Back when LW was more active, there was much lower math density in posts here.
Maybe because many people are not sure whether their topics are “LW-worthy”, but when they do something mathematical they feel comfortable about posting it here. If I write my opinion about something, people will most likely disagree; but if I write an equation and solve it correctly, there is nothing to disagree with.
I believe that this is the main reason newcomers are reluctant to post anything here. Right now, I notice that I am reluctant to reply to you because I am uncertain if my acknowledgement and agreement with your comment is ‘LW-worthy’. While the high standard of posts maintain Lesswrong as a well-kept garden, it discourages people from starting stimulating, although not strictly Hollywood-esque ‘rational’, discussions.
To say the most obvious thing, the quality threshold for comments should be much lower than for articles. And maybe these should be also some “chat” area where comments just appear and disappear without voting, so that no one would hesitate to post there; and then after receiving some positive feedback they would feel comfortable with posting regular comments.
Maybe there could be a special posting mode for newcomers, which would provide some advantages and disadvantages, like training wheels. For example it would not display negative comment karma (karma below zero would be displayed as zero), it could encourage specific verbal feedback which would be visible only to the comment author (or perhaps require downvoters to select one of predefined explanations, such as “you were rude” or “you promoted pseudoscience”), but it would also limit the number of comments per day and per thread (to prevent spamming by people who can’t take a hint). After receiving enough total karma, the newbie mode would be turned off. -- That’s just a quick idea, maybe completely wrong.
Or maybe we could encourage people being nice to each other by giving positive feedback additionally to upvotes. Such as “this is nice” or “thank you for the research”, which would be displayed as small icons above the comment. Generally, to add some optional flavor to the numbers, whether positive or negative.
In reading the Sequences, I feel weird about replying to comments because most of them are from seven years ago. Is it frowned upon to respond to something crazy old and possibly obsolete?
Yes, I agree completely. Honestly, I thought this line of reasoning was common knowledge in the rationalsphere, since I think I’ve seen it discussed a couple times on Tumblr and in person (IIRC, both in Portland, and in the Bay Area).
Assuming this trend exists (I haven’t noticed it) I think that in addition to that we also have a fact that reaching higher hanging fruit requires better tools.
Maybe because many people are not sure whether their topics are “LW-worthy”, but when they do something mathematical they feel comfortable about posting it here. If I write my opinion about something, people will most likely disagree; but if I write an equation and solve it correctly, there is nothing to disagree with.
I believe that this is the main reason newcomers are reluctant to post anything here. Right now, I notice that I am reluctant to reply to you because I am uncertain if my acknowledgement and agreement with your comment is ‘LW-worthy’. While the high standard of posts maintain Lesswrong as a well-kept garden, it discourages people from starting stimulating, although not strictly Hollywood-esque ‘rational’, discussions.
To say the most obvious thing, the quality threshold for comments should be much lower than for articles. And maybe these should be also some “chat” area where comments just appear and disappear without voting, so that no one would hesitate to post there; and then after receiving some positive feedback they would feel comfortable with posting regular comments.
Maybe there could be a special posting mode for newcomers, which would provide some advantages and disadvantages, like training wheels. For example it would not display negative comment karma (karma below zero would be displayed as zero), it could encourage specific verbal feedback which would be visible only to the comment author (or perhaps require downvoters to select one of predefined explanations, such as “you were rude” or “you promoted pseudoscience”), but it would also limit the number of comments per day and per thread (to prevent spamming by people who can’t take a hint). After receiving enough total karma, the newbie mode would be turned off. -- That’s just a quick idea, maybe completely wrong.
Or maybe we could encourage people being nice to each other by giving positive feedback additionally to upvotes. Such as “this is nice” or “thank you for the research”, which would be displayed as small icons above the comment. Generally, to add some optional flavor to the numbers, whether positive or negative.
In reading the Sequences, I feel weird about replying to comments because most of them are from seven years ago. Is it frowned upon to respond to something crazy old and possibly obsolete?
No, necroing is perfectly fine.
It seems like that’s actually an acceptable practice; it’s not unusual for “Recent Comments” to be on posts that are several years old.
Yes, I agree completely. Honestly, I thought this line of reasoning was common knowledge in the rationalsphere, since I think I’ve seen it discussed a couple times on Tumblr and in person (IIRC, both in Portland, and in the Bay Area).
Assuming this trend exists (I haven’t noticed it) I think that in addition to that we also have a fact that reaching higher hanging fruit requires better tools.