My impression is that people are reluctant to post in Main for three reasons:
Less likely to be seen, because everyone pays more attention to Discussion, because people are reluctant to post in Main.
Fear of losing a ton of karma because of the 10x rule.
Fear of being Not Good Enough For Main.
Merging Main and Discussion would deal with the last of those. The first is clearly parasitic on the other two so we probably needn’t worry about it independently, and in any case merging Main and Discussion would make it go away.
The second would remain, I think. If we merge Main and Discussion—and perhaps even if we don’t—I suggest that the “Main post karma multiplier” should be substantially reduced. Maybe 2 or 3 would work well. If we don’t merge Main and Discussion, I would also suggest applying the same karma multiplier to posts in Discussion.
I think the issue of “Fear of being Not Good Enough” and therefore fearing to lose a lot of karma can be circumvented by giving the draft of the article to other people and improving on the draft till it’s good enough.
Maybe we can find a way to promote the circulation of draft articles?
In case it wasn’t clear: “losing karma” and “not good enough” were intended to be separate fears. Writing something I know is great and still losing a ton of karma hurts in one way. Writing something that shows me up as an idiot hurts in a very different way.[1] Circulating an article means fewer people to notice I’m an idiot, but also closer scrutiny and more effort required on their part. I think the fear of not being good enough would be about as bad either way.
[1] So far as I can recall, neither has actually happened to me, so I’m guessing on the basis of introspection. But I’ve had kinda-parallel experiences outside LW.
I think making it easy to circulate drafts and encouraging people to do so is a great idea, but I don’t think it’s a solution to the “fear of being Not Good Enough” problem.
I think the fear of not being good enough would be about as bad either way.
I think there are multiple different issues of “not good enough”. From my own perspective I do believe that I have good ideas worthy of sharing but on the other hand I know that the quality of my writing ability isn’t as high as I would like it to be. The writeup of the idea improves though letting the draft circulate and incorporating feedback.
On the other hand it wouldn’t help in the same way for a person who thinks their ideas aren’t good enough.
My impression is that people are reluctant to post in Main for three reasons:
Less likely to be seen, because everyone pays more attention to Discussion, because people are reluctant to post in Main.
Fear of losing a ton of karma because of the 10x rule.
Fear of being Not Good Enough For Main.
Merging Main and Discussion would deal with the last of those. The first is clearly parasitic on the other two so we probably needn’t worry about it independently, and in any case merging Main and Discussion would make it go away.
The second would remain, I think. If we merge Main and Discussion—and perhaps even if we don’t—I suggest that the “Main post karma multiplier” should be substantially reduced. Maybe 2 or 3 would work well. If we don’t merge Main and Discussion, I would also suggest applying the same karma multiplier to posts in Discussion.
I think the issue of “Fear of being Not Good Enough” and therefore fearing to lose a lot of karma can be circumvented by giving the draft of the article to other people and improving on the draft till it’s good enough.
Maybe we can find a way to promote the circulation of draft articles?
In case it wasn’t clear: “losing karma” and “not good enough” were intended to be separate fears. Writing something I know is great and still losing a ton of karma hurts in one way. Writing something that shows me up as an idiot hurts in a very different way.[1] Circulating an article means fewer people to notice I’m an idiot, but also closer scrutiny and more effort required on their part. I think the fear of not being good enough would be about as bad either way.
[1] So far as I can recall, neither has actually happened to me, so I’m guessing on the basis of introspection. But I’ve had kinda-parallel experiences outside LW.
I think making it easy to circulate drafts and encouraging people to do so is a great idea, but I don’t think it’s a solution to the “fear of being Not Good Enough” problem.
I think there are multiple different issues of “not good enough”. From my own perspective I do believe that I have good ideas worthy of sharing but on the other hand I know that the quality of my writing ability isn’t as high as I would like it to be. The writeup of the idea improves though letting the draft circulate and incorporating feedback.
On the other hand it wouldn’t help in the same way for a person who thinks their ideas aren’t good enough.