(hmm) The organization of this post is very good; it’s easy to follow from point A to point B throughout and makes effective use of references. Predictably, I’m also on board with the general project described.
That having been said, the specific style of politeness presented here seems tedious, noisy, slightly condescending, and potentially even obfuscating. The virtues of brevity and clarity can be maintained alongside the virtue of politeness.
Multi-sentence thanks for “insights” to soften a criticism take up space, may sound sarcastic, and aren’t even the most warming kind of softening praise. “Thanks for these insights” and similar sound token at best and fake at worst. If someone wants to soften a criticism of one of my posts, I’d rather hear what their favorite line is or be informed that they upvoted it. But if all they have to say that’s nice about the post is a stock phrase that could be equally well applied to any original text, I’d prefer they skip it.
Consider the brief reply to a correction, “Fixed, thanks”. This could be interpreted as abrupt or even rude, but it is short, it acknowledges the help as received and useful and implemented, and it’s clear in those functions. It’s as polite as makes sense: more humble dancing about would only be annoying to many people, and replacing it with an extended “Oh, thanks so much, silly me not paying attention to the squiggly red lines, hey do you need any help on your projects that I might be able to offer?” would be weird and not productive.
if all they have to say that’s nice about the post is a stock phrase that could be equally well applied to any original text, I’d prefer they skip it.
What I find interesting about this is that you’re basically saying that their signal isn’t costly enough to make you feel good. I wonder if that’s the essence of the conflict under normal circumstances, i.e., by being direct (and thus not paying the additional costs of being polite) you are signaling that you do not value your audience as alliance partners very much, or that you are so far above them as to not need to make an investment in pleasing them.
Perhaps us geeky types simply prefer our costly signaling to be in the form of someone actually having thought about what we said. ;-)
What I find interesting about this is that you’re basically saying that their signal isn’t costly enough to make you feel good.
It’s not about the effort or cost, as if I expect people to be more honest when they are using more resources. The problem is that the same stock phrase could be said of anything, because it is vague and difficult to interpret at lower levels of abstraction where its truth value could be evaluated. Writing a sonnet in general praise of insights would not be nearly as valuable as identifying a single specfic insight and why it is useful, though it would be a costlier signal.
Agreed that this is part of it, but I think there’s more to it.
Yes, one thing that makes a compliment rewarding is the implication that someone considers me worth devoting effort to establishing a social bond with, and the degree of effort they devote to it (either in the form of time spent thinking carefully, or of time spent paying attention, or of time spent earning resources to gift to me, or whatever) is a big component of that. Absolutely.
But also, it’s rewarding to contrast myself positively with my surroundings… to reflect on my superiority in whatever areas I feel superior in. And the more detailed and specific that contrast, the better. And if I’ve internalized the idea that “tooting my own horn” in this way is a Bad Thing, then it’s even more rewarding if someone else does it.
And, also, my perception of the status of the person of the person making the effort is an important component. In a forum like this where perceived status is tied to perceptiveness/intelligence/etc., a compliment that demonstrates perception and intelligence is therefore more rewarding than one that doesn’t.
if all they have to say that’s nice about the post is a stock phrase that could be equally well applied to any original text, I’d prefer they skip it.
What I find interesting about this is that you’re basically saying that their signal isn’t costly enough to make you feel good.
This is something that seems to apply more generally when complimenting. Direct praise seems cheap, at best a signal of supplication. It is often better to identify something that the person does and express approval of that activity in general, and hence compliment their identity.
You seem to be assuming that what you want to hear is how people should be learning to communicate (“I’d prefer they skip it”), but part of the point is that we are not like most people. If you want to communicate effectively with the broader population, then you have to focus on what they like to hear, not judge communication suggestions based on whether you would like hearing it.
Also, I love brevity, but I charitably assumed that the politeness examples were exaggerated to make the point. Exaggerated examples, while they often bother analytical types who already get the point (“but that’s too far the other way!”) are (IMHO) quite useful at helping get across new ideas by magnifying them.
And compactness is hard, as is habit change. So developing compact politeness seems harder than developing politeness and then polishing it with brevity and clarity. Maybe too hard for some people—one habit at a time is often easier.
