Please take a look through the list of recently posted discussion topics, and note how often various authors post. At the moment, the only one approaching your frequency is draq, who is also heavily downvoted. While there are LW users who would be celebrated if they posted new material every day or two, you can mostly identify them by looking at the “Top Contributors” list on the bottom right of this page.
Seconding Carl changes your argument to this is the first substantive posting I’ve made in four days. Now it’s one in five days.
Other than not posting on a new given topic (while you have no active or live posts), what would you suggest? Personally, I would suggest a separate area (a playpen, if you will) where newbies are allowed to post and learn. You can’t truly learn anything of value just by watching. Insisting that a first attempt be done correctly on the first try under safe circumstances is counter-productive.
My last substantive post before this one was a total admitted disaster (make that my last two substantive posts). This one is hanging in there. Apparently I’ve learned something. If I, like draq, am being heavily downvoted—this post would be positive for anyone else.
Continuing the admitted disasters would have been an exercise of throwing good time after bad. I’m trying to wring all the knowledge (or functionality) I can out of each top-level post but they were done. Do you really want to say that regardless of what I’ve learned, you “would appreciate it if you would cease making top-level posts entirely” until I’ve paid for my previous errors through certain very limited activities?
I get why your original comment has such high karma. I always have been trying to calculate the expected value of their content for your readers. I argue that not giving credit for intent and some slack to newbies (especially those showing progress) is counter-productive to any goal of outreach.
Personally, I would suggest a separate area (a playpen, if you will) where newbies are allowed to post and learn. You can’t truly learn anything of value just by watching. Insisting that a first attempt be done correctly on the first try under safe circumstances is counter-productive.
mwaser, every person on this board (possibly excepting some transfers from Overcoming Bias) was once a newbie. I was once a newbie. My first toplevel was downvoted too. If you want to be safe, you lurk until you truly get what’s going on around you. People can in fact learn things that way.
Your apology post was full of applause lights: you admitted fault, claimed mitigating circumstance and benign intent, requested patience and gentleness, and offered a community service. And you got lots of applause.
However, it doesn’t say anywhere what it is that you claim to have suddenly understood (which spelling out, surely, would be essential to writing a newbie’s guide, wouldn’t it?). And apart from sprinkling the linguistic equivalent of tags in everything you’ve written since, it doesn’t look like your conduct has changed. You’re only attaching soothing particles with no meaning behind them, uttering statements of trivial agreement whenever convenient without following substantive advice, and claiming repeatedly to have learned some unspecified thing which makes you above disapproval.
My first toplevel (posted back when a toplevel on Main was worth the same karma as a toplevel in Discussion) was downvoted, and then I shut the hell up until I had something I was more sure of to say. If I had only waited until I was “done”, just as I’d been “done” with my first post, then it would not have gone well for me. Every time someone downvotes you, you are being told to recalibrate your caution. At this point, if I were you, I’d drop into lurk-mode for a few months.
Okay: what mistaken assumptions about karma? What false beliefs did you have about karma, and how did they mislead your actions?
a huge amount of underlying structure which is necessary to explain what looks like seemingly irrational behavior (to someone who doesn’t have that structure)
Okay: how does what underlying structure explain what apparently irrational behavior?
(until you catch the underlying regularities and make the right assumptions)
Okay: And those regularities and assumptions are...?
terms of art” that are not recognizable as such to the newbie
Okay: and I can find your list of these, and how you misunderstood them, where?
the underlying consistency of the “irrationality”
Which takes what form, please?
the necessary understandings.
Such as?
One must understand the expected process and expectations of contribution and understand the “terms of art” that are invariable [sic] used in the evaluatory [sic] comments. Clear and confused have very specific meanings here that do not unpack correctly unless you have the underlying structure/understanding.
And the process is? The expectations are? The terms mean? The structure/understanding is? What is the mystery you have unraveled here, please show the class.
most of the behavior that totally baffled me before and appeared irrational now makes total sense
Do tell. How does it make sense?
The rules are totally different here from what I expected/assumed and the unnoticed phase change caused my “rational” behavior to be deemed “irrational” (only because it was ;-) and “irrational” behavior to be widely accepted (not what you expect on a site devoted to rationality ;-).
And the rules are...?
Ending the dissection here because comments can’t be arbitrarily long, and because it’s all the same. You throw around words labeling things you supposedly understand without ever describing those things. Over and over and over.
