Any generalizable rules you can think of about whom better not to cold message at all?
Yes. Contact people you see posting on sites with a norm for individual contact on random topics (I don’t know what those are, but I don’t think it’s LW). Contact people whose profile description asks you to contact them. Contact people if they post or comment that they’d like to be contacted.
Judgement call to contact people you have a comment exchange with that you want to explore further (I’d argue this isn’t “cold”).
Otherwise, leave them alone.
You can, of course, solicit contacts by setting up your profile and posting or shortform-ing that you’d like to be contacted. That’s way better than reaching out yourself to people you don’t have any reason to believe want that.
Really, e-mail or DM on a site is ALMOST NEVER the right way to initiate “cold” contact. That’s what posts are for.
Thanks, I didn’t take into account that people might read this as an encouragement to randomly message people on Lesswrong. And thanks for giving me more clarity about the implicit norms here.
To clarify: The person likely found my mail address on my homepage, where it is exactly for the reason that I’m generally happy to be contacted by strangers.
Ah, that’s important context. Putting your contact info on your public website is an invitation to be contacted. It’s probably best to specify there (perhaps on a “contact me” page, which has your info AFTER this) under what conditions you’d like to connect.
Yes. Contact people you see posting on sites with a norm for individual contact on random topics (I don’t know what those are, but I don’t think it’s LW). Contact people whose profile description asks you to contact them. Contact people if they post or comment that they’d like to be contacted.
Judgement call to contact people you have a comment exchange with that you want to explore further (I’d argue this isn’t “cold”).
Otherwise, leave them alone.
You can, of course, solicit contacts by setting up your profile and posting or shortform-ing that you’d like to be contacted. That’s way better than reaching out yourself to people you don’t have any reason to believe want that.
Really, e-mail or DM on a site is ALMOST NEVER the right way to initiate “cold” contact. That’s what posts are for.
Thanks, I didn’t take into account that people might read this as an encouragement to randomly message people on Lesswrong. And thanks for giving me more clarity about the implicit norms here.
To clarify: The person likely found my mail address on my homepage, where it is exactly for the reason that I’m generally happy to be contacted by strangers.
Ah, that’s important context. Putting your contact info on your public website is an invitation to be contacted. It’s probably best to specify there (perhaps on a “contact me” page, which has your info AFTER this) under what conditions you’d like to connect.