuum of ability to engage escalates people into interactions they’d otherwise have skipped, as authors see that apparently unseen comments actually have a lot of eyeballs on them, and leading to a positive feedback loop in which engagement leads to more engagement
Neutral, with these trends in balance, probably in some sort of complicated manner I can’t foresee
I think any truly bad effects on the site would take place over the long run, and I think we could learn a lot by experimenting with it about whether it seems good or bad, so I tentatively support an experimental rollout.
I agree that this is a potential downside. However:
I think this has the potential to elicit more information rather than reducing the maount of information, if the use of reacts by lurkers sufficiently exceeds the downgrading of comments to reacts by non-lurkers.
I think this has the potential to improve social norms on LessWrong by providing a neat way for people to express directions of desired change. Social norms aren’t always about providing precise information, but instead also often about adjusting broader behaviors.
But I agree that this is potentially concerning enough that it should probably be tracked and that I think LessWrong should be ready to drop it again if it turns out bad.
Galaxybrained idea: use this system to incentivize more detailed texts by allowing people to get custom reacts made for posts that explain some problematic dynamic, and have the reacts link back to that post.
Another potential option: the person who is getting reacted to should have an option to request explanations for the reacts, and if requested, providing such explanations should receive bonus karma or something.
I don’t have the intuition that reactions will replace some comments which would have been written without this feature. What makes you think this will happen?
If reactions were tied to posting a comment, such as reactions could not decrease the number of comments, would this make you more likely to support this feature?
Incidentally, thinking about which reaction to put to this comment instead of just up or downvoting made me realize I did not understand completely what you meant, and motivated me to write a comment instead.
Good point. I think this is important. I too like that it is text-heavy. I’m not sure if the reactions would actually make it less text-heavy (to an important extent), but that question does seem to be pretty cruxy, so it’s good to have it out in the open.
With some further thinking, I’m realizing one of my concerns is that this is an unfortunate direction for LW. I LIKE that LW is text-heavy. I LIKE that the norm is to use complete sentences, and to leave actual comments when there are questions or clarifications to the main point.
I don’t think adding more mechanisms for low-effort low-information-content (what, 5 bits per react?) will make LW better, and in fact could make it much worse, if it substitutes for some amount of comments. Cutesy icon debates are fun, but don’t actually add value.
[ note: partly posted to see if I can get some downvotes or negative reacts. but also because it’s a real concern, though I don’t think I understand the dynamics well enough to know if this is actually a problem for this feature. ]
I am also skeptical about this feature for a similar reason (i.e. that high-effort high-bandwidth replies will not get written because a low-effort low-bandwidth react is available instead).
I’m slightly reminded of the section in Digital Minimalism where Cal Newport says to stop clicking “like” on facebook posts, because you’ll trick your brain into thinking that you are contributing to a conversation when you’re not. (The fact that karma and approval votes are anonymous mitigates that problem, maybe.)
Low confidence on all this though. Maybe I’m just biased towards what I’m used to.
Separately, I’m skeptical of this feature because I fear the prospect of getting this kind of feedback would be draining and aversive and distracting.
NEGATIVE FEEDBACK: LW has a feature to see karma upvotes but not downvotes in the top corner periodically. I think it’s the default. It’s a great feature! Negative feedback is helpful but also exhausting; low-bandwidth negative feedback has all the emotional energy costs without much of the benefits. Here we’re making negative feedback very on-the-nose / difficult to ignore, and coming from specific people, which makes it worse I think.
POSITIVE FEEDBACK: Is also an issue!! I have issues checking feedback over and over when I have better things to do. I’m mostly managing the issue on LW, with the help of a browser tweak that hides karma and approval on my user page. I feel like I’m a recovering alcoholic and this feature is putting a bottle of wine on my nightstand. Two things in particular: the lack of anonymity and ability to request clarification etc. would make me feel like I should check over and over because it’s part of an active conversation. Like, I already have issues checking feedback when there’s no logical reason to! Second, also related to the anonymity, I think there’s a bigger dopamine hit when I’m getting complimented by a person I know. Maybe that’s why I have a harder time with checking for likes on Facebook and Twitter after posting, than with checking for karma / approval on LW after posting. Of course I compensate by tweeting or facebooking much less than I otherwise would.
I wouldn’t ask anyone to design their site around my stupid unresolved self-control issues, so feel free to ignore.
Have you looked into whether you are ADHD?
Welcome to the curmudgeon club!
I’m honestly not sure if this system would be:
Harmful, mostly replacing high-quality comments with modest-quality reacts
Very harmful, with interest in the site draining away as commenting becomes abnormal
Helpful, with silence or low-quality comments (which could include inflammatory comments) replaced with modest-quality reacts
Very helpful, as the continuum of ability to engage escalates people into interactions they’d otherwise have skipped, as authors see that apparently unseen comments actually have a lot of eyeballs on them, and leading to a positive feedback loop in which engagement leads to more engagement
Neutral, with these trends in balance, probably in some sort of complicated manner I can’t foresee
I think any truly bad effects on the site would take place over the long run, and I think we could learn a lot by experimenting with it about whether it seems good or bad, so I tentatively support an experimental rollout.
I agree that this is a potential downside. However:
I think this has the potential to elicit more information rather than reducing the maount of information, if the use of reacts by lurkers sufficiently exceeds the downgrading of comments to reacts by non-lurkers.
I think this has the potential to improve social norms on LessWrong by providing a neat way for people to express directions of desired change. Social norms aren’t always about providing precise information, but instead also often about adjusting broader behaviors.
But I agree that this is potentially concerning enough that it should probably be tracked and that I think LessWrong should be ready to drop it again if it turns out bad.
Galaxybrained idea: use this system to incentivize more detailed texts by allowing people to get custom reacts made for posts that explain some problematic dynamic, and have the reacts link back to that post.
Another potential option: the person who is getting reacted to should have an option to request explanations for the reacts, and if requested, providing such explanations should receive bonus karma or something.
I don’t have the intuition that reactions will replace some comments which would have been written without this feature. What makes you think this will happen?
If reactions were tied to posting a comment, such as reactions could not decrease the number of comments, would this make you more likely to support this feature?
Incidentally, thinking about which reaction to put to this comment instead of just up or downvoting made me realize I did not understand completely what you meant, and motivated me to write a comment instead.
Good point. I think this is important. I too like that it is text-heavy. I’m not sure if the reactions would actually make it less text-heavy (to an important extent), but that question does seem to be pretty cruxy, so it’s good to have it out in the open.