I’m in favor of both the grace period and “karma coward” option. In my own experience, anxiety about being downvoted acted as a deterrent against posting comments; reading and responding to posts by new members is relatively cheap, while missing opportunities to make them feel included in the community (and thus potentially missing out on their future contributions) seems comparatively expensive.
Would it be useful—maybe as something to be incorporated with the discussion forum—to have a (semi-)formalized system of study partners/groups? A while ago, Morendil asked if anyone would be interested in teaming up to study Jaynes’ Probability Theory: the Logic of Science. An influx of new members would bring more people who could benefit from ongoing help and motivation to study the central topics of interest here on LW. It would be nice to have a standard way of coordinating with study partners.
I’m in favor of both the grace period and “karma coward” option. In my own experience, anxiety about being downvoted acted as a deterrent against posting comments; reading and responding to posts by new members is relatively cheap, while missing opportunities to make them feel included in the community (and thus potentially missing out on their future contributions) seems comparatively expensive.
Would it be useful—maybe as something to be incorporated with the discussion forum—to have a (semi-)formalized system of study partners/groups? A while ago, Morendil asked if anyone would be interested in teaming up to study Jaynes’ Probability Theory: the Logic of Science. An influx of new members would bring more people who could benefit from ongoing help and motivation to study the central topics of interest here on LW. It would be nice to have a standard way of coordinating with study partners.