It’s pretty common for you to ask for clarification on words, phrases or concepts that feel like they have pretty straightforward meanings to me, and I can’t remember a single of the (at least a dozen) threads in which you asking questions of that type resulted in a conversation that I thought was worth the time of the author, or was net-positive for my experience on LessWrong.
I’m surprised at the examples you give.
What they all have in common is Said asking for clarification on a word or phrase. In 4⁄5, someone gave a definition that Said either accepted or didn’t follow up on. All of these cases seem positive to me. (I can’t judge how much time they cost, but one was just a link to a definition, one was quoting wikipedia and the others were fairly brief, so I’d guess not prohibitively much.) In the exception, there was no answer at all; if that’s not positive, it’s certainly not very negative either. They also have this in common with the specific comment that started this thread.
Two of them have more going on than that, and one of them seems much more like an example of the thing you seem to be pointing at, where much back-and-forth is had, much time is spent, and not much gets resolved. (The other was the one that got no reply.) They do not have this in common with the specific comment that started this thread.
When I think back to other examples of this thing happening, the one I came up with was on “zetetic explanation”, and I don’t see Said doing “ask for clarification on a word or phrase” there. (Certainly if he does, then by that time things are already well underway.)
So just judging by these examples, I wouldn’t expect Said’s comment in this case to cause the thing you’re worried about.
(Forgive me if someone has already made this point. I read almost the whole thread and skimmed the rest, and I don’t remember anyone doing so. But I wouldn’t be shocked to see that I just missed it.)
I’m surprised at the examples you give.
What they all have in common is Said asking for clarification on a word or phrase. In 4⁄5, someone gave a definition that Said either accepted or didn’t follow up on. All of these cases seem positive to me. (I can’t judge how much time they cost, but one was just a link to a definition, one was quoting wikipedia and the others were fairly brief, so I’d guess not prohibitively much.) In the exception, there was no answer at all; if that’s not positive, it’s certainly not very negative either. They also have this in common with the specific comment that started this thread.
Two of them have more going on than that, and one of them seems much more like an example of the thing you seem to be pointing at, where much back-and-forth is had, much time is spent, and not much gets resolved. (The other was the one that got no reply.) They do not have this in common with the specific comment that started this thread.
When I think back to other examples of this thing happening, the one I came up with was on “zetetic explanation”, and I don’t see Said doing “ask for clarification on a word or phrase” there. (Certainly if he does, then by that time things are already well underway.)
So just judging by these examples, I wouldn’t expect Said’s comment in this case to cause the thing you’re worried about.
(Forgive me if someone has already made this point. I read almost the whole thread and skimmed the rest, and I don’t remember anyone doing so. But I wouldn’t be shocked to see that I just missed it.)