In offline discussions with other LWers the issue of excessive nitpicking has come up often. This problem has essentially always been present. If you go back and look at the comments on Eliezer’s original Sequence posts, many are incredibly inane and superficial.
It strikes me that some people do not ever ask themselves, “Is this comment I’m about to post going to be useful? Is it necessary?” I’ve always consciously aimed to comment only if I felt that my comment was good/useful enough to get upvoted. Pure nitpicks usually sit at 0 or −1 karma. I have, of course, thought that my comment was good/useful and received no upvotes, or several downvotes. That situation provides a great opportunity to learn something.
But surely the absense of nitpicking is less important than the presence of substantial posts. Nitpicks can always be ignored, or sorted by karma, etc.
In offline discussions with other LWers the issue of excessive nitpicking has come up often. This problem has essentially always been present. If you go back and look at the comments on Eliezer’s original Sequence posts, many are incredibly inane and superficial.
It strikes me that some people do not ever ask themselves, “Is this comment I’m about to post going to be useful? Is it necessary?” I’ve always consciously aimed to comment only if I felt that my comment was good/useful enough to get upvoted. Pure nitpicks usually sit at 0 or −1 karma. I have, of course, thought that my comment was good/useful and received no upvotes, or several downvotes. That situation provides a great opportunity to learn something.
But surely the absense of nitpicking is less important than the presence of substantial posts. Nitpicks can always be ignored, or sorted by karma, etc.