I am reminded by this comment of Dan Ariely’s analysis of market norms versus social norms—namely that if you replace a social norm with a market norm and then try to remove the market norm, it takes a long time to re-establish social norms.
I think this is what tends to happen in nerd communities—not that social norms are being replaced by market norms but that social norms are removed on the grounds that they can make communication more difficult, and then people act badly because we’re not well-equipped to operate without norms. The successful nerd communities that I’ve seen (here and a couple of other places) have either involved the founder exercising strong control over the tone of the comments and banning the offensive ones, or strong social norms that were instituted as soon as the community was founded, so that people conformed to the new norm.
And it remains unclear to me how the repeated special pleading for bad communication skills in this thread constitutes a refinement in the art of human rationality
Implicit value judgement of what constitutes good and bad communication. The norms are different in different environments. One of my lecturers likes to use the example of when she lived in New York—she was verbally abused by the vendors there for wasting their time with small talk. This doesn’t mean that New Yorkers are rude (well, the ones that actually abused her may have been), it means they’re operating by different politeness conventions that prioritise brevity.
Question: do you consider the tone here at LW to be an example of bad communication? I find the vast majority of comments to be quite polite, pointing out flaws and other points to consider without resorting to personal attacks or empty statements of value like “this post was awesome/terrible”.
The successful nerd communities that I’ve seen (here and a couple of other places) have either involved the founder exercising strong control over the tone of the comments and banning the offensive ones, or strong social norms that were instituted as soon as the community was founded, so that people conformed to the new norm.
Question: do you consider the tone here at LW to be an example of bad communication? I find the vast majority of comments to be quite polite, pointing out flaws and other points to consider without resorting to personal attacks or empty statements of value like “this post was awesome/terrible”.
No, in fact it’s remarkably good. The comment section is fantastically good and the karma system here—vote up not for agreement but for “more like this”—seems to really work well.
This is why it surprises me to see so many people attempting to justify a lack of or wish not to bother learning communication skills or dismiss such as mere “polite words”, “noise” or “grease”, as if communication were not an incredibly important part of being effective in dealing with humans.
This is why it surprises me to see so many people attempting to justify a lack of or wish not to bother learning communication skills or dismiss such as mere “polite words”, “noise” or “grease”, as if communication were not an incredibly important part of being effective in dealing with humans.
My pet theory based on my own reaction is that Lionhearted erred too far in the other direction while trying to advocate politeness. Here are two methods of framing the same idea that I would find equally rude but for opposite reasons:
“this post would suck less if it had more examples”
“this post was great! It really gave me a lot to think about. Just one tiny thing, I’m really slow so I would appreciate it a lot if you just added a couple of examples to illustrate your points so that people like me can get it more easily :) Thanks!”
Lionhearted isn’t quite advocating the second type of comment but comes fairly close. Politeness is hugely important, but there comes a point where it crosses over into fakeness, passive-aggressiveness, and a bunch of other negative behaviours, and I felt like some of his examples crossed that line, or at least stuck a few toes over.
Intellectual authors crave audience engagement. A lack of examples is usually the result of the author being uncertain where they are required. Bulking up the text with unnecessary examples makes it worse and is work, so the natural tendency is to put in too few examples.
The author is really hoping for comments such as
When you say “a means of transport”, does that include a bicycle. It strikes me that a bicycle would be too slow. Some examples would make your article suck less.
or perhaps
When you say a “means of transport”, does that include a bicycle. It strikes me that a bicycle would be too slow. Some examples would perfect your already brilliant article.
Either of these would be much more welcome than any response that asked non-specifically for more examples, no matter how generically flattering. The author already knows that he didn’t put in enough examples. The information he is lacking is clues as to where his readers are getting lost through a lack of examples. That would let the author add the right examples. More important, evidence of the audience’s intellectual engagement would make the author happy.
“this post would suck less if it had more examples”
I would personally be inclined to downvote this on the principle of “less like this”, even if I agreed. It strikes me as unduly abrasive and more likely to cause not just the poster, but other people, to feel scared of posting. LessWrong is intimidating enough.
(I have been downvoted for such unhelpful abrasiveness before and, frankly, deserved it.)