That having been said, the specific style of politeness presented here seems tedious, noisy, slightly condescending, and potentially even obfuscating.
Are you guessing, or did you test this?
Because I used to think the same way, but I now find I get better results with just a dash of politeness. I don’t think it takes very much time or is so bad for signal:noise ratio either.
“Oh, thanks so much, silly me not paying attention to the squiggly red lines, hey do you need any help on your projects that I might be able to offer?” would be weird and not productive.
Well, I think the “oh silly me” is fluffy, you could just say thanks. But offering to help in return I think is a great think. Most people won’t take you up on it, but it goes over really well.
Maybe try it for a month or two and see how it goes? I’m always really grateful when someone offers me a hand, and then I’m more likely to ask them a question or for a book recommendation or whatever. Even small things, most people won’t ask you for them if you don’t invite them to. Which is a shame, because then we miss opportunities to connect with people.
I’m not saying politeness is good because it’s good. I’m saying it’s good because it makes people more effective. I reckon that’s true in most non-emergency cases.
I strongly agree with Alicorn’s comment. When you suggested
“Hey Sebastian, I wanted to give you a heads up. I saw your recent post, but you spelled “wisen” as “wizen”—easy spelling error to make, since they’re uncommonly used words, but I thought you should know. “Wizen” means for things to dry up and lose water. Cheers and best wishes.”
as the appropriate way to point out a typo, I had to resist the urge to flame you. While there are people for whom such verbosity is the most effective mode of communication, I and the people I enjoy communicating with are not among them. Like Alicorn, I read that paragraph as tedious and condescending; if such a message were written to me, I would think that the author was either vacuous or thought I was an idiot.
But offering to help in return I think is a great thin[g]. Most people won’t take you up on it, but it goes over really well.
I would find such an offer confusing at best and pretty creepy in the average case. “Politeness” is not a natural category and you should not expect an audience to consider something polite because you or another audience does.
It’s not the “right” way. Just one choice out of a thousand possible.
Here’s a sample email:
--
Subject: Typo in your article
Hi author,
I saw your article and liked it, but wanted to give you a heads up. You spelled (word) wrong. Best wishes,
Writer
--
What’s that take? 15 seconds? You’d probably have some goodwill afterwards.
While there are people for whom such verbosity is the most effective mode of communication, I and the people I enjoy communicating with are not among them.
Okay. And you’re highly analytical, right? Normal people don’t work well with ultra-direct communication.
I would find such an offer confusing at best and pretty creepy in the average case.
So, are you surprised that it’s commonly offered advice on how to become one of the most productive and connected people in any work environment? Offer to help anyone on anything, do double duty on work, and be gracious of it?
Because that is, in fact really common advice. I’d really, really encourage you to try it. I used to believe in being a “straight shooter”, “all content no fluff”, etc, etc, etc. Seriously, try it the other way for a couple weeks. I think you’ll be amazed as what happens.
Try it! Don’t guess, try it. Seriously, it might change your life.
So, are you surprised that it’s commonly offered advice on how to become one of the most productive and connected people in any work environment? Offer to help anyone on anything, do double duty on work, and be gracious of it?
Because that is, in fact really common advice. I’d really, really encourage you to try it. I used to believe in being a “straight shooter”, “all content no fluff”, etc, etc, etc. Seriously, try it the other way for a couple weeks. I think you’ll be amazed as what happens.
Try it! Don’t guess, try it. Seriously, it might change your life.
While there may be environments in which this is in fact spectacular advice and would be well-received, I find these paragraphs so obnoxious that they set my teeth on edge. Why should I believe advice about making people feel good which sets my teeth on edge?
Why should I believe advice about making people feel good which sets my teeth on edge?
Because whether it works or not is independent of whether it sets your teeth on edge. That would be a reason not to act on it, but not a reason to dismiss its validity.
Because whether it works or not is independent of whether it sets your teeth on edge.
I am a person. I belong to the same reference class as those who this sort of thing would be expected to work on.
I do not find this style of politeness to “work” for me.