I expect that the error is in using opaque words one can’t unpack, hence with very vague intended meaning. Like guessing teacher’s password. One thus often remains protected from saying something that doesn’t have an interpretation under which it’s correct (even if intended interpretation is trivial or wrong).
Okay. So the comment is unclear and incomplete but not unwelcome with a +5 karma). Clearly, I need to slow down and expand, expand, expand. I’m willing to keep fighting with it and do that and learn. Where is an appropriate place to do so?
Umph! I am really not used to interacting with people mentally skilled enough that I have a really bad case of not knowing what I don’t know. I need to fix that.
Good one with the tags. I’m still recalibrating from it/working through all its implications.
I’m going off to work on one of the questions now.
Okay: what mistaken assumptions about karma? What false beliefs did you have about karma, and how did they mislead your actions?
a huge amount of underlying structure which is necessary to explain what looks like seemingly irrational behavior (to someone who doesn’t have that structure)
Okay: how does what underlying structure explain what apparently irrational behavior?
(until you catch the underlying regularities and make the right assumptions)
Okay: And those regularities and assumptions are...?
terms of art” that are not recognizable as such to the newbie
Okay: and I can find your list of these, and how you misunderstood them, where?
the underlying consistency of the “irrationality”
Which takes what form, please?
the necessary understandings.
Such as?
One must understand the expected process and expectations of contribution and understand the “terms of art” that are invariable [sic] used in the evaluatory [sic] comments. Clear and confused have very specific meanings here that do not unpack correctly unless you have the underlying structure/understanding.
And the process is? The expectations are? The terms mean? The structure/understanding is? What is the mystery you have unraveled here, please show the class.
most of the behavior that totally baffled me before and appeared irrational now makes total sense
Do tell. How does it make sense?
The rules are totally different here from what I expected/assumed and the unnoticed phase change caused my “rational” behavior to be deemed “irrational” (only because it was ;-) and “irrational” behavior to be widely accepted (not what you expect on a site devoted to rationality ;-).
And the rules are...?
Ending the dissection here because comments can’t be arbitrarily long, and because it’s all the same. You throw around words labeling things you supposedly understand without ever describing those things. Over and over and over.
claiming repeatedly to have learned some unspecified thing which makes you above disapproval.
Could you point to an example please so I can try to evaluate how I implied something so thoroughly against my intent? I certainly don’t believe myself above disapproval.
If you want to be safe, you lurk until you truly get what’s going on around you. People can in fact learn things that way.
I never said I wanted to be safe. Please reread what I said.
Lurking until you truly get what’s going on around you is not the most effective (rational) way to learn. I can provide you a boatload of references supporting that if you wish.
Do you really want subpar newbies who will accept such irrationality just to maintain your peace and quiet? Particularly when a playground option is suggested? You could even get volunteers and never deal with the hassle.
Premise: It’s more rational for your goals, to just ignore a good rational proposal from an erring, annoying newbie who is trying to provide access to new resources for you (both newbies and structures for their care and feeding).
Is effective a cousin? I suspect so since the easiest way to rewrite it would be to simply replace rational with effective. If not, assume that my rewrite simply does that. If so, can I get a motivation for the request? I’m not sure where you’re going or why “cousins” are disallowed.
By “cousins” I meant “rational”, “irrational”, “rationality”, “irrationality”, etcetera. “Effective” is not technically a cousin, but any form of search-and-replace would not be in keeping with the spirit of the exercise. Since you are confused, I will go into more detail, but I am nearing the last straw in trying to deal with you and won’t extend the courtesy again.
Lurking until you truly get what’s going on around you is not the most effective (rational) way to learn.
Do you mean: Lurking is slow compared to other strategies, lurking gets worse results for the newbie, lurking is worse for the rest of the community, lurking is inefficient, lurking fails altogether at achieving the objective, or something else?
I can provide you a boatload of references supporting that if you wish.
This is meaningless until you explain the assertion you offer to support.
Do you really want subpar newbies who will accept such irrationality just to maintain your peace and quiet?
Nope. That doesn’t sound appealing at all. I would rather have zero subpar newbies, and instead of peace and quiet I want lively and productive signal with minimal noise. Also, “such irrationality” is presumptuous. Weren’t you going on about how LW is actually governed by structures and rules that you now understand that only look irrational? Where did that go?
