Strongly agree that engagement and feedback is a great way to learn! Though it’s not trivial for users on the page to distinguish someone who is using the questions to further their understanding and come from a perspective of scholarship, from someone who feels entitled to the community answering questions for them (which is a common occurence on the page). For example, I would have been strongly supportive of a post that directly referrenced one or two things on LessWrong that you read that you felt were kind of trying to answer your questions, but not really making sense to you, or that relied on the assumptions of your questions but seemed unjustified. In the current form of your post, it’s not clear whether you were someone who had any interest in trying to engage with the material on the page in a serious way, and I do apologize for making you feel less welcome if you are.
I care strongly about people having a good scholarship experience on LessWrong, and also wrote the above comment on my phone while waking up, so I was probably a bit less nice than I should have been. Sorry for that.
I do indeed think that the problem is mostly addressed on the level of site design, by you paying a small tax in karma for writing the post (as Zvi said above), and then people answering the questions for you. And if the questions are shared by others and seem insightful to others, then you get a bunch of karma instead. That seems to create a pretty sensible incentive for the site.
No worries at all! Also thanks for the additional comments. I think the approach of using core LW content as a starting point, though not always possible, is a great suggestion.
Strongly agree that engagement and feedback is a great way to learn! Though it’s not trivial for users on the page to distinguish someone who is using the questions to further their understanding and come from a perspective of scholarship, from someone who feels entitled to the community answering questions for them (which is a common occurence on the page). For example, I would have been strongly supportive of a post that directly referrenced one or two things on LessWrong that you read that you felt were kind of trying to answer your questions, but not really making sense to you, or that relied on the assumptions of your questions but seemed unjustified. In the current form of your post, it’s not clear whether you were someone who had any interest in trying to engage with the material on the page in a serious way, and I do apologize for making you feel less welcome if you are.
I care strongly about people having a good scholarship experience on LessWrong, and also wrote the above comment on my phone while waking up, so I was probably a bit less nice than I should have been. Sorry for that.
I do indeed think that the problem is mostly addressed on the level of site design, by you paying a small tax in karma for writing the post (as Zvi said above), and then people answering the questions for you. And if the questions are shared by others and seem insightful to others, then you get a bunch of karma instead. That seems to create a pretty sensible incentive for the site.
No worries at all! Also thanks for the additional comments. I think the approach of using core LW content as a starting point, though not always possible, is a great suggestion.