It is, I grant, a weak reason to dismiss the claims, but it is a reason, and conjoined with other, similar replies under this post, it adds up to a more compelling reason.
While there may be environments in which this is in fact spectacular advice and would be well-received, I find these paragraphs so obnoxious that they set my teeth on edge. Why should I believe advice about making people feel good which sets my teeth on edge?
Honestly, that surprises me. I could see disagreeing for signal:noise ratio reasons, or not having time—actually, I spent time addressing those in my post since I knew they’d be common objections.
But I’m surprised it actually results in a strong negative emotion from you—“sets your teeth on edge.”
Honestly, I’m not sure why. For the record, I’d advocate you do this sincerely, and never insincerely. Me, if I don’t like anything someone is saying and all the points are dumb, I just ignore it. I’ll only venture to give feedback if I see some merit, and then I highlight that merit.
But seriously, I want to get to the bottom of this. Eliezer writes about how when he was fundraising, lots of people wrote in to criticize, but no one was comfortable publicly announcing and praising the cause and expressing their donation.
This can’t be the best way, can it? If it is, much less analytical groups that are comfortable being cohesive, complimentary, and encouraging will out-recruit us, out-perform us in charity, and cooperate more than us.
At least, that’s how I see it… anyway, I’d like to explore this more. In the comments and/or via PM’s or email, if you like. I wrote this post because I’d like to see our kind of people, groups, and areas of concern be more effective. The fact that there’s a very strong negative emotion from a prolific contributor to the community is surprising to me, and I’d like to find out why and reconcile our points of view to some extent if possible.
But I’m surprised it actually results in a strong negative emotion from you—“sets your teeth on edge.”
Honestly, I’m not sure why.
I don’t want to beat a dead horse, but I think I can explain this for you.
It sets her teeth on edge because it’s condescending and dismissive. Specifically, with the line “So, are you surprised that it’s commonly offered advice” you’re adopting a professorial tone—purporting to teach Alicorn something she may find surprising about the expert consensus on the subject, with which she is presumed to be unfamiliar. So right from the beginning she’s going to react by feeling insulted, because you’re “talking down” to her.
A way of making the exact same point without adopting the condescending tone would have been simply to say, “I offered that advice because I read it in How to Win Friends and Influence People and in [a few other sources].” If you proceeded to give direct quotes, that would be even better, because then Alicorn could judge for herself whether you’re accurately representing what you judge to be expert consensus (and whether or not she accepts your sources as expert). By asserting yourself as the expert you’re making a subtle attack on Alicorn’s status, whether you mean to or not.
You compound this insult when you dismiss Alicorn’s criticism as “guessing” and when you suggest that your advice will change her life—because you’re implying that she’s struggling with social interactions now. In fact Alicorn’s writings would indicate that her experience in mastering social niceties is at least equal to yours, and you should be addressing her as a peer rather than adopting this tone of superior wisdom.
The above is much more a matter of tone rather than substance, but your reply is also annoying because you’re only re-iterating your initial claims rather than engaging with the specifics of Alicorn’s criticism. As it happens, an example of a better reply is this one, from you, which addresses what Alicorn actually said in a perfectly nice and reasonable way.
Again, I’m sorry if this seems to be just “piling on.” You expressed a confusion (that I assume to be sincere) about why your writing provoked a strong negative emotion from Alicorn, and even though I’m not Alicorn I thought I could explain it to you. I hope she’ll correct me if she disagrees with my analysis.
This can’t be the best way, can it? If it is, much less analytical groups that are comfortable being cohesive, complimentary, and encouraging will out-recruit us, out-perform us in charity, and cooperate more than us.
I have said, and repeat the sentiment: I’m in favor of being nice and polite and kind and cooperative with each other. It’s this style, the specific sort you use in your examples, that gets the skin-crawling/teeth-on-edge/etc. reaction from me. If I had to characterize the style I’d call it something like “saccharine earnestness”.
I wonder whether that “skin-crawling/teeth-on-edge” reaction only arises when this style appears as text, or whether you get the same reaction from spoken word. Same style, but here (in this vid) it is being used to actually communicate, rather than simply to illustrate a point.
