FWIW I feel like I get sufficient status reward for criticism and this moderation decision basically won’t affect my behavior
This defended a paper where I was lead author, which got 8 million views on Twitter and was possibly the most important research output by my current employer, against criticism that it was p-hacking
This got me a bounty of $700 or so (which I think I declined or forgot about?) and citation in a follow-up post
This ratioed the OP by 3:1 and induced a thoughtful response by OP that helped me learn some nontrivial stats facts
This got 73 karma and was the most important counterpoint to what I still think are mostly wrong and overrated views on nanotech
This got 70 karma and only took about an hour to write, and could have been 5 minutes if I were a better writer
Now it’s true that most of these comments are super long and high effort. But it’s possible to get status reward for lower effort comments too, e.g. this, though it feels more like springing a “gotcha”. Many of the examples of Said’s critiques in the post at least seemed either deliberately inflammatory or unhelpful or targeted at some procedural point that isn’t maximally relevant.
As for risking being wrong, this is the only “bad” recent comment of mine I can remember, and I think you have to be pretty risk averse to be totally discouraged from commenting. If 30% of my comments were wrong I would probably feel discouraged but if it were 15% I’d just be less confident or hedge more. Probably the main change I’ll make is to shift away from this uncommon and very marginal type of comment that imposes costs on the author and might be wrong, to just downvote and move on.
FWIW I feel like I get sufficient status reward for criticism and this moderation decision basically won’t affect my behavior
This defended a paper where I was lead author, which got 8 million views on Twitter and was possibly the most important research output by my current employer, against criticism that it was p-hacking
This got me a bounty of $700 or so (which I think I declined or forgot about?) and citation in a follow-up post
This ratioed the OP by 3:1 and induced a thoughtful response by OP that helped me learn some nontrivial stats facts
This got 73 karma and was the most important counterpoint to what I still think are mostly wrong and overrated views on nanotech
This got 70 karma and only took about an hour to write, and could have been 5 minutes if I were a better writer
Now it’s true that most of these comments are super long and high effort. But it’s possible to get status reward for lower effort comments too, e.g. this, though it feels more like springing a “gotcha”. Many of the examples of Said’s critiques in the post at least seemed either deliberately inflammatory or unhelpful or targeted at some procedural point that isn’t maximally relevant.
As for risking being wrong, this is the only “bad” recent comment of mine I can remember, and I think you have to be pretty risk averse to be totally discouraged from commenting. If 30% of my comments were wrong I would probably feel discouraged but if it were 15% I’d just be less confident or hedge more. Probably the main change I’ll make is to shift away from this uncommon and very marginal type of comment that imposes costs on the author and might be wrong, to just downvote and move on.