In most circumstances this is how I try to approach things. One issue is that the private messaging system on LW2.0 is currently wonky (it works, but not in a way anyone would really want to use).
Another is that I feel like idealized LW culture would hopefully do some kind of “make people feel safe to politely criticize others.” And part of that means that there should be public instances of people criticizing each other in a clear/constructive tone, and people taking the feedback to heart, and people who respond badly getting some pushback and people who respond well getting some kudos and people who try to take advantage of them system (either using “constructive criticism” as a thin veneer to attack people, or using “I accept your feedback!” as a way to dodge responsibility) getting called out… hopefully with an end result of “it actually feels safe to give and receive feedback.”
We’re not there yet (at least, not in all directions across all people on the site), but hopefully can be. In the meanwhile I think Lahwran’s policy is a reasonable middle ground
I think that the benefit of criticizing publicly is that it allows your criticism to in turn be criticized.
Let us say that Alice writes a post. Bob finds the material too <adjective> to interest him. If he messages Alice privately, that is the extent of the feedback. If, however, he comments as such, Carol, Daniel, and Eve may all chime in saying that they found the material the right about of <adjective> to be interesting. The vocal minority inspires feedback from the silent majority, who might not have independently thought to give Alice feedback (because they didn’t realize their views weren’t universal, because they didn’t believe they had actionable feedback, because they didn’t have something they disagreed with).
Like all systems of voluntary feedback, there’s a great deal of self-selection involved; moving from private to public feedback just affects who selects themselves. But I think it can do so in a valuable direction.
If you have a policy of always giving feedback, then people who are disproportionately sensitive to negative reinforcement (somewhat me) will avoid interacting in the first place.
If you have a policy of always responding to feedback, then people who are disproportionately sensitive to negative reinforcement will avoid giving feedback.
De-silencing is what I call my policy of sometimes just doing the thing even though someone might give feedback or meta-feedback, even though it’s risking being painful. I made this policy because I decided that saying things moves toward a better attractor.
Note that I am describing my own behavior, not prescribing it. I predict others will like and adopt this, but I also expect a bunch of people to hate it and not do it, some of them being people who don’t feel the “place yourself as an instance of people who make this decision” thing as being important enough to be worth the pain.
Private criticism from strangers can be particularly stressful if you have lots of readers, because there’s an implicit request that you respond to it (and then maybe get in a stressful argument, etc). Public criticism you can avoid responding to if you don’t have the emotional energy for it, and if you do respond it might be seen by everyone else who wants to make the same criticism.
Private criticism from friends is probably a good idea.
Praise in public, criticise in private is something that I have heard and seems reasonable.
In most circumstances this is how I try to approach things. One issue is that the private messaging system on LW2.0 is currently wonky (it works, but not in a way anyone would really want to use).
Another is that I feel like idealized LW culture would hopefully do some kind of “make people feel safe to politely criticize others.” And part of that means that there should be public instances of people criticizing each other in a clear/constructive tone, and people taking the feedback to heart, and people who respond badly getting some pushback and people who respond well getting some kudos and people who try to take advantage of them system (either using “constructive criticism” as a thin veneer to attack people, or using “I accept your feedback!” as a way to dodge responsibility) getting called out… hopefully with an end result of “it actually feels safe to give and receive feedback.”
We’re not there yet (at least, not in all directions across all people on the site), but hopefully can be. In the meanwhile I think Lahwran’s policy is a reasonable middle ground
It seems like a reasonable and important experiment to try.
Watch this (all of it): https://vimeo.com/38247060
I think that the benefit of criticizing publicly is that it allows your criticism to in turn be criticized.
Let us say that Alice writes a post. Bob finds the material too <adjective> to interest him. If he messages Alice privately, that is the extent of the feedback. If, however, he comments as such, Carol, Daniel, and Eve may all chime in saying that they found the material the right about of <adjective> to be interesting. The vocal minority inspires feedback from the silent majority, who might not have independently thought to give Alice feedback (because they didn’t realize their views weren’t universal, because they didn’t believe they had actionable feedback, because they didn’t have something they disagreed with).
Like all systems of voluntary feedback, there’s a great deal of self-selection involved; moving from private to public feedback just affects who selects themselves. But I think it can do so in a valuable direction.
If you have a policy of always giving feedback, then people who are disproportionately sensitive to negative reinforcement (somewhat me) will avoid interacting in the first place.
If you have a policy of always responding to feedback, then people who are disproportionately sensitive to negative reinforcement will avoid giving feedback.
De-silencing is what I call my policy of sometimes just doing the thing even though someone might give feedback or meta-feedback, even though it’s risking being painful. I made this policy because I decided that saying things moves toward a better attractor.
Note that I am describing my own behavior, not prescribing it. I predict others will like and adopt this, but I also expect a bunch of people to hate it and not do it, some of them being people who don’t feel the “place yourself as an instance of people who make this decision” thing as being important enough to be worth the pain.
Private criticism from strangers can be particularly stressful if you have lots of readers, because there’s an implicit request that you respond to it (and then maybe get in a stressful argument, etc). Public criticism you can avoid responding to if you don’t have the emotional energy for it, and if you do respond it might be seen by everyone else who wants to make the same criticism.
Private criticism from friends is probably a good idea.
I seen it mainly recommended for Employer-Employee relations. So private (or no?) criticism from high status people also might be a good idea.
This is all hairy stuff.