It does give me the same teeth-on-edge reaction, only stronger. But then I may be atypical. I never cared for Mr. Rogers either.
If I had to characterize the style I’d call it something like “saccharine earnestness”.
Me too. Even politicians don’t usually come across as that nice. Which I interpret as evidence that it is too extreme to be really effective.
I find listening to the linked person only slightly grating. I can’t make out most of the words, though, so most of my reaction is “this needs subtitles”.
Alright, I think we’re on the same page. I picked very, very basic examples of the most literal interpretation of my suggestions. Even adding “Interesting point” or “That’s thought provoking” or “Cool, though I wonder...” before a criticism/concern can make things go over better.
That said, that’s a little more subtle, and I wanted extremely clear and obvious examples.
Feel free to ditch my examples if they’re not helpful for you at all, or replace with your own. I read your linked post on politeness and agree with the sentiment of it, so I think we’re mostly on the same page. Toss all my examples if you understand the underlying principles—there’s almost certainly a more subtle, elegant, less saccharine-earnest-seeming way of doing it in any given case.
Perhaps it helps if you define “impolite” as “status-grabby”. Thus when someone says “nice” things in what comes across as a condescending tone it can be recognized as impolite on that basis—regardless of their intent.
It’s a relativistic criteria though: a given statement can offend some but not others. As an example, the degree of technical explanation afforded for a complex topic. If you put in too much, the experts feel like they are being condescended to. If you put in too little, the less trained feel excluded because they cannot follow all the jargon enough to relate it to anything they know.
Perhaps the real cheat code in this case would be the skill of writing things in a manner that people can interpret into their own preferred range.
But seriously, I want to get to the bottom of this. Eliezer writes about how when he was fundraising, lots of people wrote in to criticize, but no one was comfortable publicly announcing and praising the cause and expressing their donation.
There is a wide middle ground between being uncomfortable saying out loud the good things you believe about a cause you donate to, and being unwilling to criticize something without also finding something nice to say about it.
This can’t be the best way, can it? If it is, much less analytical groups that are comfortable being cohesive, complimentary, and encouraging will out-recruit us, out-perform us in charity, and cooperate more than us.
I think you have that backwards. I assume that by ‘this’ you mean the situation that obtained while Eliezer was fundraising. I assume that if ‘this’ is the best way, then a group employing ‘this’ will have better outcomes (by definition?), but you conclude the opposite.
Honestly, that surprises me. I could see disagreeing for signal:noise ratio reasons, or not having time—actually, I spent time addressing those in my post since I knew they’d be common objections.
This far into the thread it shouldn’t surprise you. You have had the causes of the objection explained to you multiple times by multiple people from multiple perspectives. Read through this thread again with the assumption that those who are speaking to you understand the value of tact and politeness, probably better than you. They have an intuitive feel of social dynamics, what works, what is inappropriate and what is insulting. They are also analytical people—they have the ability to describe a model of social behaviour that demonstrates why ‘polite and nice’ can also be a condescending slight depending on how it is done.
siduri’s comment is a good place to start. Then you can look further and try to understand how you have managed to alienate your audience to the extent that they have completely written you off. WrongBot’s reaction is in no way bizarre or unusual. It’s what you should expect from humans if you provide the verbal stimulus like what you have provided here.
Me, if I don’t like anything someone is saying and all the points are dumb, I just ignore it. I’ll only venture to give feedback if I see some merit, and then I highlight that merit.
The person one is correcting is not always the intended benefactor of one’s reply.
This far into the thread it shouldn’t surprise you.
Well, that’s just it. I’m not surprised people disagree. That’s to be expected. I’m surprised people had a significant emotional reaction to it.
Then you can look further and try to understand how you have managed to alienate your audience to the extent that they have completely written you off.
Actually, there’s been overwhelmingly more appreciation of this than disagreement. It got submitted to HN and was +110 there, and 80%+ of the comments were positive. I also got a half dozen emails saying thanks.
It’s what you should expect from humans if you provide the verbal stimulus like what you have provided here.