“this post was great! It really gave me a lot to think about. Just one tiny thing, I’m really slow so I would appreciate it a lot if you just added a couple of examples to illustrate your points so that people like me can get it more easily :) Thanks!”
The minimum number of words I would respond with would likely be “Good post. Could do with examples for each point. Tell, then show.”
Commenting on LessWrong is difficult because smart nerd audiences are incredibly picky, so one must write anticipating as many possible objections as one can come up with. This is why I end up post-editing a lot. (Could really do with a “preview” button to check it renders as intended.) But good communication always takes effort.
I am reminded by this comment of Dan Ariely’s analysis of market norms versus social norms—namely that if you replace a social norm with a market norm and then try to remove the market norm, it takes a long time to re-establish social norms.
I think this is what tends to happen in nerd communities—not that social norms are being replaced by market norms but that social norms are removed on the grounds that they can make communication more difficult, and then people act badly because we’re not well-equipped to operate without norms. The successful nerd communities that I’ve seen (here and a couple of other places) have either involved the founder exercising strong control over the tone of the comments and banning the offensive ones, or strong social norms that were instituted as soon as the community was founded, so that people conformed to the new norm.
Implicit value judgement of what constitutes good and bad communication. The norms are different in different environments. One of my lecturers likes to use the example of when she lived in New York—she was verbally abused by the vendors there for wasting their time with small talk. This doesn’t mean that New Yorkers are rude (well, the ones that actually abused her may have been), it means they’re operating by different politeness conventions that prioritise brevity.
Question: do you consider the tone here at LW to be an example of bad communication? I find the vast majority of comments to be quite polite, pointing out flaws and other points to consider without resorting to personal attacks or empty statements of value like “this post was awesome/terrible”.
Maintaining a non-repellent tone is part of tending the garden.
No, in fact it’s remarkably good. The comment section is fantastically good and the karma system here—vote up not for agreement but for “more like this”—seems to really work well.
This is why it surprises me to see so many people attempting to justify a lack of or wish not to bother learning communication skills or dismiss such as mere “polite words”, “noise” or “grease”, as if communication were not an incredibly important part of being effective in dealing with humans.
My pet theory based on my own reaction is that Lionhearted erred too far in the other direction while trying to advocate politeness. Here are two methods of framing the same idea that I would find equally rude but for opposite reasons:
“this post would suck less if it had more examples”
“this post was great! It really gave me a lot to think about. Just one tiny thing, I’m really slow so I would appreciate it a lot if you just added a couple of examples to illustrate your points so that people like me can get it more easily :) Thanks!”
Lionhearted isn’t quite advocating the second type of comment but comes fairly close. Politeness is hugely important, but there comes a point where it crosses over into fakeness, passive-aggressiveness, and a bunch of other negative behaviours, and I felt like some of his examples crossed that line, or at least stuck a few toes over.
Intellectual authors crave audience engagement. A lack of examples is usually the result of the author being uncertain where they are required. Bulking up the text with unnecessary examples makes it worse and is work, so the natural tendency is to put in too few examples.
The author is really hoping for comments such as
or perhaps
Either of these would be much more welcome than any response that asked non-specifically for more examples, no matter how generically flattering. The author already knows that he didn’t put in enough examples. The information he is lacking is clues as to where his readers are getting lost through a lack of examples. That would let the author add the right examples. More important, evidence of the audience’s intellectual engagement would make the author happy.
Oh yeah, happy medium for sure.
I would personally be inclined to downvote this on the principle of “less like this”, even if I agreed. It strikes me as unduly abrasive and more likely to cause not just the poster, but other people, to feel scared of posting. LessWrong is intimidating enough.
(I have been downvoted for such unhelpful abrasiveness before and, frankly, deserved it.)
The minimum number of words I would respond with would likely be “Good post. Could do with examples for each point. Tell, then show.”
Commenting on LessWrong is difficult because smart nerd audiences are incredibly picky, so one must write anticipating as many possible objections as one can come up with. This is why I end up post-editing a lot. (Could really do with a “preview” button to check it renders as intended.) But good communication always takes effort.