FWIW, most of my downvotes on LW are for poorly reasoned jumping to conclusions posts and/or where the poster does not seem to fully know what they are talking about and should have done more homework first. Would never downvote a well written post even if I 100% disagree.
where the poster does not seem to fully know what they are talking about and should have done more homework first
To me it seems appropriate to post about things that you don’t know too much about, as long as you make a reasonable effort to communicate where your confidence is. Ie. if you say “here are some thoughts about X; I am just spitballing and don’t know too much about X”, that seems fine.
What do you think? I suspect you also think it’s fine and are moreso trying to point at confident assertions about things the author doesn’t actually know much about.
Yes, of course, what I meant is more of a case of somebody confidently presenting as an self-evident truth something with a ton of well-known counterarguments. Or more generally, somebody that is not only clueless, but showing no awareness of how clueless they are, and no evidence that they at least tried to look for relevant information. [IMHO] Somebody who demonstrates willingness to learn deserves a comment pointing them to relevant information (and may still warrant a downvote, depending on how off the post it). Somebody who does not deserves to be downvoted, and usually would not deserve the time I would need to spend to explain my downvote in a comment. [/IMHO]
FWIW, most of my downvotes on LW are for poorly reasoned jumping to conclusions posts and/or where the poster does not seem to fully know what they are talking about and should have done more homework first. Would never downvote a well written post even if I 100% disagree.
To me it seems appropriate to post about things that you don’t know too much about, as long as you make a reasonable effort to communicate where your confidence is. Ie. if you say “here are some thoughts about X; I am just spitballing and don’t know too much about X”, that seems fine.
What do you think? I suspect you also think it’s fine and are moreso trying to point at confident assertions about things the author doesn’t actually know much about.
Spitballing is fine, but I feel like in most of those cases, the user should make it a New Question, not a New Post.
Yes, of course, what I meant is more of a case of somebody confidently presenting as an self-evident truth something with a ton of well-known counterarguments. Or more generally, somebody that is not only clueless, but showing no awareness of how clueless they are, and no evidence that they at least tried to look for relevant information. [IMHO] Somebody who demonstrates willingness to learn deserves a comment pointing them to relevant information (and may still warrant a downvote, depending on how off the post it). Somebody who does not deserves to be downvoted, and usually would not deserve the time I would need to spend to explain my downvote in a comment. [/IMHO]