But you know what? You’re right. I thought I would try to address everyone’s concerns, criticisms, and share my experiences. And some people are taking personal offense, on an emotional level. That’s not my intent—so yes, indeed, I’ll bow out of the discussion now. If anyone has any questions or comments, they’re welcome to email me. Really, I do think this is an area that some minor changes can produce huge dividends. Or maybe I’m mistaken—happy to discuss via email if anyone has questons or comments and wants to discuss, but I’ll move on from the comments now.
I think you should take your surprise as a sign that your model of tact is in need of updating. You were not mistaken when you claimed that following the social norms we do here would tend to serve one ill in real life, but the approach you’ve suggested substituting for it seems like a case of reversed stupidity. I think it would be a good idea for you to review the suggestions others have made in this thread so that you can apply your own advice in a more effective manner.
Actually, there’s been overwhelmingly more appreciation of this than disagreement. It got submitted to HN and was +110 there, and 80%+ of the comments were positive. I also got a half dozen emails saying thanks.
‘This far into the thread’ references comments not the initial post. You can get 110 upvotes on HN based purely based on having a trivially obvious premise that relates to nerds.
But you know what? You’re right. I thought I would try to address everyone’s concerns, criticisms, and share my experiences. And some people are taking personal offense, on an emotional level. That’s not my intent—so yes, indeed, I’ll bow out of the discussion now.
Others are noting that you are doing things offensive as a matter of academic interest.
Note that the ‘for now’ sounds ominous. A threat, if you will, of polluting the epistemic environment in the future. You appear to be unable or unwilling to learn or understand feedback—yet another example of what will be considered an accidental defection, here more than elsewhere.
Yes. Yet I’m not surprised in retrospect. Contempt is the brain killer. At least, that is the one state that I’ve learned provokes me to simple mistakes. Far more than drunkenness for example. Every time I’ve said stupid things (in my best retrospective judgement) it has been when the context has provoked me to contempt. Sometimes I remember to eject before it is too late but I evidently haven’t fully made a habit of it just yet.
So, are you surprised that it’s commonly offered advice on how to become one of the most productive and connected people in any work environment? Offer to help anyone on anything, do double duty on work, and be gracious of it?
Offering to help a coworker and offering to help a stranger from an internet forum are two radically different things. The former is something I do on a regular basis; I agree that it is produces good results.
Standards of politeness are incredibly sensitive to context, and from your first line in the parent I take it you agree. Why do you believe this standard of politeness is appropriate to the contexts of both work and a semi-anonymous internet forum?
Offering to help a coworker and offering to help a stranger from an internet forum are two radically different things. The former is something I do on a regular basis; I agree that it is produces good results.
Okay, cool. You might try offering after a decent exchange—if you look at my profile or “About Me” section on any place I hang out, or any site, I encourage people to look me up for a coffee, or if they have any questions, or I can help at all. Most people don’t take me up on it, but some do—I’ve helped people with their marketing, I’ve helped people get pay raises, improve their writing and creative output, I’ve recommended books and places to stay and go in various cities… and it’s been good. I’ve made friends and colleagues like that.
I learned this because I met one of my best friends this way. When he was a stranger, he emailed me a technical question, and I went over and above the call of duty and wrote him back a 5 page reply with specs and details. He then referred me to a job because I sounded like I knew what I was talking about and invited me to stay with him if I was ever in Los Angeles. I did, and he became one of my best friends. Later, he helped me close a $60,000 deal when I bought out half of a company. We’ve been skiing together in Japan and had lots of cool memories and insights. All because I helped a random stranger, and he was really cool about it afterwards.
It might seem different, but I think most people appreciate it. A fairly prolific photographer/technical blogger emailed me a while back, and after a short exchange, he asked if there’s anything he could help me with. I asked how he made a few of the pictures that were really beautiful? And he shared some software recommendations with me. We’re now friendly acquaintances, and we’ll probably go out for food together next time I’m in San Francisco.
Some people might take it poorly. But who cares? The upside of making a new friend or colleague because you’re always happy to help anyone is huge. Someone doesn’t like it? Well, what’s the downside? Who cares? Most people are grateful anyways, actually, but if a couple people don’t like it… so what? You offer to help someone and they take it the wrong way? Well, nothing significant lost on anyone’s end. The friends and colleagues you make, and the general good you do for the world more than compensates for the (very rare, if ever) negative reaction.
