Why do the first three questions have four variations on the theme of “new users are likely to erode the culture” and nothing intermediate between that and “there is definitely no problem at all”?
Why do you not see the “eroded the culture” options as intermediate options? The way I see it is there are three sections of answers that suggest a different level of concern:
There’s a problem.
There’s some cultural erosion but it’s not a problem (Otherwise you’d pick #1.)
There’s not a problem.
What intermediate options would you suggest?
Why ask for the “best solution” rather than asking “which of these do you think are good ideas”?
A. Because the poll code does not make check boxes where you select more than one. It makes radio buttons where you can select only one.
B. I don’t have infinite time to code every single idea.
If more solutions are needed, we can do another vote and add the best one from that (assuming I have time). One thing at a time.
Well, I did not imagine all the possibilities for what concerns you guys would have in order to choose verbiage sufficiently vague enough that those options would work as perfect catch-alls, but I did as for “other causes” in the comments, and I’m interested to see the concerns that people are adding like “EY stopped posting” and “We don’t have enough good posters” which aren’t about cultural erosion, but about a lapse in the stream of good content.
If you have concerns about the future of LessWrong not addressed so far in this discussion, please feel free to add them to the comments, however unrelated they are to the words used in my poll.
I have no particular opinion on what exactly should be in the poll (and it’s probably too late now to change it without making the results less meaningful than they’d be without the change). But the sort of thing that’s conspicuously missing might be expressed thus: “It’s possible that a huge influx of new users might make things worse in these ways, or that it’s already doing so, and I’m certainly not prepared to state flatly that neither is the case, but I also don’t see any grounds for calling it likely or for getting very worried about it at this point.”
The poll doesn’t have any answers that fit into your category 2. There’s “very concerned” and “somewhat concerned”, both of which I’d put into category 1, and then there’s “not at all”.
Check boxes: Oh, OK. I’d thought there was a workaround by making a series of single-option multiple-choice polls, but it turns out that when you try to do that you get told “Polls must have at least two choices”. If anyone with the power to change the code is reading this, I’d like to suggest that removing this check would both simplify the code and make the system more useful. An obvious alternative would be to add checkbox polls, but that seems like it would be more work.
[EDITED to add: Epiphany, I see you got downvoted. For the avoidance of doubt, it wasn’t by me.]
[EDITED again to add: I see I got downvoted too. I’d be grateful if someone who thinks this comment is unhelpful could explain why; even after rereading it, it still looks OK to me.]
Yes. I asked because my mind drew a blank on intermediate options between some problem and none. I interpreted some problem as being intermediate between problem and no problem.
“It’s possible that a huge influx of new users might make things worse in these ways, or that it’s already doing so, and I’m certainly not prepared to state flatly that neither is the case, but I also don’t see any grounds for calling it likely or for getting very worried about it at this point.”
Ok, so your suggested option would be (to make sure I understand) something like “I’m not convinced either way that there’s a problem or that there’s no problem).
Maybe what you wanted was more of a “What probability of a problem is there?” not “Is there a problem or not, is it severe or mild?”
Don’t know how I would have combined probability, severity and urgency into the same question, but that would have been cool.
I’d thought there was a workaround by making a series of single-option multiple-choice polls
I considered that (before knowing about the two options requirement) but (in addition to the other two concerns) that would make the poll really long and full of repetition and I was trying to be as concise as possible because my instinct is to be verbose but I realize I’m doing a meta thread and that’s not really appreciated on meta threads.
Epiphany, I see you got downvoted. For the avoidance of doubt, it wasn’t by me.
Oh, OK. I’d thought there was a workaround by making a series of single-option multiple-choice polls, but it turns out that when you try to do that you get told “Polls must have at least two choices”.
It sounds like you could still work around it by making several yes/no agreement polls, although this would be clunky enough that I’d only recommend it for small question sets.
Why do you not see the “eroded the culture” options as intermediate options? The way I see it is there are three sections of answers that suggest a different level of concern:
There’s a problem.
There’s some cultural erosion but it’s not a problem (Otherwise you’d pick #1.)
There’s not a problem.
What intermediate options would you suggest?
A. Because the poll code does not make check boxes where you select more than one. It makes radio buttons where you can select only one.
B. I don’t have infinite time to code every single idea.
If more solutions are needed, we can do another vote and add the best one from that (assuming I have time). One thing at a time.
The option I wanted to see but didn’t was something along the lines of “somewhat, but not because of cultural erosion”.
Well, I did not imagine all the possibilities for what concerns you guys would have in order to choose verbiage sufficiently vague enough that those options would work as perfect catch-alls, but I did as for “other causes” in the comments, and I’m interested to see the concerns that people are adding like “EY stopped posting” and “We don’t have enough good posters” which aren’t about cultural erosion, but about a lapse in the stream of good content.
If you have concerns about the future of LessWrong not addressed so far in this discussion, please feel free to add them to the comments, however unrelated they are to the words used in my poll.
I have no particular opinion on what exactly should be in the poll (and it’s probably too late now to change it without making the results less meaningful than they’d be without the change). But the sort of thing that’s conspicuously missing might be expressed thus: “It’s possible that a huge influx of new users might make things worse in these ways, or that it’s already doing so, and I’m certainly not prepared to state flatly that neither is the case, but I also don’t see any grounds for calling it likely or for getting very worried about it at this point.”
The poll doesn’t have any answers that fit into your category 2. There’s “very concerned” and “somewhat concerned”, both of which I’d put into category 1, and then there’s “not at all”.
Check boxes: Oh, OK. I’d thought there was a workaround by making a series of single-option multiple-choice polls, but it turns out that when you try to do that you get told “Polls must have at least two choices”. If anyone with the power to change the code is reading this, I’d like to suggest that removing this check would both simplify the code and make the system more useful. An obvious alternative would be to add checkbox polls, but that seems like it would be more work.
[EDITED to add: Epiphany, I see you got downvoted. For the avoidance of doubt, it wasn’t by me.]
[EDITED again to add: I see I got downvoted too. I’d be grateful if someone who thinks this comment is unhelpful could explain why; even after rereading it, it still looks OK to me.]
Yes. I asked because my mind drew a blank on intermediate options between some problem and none. I interpreted some problem as being intermediate between problem and no problem.
Ok, so your suggested option would be (to make sure I understand) something like “I’m not convinced either way that there’s a problem or that there’s no problem).
Maybe what you wanted was more of a “What probability of a problem is there?” not “Is there a problem or not, is it severe or mild?”
Don’t know how I would have combined probability, severity and urgency into the same question, but that would have been cool.
I considered that (before knowing about the two options requirement) but (in addition to the other two concerns) that would make the poll really long and full of repetition and I was trying to be as concise as possible because my instinct is to be verbose but I realize I’m doing a meta thread and that’s not really appreciated on meta threads.
Oh, thank you. (:
It sounds like you could still work around it by making several yes/no agreement polls, although this would be clunky enough that I’d only recommend it for small question sets.