Particularly when a playground option is suggested? You could even get volunteers and never deal with the hassle.
Interestingly, your “option” is not so obviously and blindingly brilliant that I could only reject it as the solution to all my problems through sheer bloodymindedness. I don’t actually want LW to be attached to a rock-bottom-standards blog with a similar color scheme that purports to funnel newbies into the real deal. I think that would be bad. Yes, even if I never have to look directly at it without a pinhole camera and even if it’s minded by volunteers.
Premise: It’s more rational for your goals, to just ignore a good rational proposal from an erring, annoying newbie who is trying to provide access to new resources for you (both newbies and structures for their care and feeding).
If you were demonstrating actual understanding of any relevant concepts… or if you were offering to personally do some work for the site instead of just throwing around vague plans for its expansion and calling it the provision of “access”… or if your proposal were actually good or “rational”… or, I’ll admit it, if you weren’t so annoying… then you’d be getting a better reception. This is, of course, a counterfactual.
I meant lurking is slow, lurking is inefficient, and a higher probability that it gets worse results for the newbie. I’m not sure which objective is being referred to in that clause. I retract those evaluations as flawed.
Yeah, I made the same mistake twice in a row. First, I didn’t get that I didn’t get it. Then I “got it” and figured out some obvious stuff—and didn’t even consider that there probably was even more below that which I still didn’t get and that I should start looking for (and was an ass about it to boot). What a concept—I don’t know what I don’t know.
The playground option was an idiot idea. I actually figured out that I don’t want to go there and stagnate before your comment. I’ve got this horrible mental image of me being that guy that whines in boot camp. Let me take a few days and come up with a good answer to one of your questions (once I’ve worked this through a bit more).
I’d say thank you and sorry for being an ass but I’m not sure of its appropriateness right now. (Yeah, that tag is still really messing with me ;-)
ETA: Still re-calibrating. Realizing I’m way too spoiled about obtaining positive feedback . . . . ;-)
EDIT: Make that addicted to obtaining positive feedback and less accepting of negative feedback that I don’t immediately understand than I prefer to realize (and actually commenting on the first part seems to immediately recurse into hilarity)
If I, like draq, am being heavily downvoted—this post would be positive for anyone else.
You misunderstand. Your posts are not being downvoted specifically because people dislike you. Neither are draq’s. A downvote means, approximately, “I would like to see less of this.”
Do you really want to say that regardless of what I’ve learned, you “would appreciate it if you would cease making top-level posts entirely” until I’ve paid for my previous errors through certain very limited activities?
Yes. If you have actually learned something then your comments will reflect this and earn karma. You’ll be into the positives before you know it.
I always have been trying to calculate the expected value of their content for your readers.
If this is so, you have been doing it very badly.
I’m sorry I have to be so blunt, but I have yet to see any indication that you have actually learned something.
Yes. If you have actually learned something then your comments will reflect this and earn karma. You’ll be into the positives before you know it.
OK. Got it.
If this is so, you have been doing it very badly.
I’ve already acknowledged that. But I’ve clearly been doing better with the “What I missed” explanation being +5 and this post only garnering −2 over two days as opposed to −6 in a few hours so I must have learned something.
I’ve also learned that we’ve reached the point where some people are tired enough of this thread that they will go through it karma down any comment by me and karma up any comment not agreeing with me. (I should go visit draq’s posts and disagree with him ;-)
Please take a look through the list of recently posted discussion topics, and note how often various authors post. At the moment, the only one approaching your frequency is draq, who is also heavily downvoted. While there are LW users who would be celebrated if they posted new material every day or two, you can mostly identify them by looking at the “Top Contributors” list on the bottom right of this page.
Also, I second Carl Shulman.
Seconding Carl changes your argument to this is the first substantive posting I’ve made in four days. Now it’s one in five days.
Other than not posting on a new given topic (while you have no active or live posts), what would you suggest? Personally, I would suggest a separate area (a playpen, if you will) where newbies are allowed to post and learn. You can’t truly learn anything of value just by watching. Insisting that a first attempt be done correctly on the first try under safe circumstances is counter-productive.
My last substantive post before this one was a total admitted disaster (make that my last two substantive posts). This one is hanging in there. Apparently I’ve learned something. If I, like draq, am being heavily downvoted—this post would be positive for anyone else.