Standards of politeness are incredibly sensitive to context, and from your first line in the parent I take it you agree. Why do you believe this standard of politeness is appropriate to the contexts of both work and a semi-anonymous internet forum?
Good comment/question. I generally try to err on the side of being more polite and gracious unless there’s a reason not to, because I don’t see any real downside to it. You’re right—we’re all strangers on the net, so there’s no real repercussions if something goes over poorly. But I think there are opportunities to connect with people, make new friends and colleagues, share good information, and help each other. I think is generally good and virtuous, and try to encourage it when possible.
You’re right—we’re all strangers on the net, so there’s no real repercussions if something goes over poorly.
That does not bear any resemblance to anything I have said. In fact, I vehemently disagree with your assertion that no harm is caused when you annoy or creep someone out on the internet.
I am sufficiently annoyed by this conversation that I will probably not be able to comment further in a productive fashion.
Who cares is very context-specific here. When dealing with someone you don’t naturally interact with, high variance in responses is good up to a certain point. Get a good reaction and you can make a valuable friend and ally, whereas it’s not likely anyone is going to think you were so polite they should come at you with an axe.
Good comment/question. I generally try to err on the side of being more polite and gracious unless there’s a reason not to, because I don’t see any real downside to it.
Does that mean you think the politeness—effect curve is usually much flatter on the right side of the maximum (optimal politeness) than on the left? Exaggerated politeness often seems insincere, distancing or worse so I’m skeptical of the merits of systematically overshooting like that.
Exaggerated politeness often seems insincere, distancing or worse
Upvoted for this. The ‘or worse’ also includes making people disregard the content of what you’re trying to say because you’re signalling low-status/self-effacement so hard that it’s difficult for anyone to take you seriously
I agree with you on that point, yet I’m making my own. Analytical people are usually aware of politeness but take somewhat longer to realise that advice, instruction and offers to assist can be far more of a significant social slight than merely being curt. Those who are familiar with analytical types can see that they mean well and are just making nerdy faux pas. There are some, however, who will take offence—because the exact same words could be used by less nerdy person as deliberate one upmanship.
I second wedrifid’s reaction. Trying an entire different social approach for a month is a very high cost, especially if it’s one that makes our skin crawl. Alicorn’s not alone in that, as that is exactly my instinctive reaction to hearing it. It doesn’t make sense to give that kind of slack unless the prior for it working is high.
...one part noticing how your post made my skin crawl.
A lot of that feeling is probably explained by the mere fact that we are discussing social calculations openly. Doing so almost always leaves a bad taste in people’s mouths.
That’s right, I almost forgot you had posted on the subject before, which is odd because I’ve actually used your “Considerations in favour of niceness” post to convince people to rein in their conversational aggression.
A couple of lionhearted’s sentences sounded slightly cringeworthy to me too, but many times I have been surprised at how well such things actually go over with non-analytical people. For example, my mother prefaces even the tiniest criticism with 42 caveats and compliments (which feel like mostly white noise to me), but I can’t help but notice that she also appears to be a social genius, with at least 30 genuinely close friends. (Bla bla anecdote bla bla correlation not causation).
I’m often shocked how much completely (to me) over the top super-politeness is optimal when dealing with average people, often more than enough to make me tempted to say “Get on with it!” in a British accent. In fact a good instinct for many of us when dealing with non-nerds is to use just enough politeness to actively piss ourselves off were we in the other person’s shoes.
For example, my mother prefaces even the tiniest criticism with 42 caveats and compliments (which feel like mostly white noise to me), but I can’t help but notice that she also appears to be a social genius, with at least 30 genuinely close friends.
Yep. Play to your audience. This requires you to gain genuine skill in communication and in assessing the situation, but this is really not optional if achieving your goals requires interacting with humans. Failure to communicate appropriately in a variety of situations will lead to failure.
(No-one said instrumental effectiveness was easy.)