Continuing the admitted disasters would have been an exercise of throwing good time after bad. I’m trying to wring all the knowledge (or functionality) I can out of each top-level post but they were done. Do you really want to say that regardless of what I’ve learned, you “would appreciate it if you would cease making top-level posts entirely” until I’ve paid for my previous errors through certain very limited activities?
I get why your original comment has such high karma. I always have been trying to calculate the expected value of their content for your readers. I argue that not giving credit for intent and some slack to newbies (especially those showing progress) is counter-productive to any goal of outreach.
mwaser, every person on this board (possibly excepting some transfers from Overcoming Bias) was once a newbie. I was once a newbie. My first toplevel was downvoted too. If you want to be safe, you lurk until you truly get what’s going on around you. People can in fact learn things that way.
Your apology post was full of applause lights: you admitted fault, claimed mitigating circumstance and benign intent, requested patience and gentleness, and offered a community service. And you got lots of applause.
However, it doesn’t say anywhere what it is that you claim to have suddenly understood (which spelling out, surely, would be essential to writing a newbie’s guide, wouldn’t it?). And apart from sprinkling the linguistic equivalent of tags in everything you’ve written since, it doesn’t look like your conduct has changed. You’re only attaching soothing particles with no meaning behind them, uttering statements of trivial agreement whenever convenient without following substantive advice, and claiming repeatedly to have learned some unspecified thing which makes you above disapproval.
My first toplevel (posted back when a toplevel on Main was worth the same karma as a toplevel in Discussion) was downvoted, and then I shut the hell up until I had something I was more sure of to say. If I had only waited until I was “done”, just as I’d been “done” with my first post, then it would not have gone well for me. Every time someone downvotes you, you are being told to recalibrate your caution. At this point, if I were you, I’d drop into lurk-mode for a few months.
here
All right, I’ll dissect that comment.
Okay: what mistaken assumptions about karma? What false beliefs did you have about karma, and how did they mislead your actions?
Okay: how does what underlying structure explain what apparently irrational behavior?
Okay: And those regularities and assumptions are...?
Okay: and I can find your list of these, and how you misunderstood them, where?
Which takes what form, please?
Such as?
And the process is? The expectations are? The terms mean? The structure/understanding is? What is the mystery you have unraveled here, please show the class.
Do tell. How does it make sense?
And the rules are...?
Ending the dissection here because comments can’t be arbitrarily long, and because it’s all the same. You throw around words labeling things you supposedly understand without ever describing those things. Over and over and over.
I expect that the error is in using opaque words one can’t unpack, hence with very vague intended meaning. Like guessing teacher’s password. One thus often remains protected from saying something that doesn’t have an interpretation under which it’s correct (even if intended interpretation is trivial or wrong).
Okay. So the comment is unclear and incomplete but not unwelcome with a +5 karma). Clearly, I need to slow down and expand, expand, expand. I’m willing to keep fighting with it and do that and learn. Where is an appropriate place to do so?
How about you answer any one of the questions I posed, right here? Take your pick. There’s plenty.
Umph! I am really not used to interacting with people mentally skilled enough that I have a really bad case of not knowing what I don’t know. I need to fix that.
Good one with the tags. I’m still recalibrating from it/working through all its implications.
I’m going off to work on one of the questions now.
All right, I’ll dissect that comment.
Okay: what mistaken assumptions about karma? What false beliefs did you have about karma, and how did they mislead your actions?
Okay: how does what underlying structure explain what apparently irrational behavior?
Okay: And those regularities and assumptions are...?
Okay: and I can find your list of these, and how you misunderstood them, where?
Which takes what form, please?
Such as?
And the process is? The expectations are? The terms mean? The structure/understanding is? What is the mystery you have unraveled here, please show the class.
Do tell. How does it make sense?
And the rules are...?
Ending the dissection here because comments can’t be arbitrarily long, and because it’s all the same. You throw around words labeling things you supposedly understand without ever describing those things. Over and over and over.
Could you point to an example please so I can try to evaluate how I implied something so thoroughly against my intent? I certainly don’t believe myself above disapproval.
Better to reply to the person you’re replying to, not yourself.
I never said I wanted to be safe. Please reread what I said.
Lurking until you truly get what’s going on around you is not the most effective (rational) way to learn. I can provide you a boatload of references supporting that if you wish.
Do you really want subpar newbies who will accept such irrationality just to maintain your peace and quiet? Particularly when a playground option is suggested? You could even get volunteers and never deal with the hassle.
Premise: It’s more rational for your goals, to just ignore a good rational proposal from an erring, annoying newbie who is trying to provide access to new resources for you (both newbies and structures for their care and feeding).
I just don’t get that.
Please taboo “rational”. It’s generally a good idea for this word.
Edit: Interestingly, exactly the same thing irked Alicorn, apparently independently.
I invite you to try to re-write this comment without the word “rationality” or its cousins.
Is effective a cousin? I suspect so since the easiest way to rewrite it would be to simply replace rational with effective. If not, assume that my rewrite simply does that. If so, can I get a motivation for the request? I’m not sure where you’re going or why “cousins” are disallowed.
By “cousins” I meant “rational”, “irrational”, “rationality”, “irrationality”, etcetera. “Effective” is not technically a cousin, but any form of search-and-replace would not be in keeping with the spirit of the exercise. Since you are confused, I will go into more detail, but I am nearing the last straw in trying to deal with you and won’t extend the courtesy again.
Do you mean: Lurking is slow compared to other strategies, lurking gets worse results for the newbie, lurking is worse for the rest of the community, lurking is inefficient, lurking fails altogether at achieving the objective, or something else?
This is meaningless until you explain the assertion you offer to support.
Nope. That doesn’t sound appealing at all. I would rather have zero subpar newbies, and instead of peace and quiet I want lively and productive signal with minimal noise. Also, “such irrationality” is presumptuous. Weren’t you going on about how LW is actually governed by structures and rules that you now understand that only look irrational? Where did that go?
Interestingly, your “option” is not so obviously and blindingly brilliant that I could only reject it as the solution to all my problems through sheer bloodymindedness. I don’t actually want LW to be attached to a rock-bottom-standards blog with a similar color scheme that purports to funnel newbies into the real deal. I think that would be bad. Yes, even if I never have to look directly at it without a pinhole camera and even if it’s minded by volunteers.
If you were demonstrating actual understanding of any relevant concepts… or if you were offering to personally do some work for the site instead of just throwing around vague plans for its expansion and calling it the provision of “access”… or if your proposal were actually good or “rational”… or, I’ll admit it, if you weren’t so annoying… then you’d be getting a better reception. This is, of course, a counterfactual.
I meant lurking is slow, lurking is inefficient, and a higher probability that it gets worse results for the newbie. I’m not sure which objective is being referred to in that clause. I retract those evaluations as flawed.
Yeah, I made the same mistake twice in a row. First, I didn’t get that I didn’t get it. Then I “got it” and figured out some obvious stuff—and didn’t even consider that there probably was even more below that which I still didn’t get and that I should start looking for (and was an ass about it to boot). What a concept—I don’t know what I don’t know.
The playground option was an idiot idea. I actually figured out that I don’t want to go there and stagnate before your comment. I’ve got this horrible mental image of me being that guy that whines in boot camp. Let me take a few days and come up with a good answer to one of your questions (once I’ve worked this through a bit more).
I’d say thank you and sorry for being an ass but I’m not sure of its appropriateness right now. (Yeah, that tag is still really messing with me ;-)
ETA: Still re-calibrating. Realizing I’m way too spoiled about obtaining positive feedback . . . . ;-) EDIT: Make that addicted to obtaining positive feedback and less accepting of negative feedback that I don’t immediately understand than I prefer to realize (and actually commenting on the first part seems to immediately recurse into hilarity)
You misunderstand. Your posts are not being downvoted specifically because people dislike you. Neither are draq’s. A downvote means, approximately, “I would like to see less of this.”
Yes. If you have actually learned something then your comments will reflect this and earn karma. You’ll be into the positives before you know it.
If this is so, you have been doing it very badly.
I’m sorry I have to be so blunt, but I have yet to see any indication that you have actually learned something.
OK. Got it.
I’ve already acknowledged that. But I’ve clearly been doing better with the “What I missed” explanation being +5 and this post only garnering −2 over two days as opposed to −6 in a few hours so I must have learned something.
I’ve also learned that we’ve reached the point where some people are tired enough of this thread that they will go through it karma down any comment by me and karma up any comment not agreeing with me. (I should go visit draq’s posts and disagree with him ;-)