Consider the brief reply to a correction, “Fixed, thanks”. This could be interpreted as abrupt or even rude, but it is short, it acknowledges the help as received and useful and implemented, and it’s clear in those functions. It’s as polite as makes sense: more humble dancing about would only be annoying to many people
I would add that acceding to the corrections of another is somewhat of a compliment—particularly to nerds. In fact it is a strong enough status signal that I don’t expect high status people to acknowledge such correction unless they cannot get away with not doing so.
The additional delightful irony of this is that doing so in most contexts is an enormous status-booster… third parties who observe the exchange tend to conclude all kinds of positive things about you.
I would add that acceding to the corrections of another is somewhat of a compliment—particularly to nerds. In fact it is a strong enough status signal that I don’t expect high status people to acknowledge such correction unless they cannot get away with not doing so. [emphasis added]
This is one of the things that bothers me most about LessWrong, and intelligent people in general. Of all the silly status games that I would think and hope people here are mature enough to see through and realize the silliness of playing in this environment, avoiding giving thanks and acknowledging errors is one that should be close to the top of the list—but sadly, it isn’t.
Alas there’s no escape from status games, silly or otherwise. The solution to the problem is to explicitly give high status to those who give thanks and correct errors. Ideally this force is sufficiently strong to more than counteract the status lost through revealing the original mistake or the need you are giving thanks for. I think we’re at least close to that for the level of thanks and error correction we want on this site.
I’m not sure if I agree. Sometimes these things are important parts of the learning process, and though it is possible to see through many social norms, many of them actually facilitate communication. (For example: politeness, showing that you are leaving a line of retreat, etc.)
The one that bothers me the most is when there’s an insightful criticism or question attached to a comment, and the criticism gets voted up because it makes a valid point that illustrates what seems like a fatal flaw in the parent comment’s argument, but the author of the parent comment never bothers to respond, because they’d rather just pretend they never saw the comment or that it doesn’t make a good point that needs addressing. I don’t see how one could argue that that is a way of “facilitating communication”.
Anyway, I think you switched the topic from status games to social norms, which are not quite the same thing. My example above of not responding to strong criticisms to avoid admitting error or weakness is a status game (a pathetic and silly one, in my opinion), but it’s not a social norm. I have no problem with stereotypical social norms like politeness.
Consider that some authors may have precommitted to not responding to such criticisms because they judged they would not have the emotional capacity to sanely respond.
The one that bothers me the most is when there’s an insightful criticism or question attached to a comment, and the criticism gets voted up because it makes a valid point that illustrates what seems like a fatal flaw in the parent comment’s argument, but the author of the parent comment never bothers to respond, because they’d rather just pretend they never saw the comment or that it doesn’t make a good point that needs addressing. I don’t see how one could argue that that is a way of “facilitating communication”.
I agree but at the same time would be wary about advocating a strong norm against not replying. Rules can and will be gamed. It is not hard for a clever arguer to exploit such norms and play the crowd with highly undesirable results.
I thought there actually was a strong norm already that was being flouted.
The model I had in mind was:
LW’s “Strong critique of comment in direct reply to a comment or post” is to “ignoring the critique and failing to reply”
as
Academia’s “Strong paper that criticizes methodology, etc., of a published paper” is to “not publishing a response to the critique”.
In academia, a researcher that habitually failed to address serious flaws in their publications would quickly lose status and become irrelevant. I thought something like that was a norm at LW.
The judgement behind ‘strong paper’ and ‘strong critique’ is important and similar judgement must be used to decide whether to reply to criticism. This is particularly the case when the critic is not acting in good faith (again, in your judgement) and has a talent for obfuscation and rhetoric.
I’m not advocating anything like “always respond”. I’m advocating that when people actually think it’s a strong critique, they should respond rather than playing the status game of pretending they don’t really think it’s a strong critique by ignoring it. Additionally, even if they don’t think it’s a strong critique, if many other people ‘whose judgment they would trust in other similar situations’ do think it’s a strong critique, then they should also respond.
I think voting tends to be a function of social norms rather than status games. For example: voting tends to follow the policy “upvote if you want to see more like this.”
I agree. My point thought was not primarily about the child comment being voted up, but about the child comment being an insightful critique of or counter-argument to the parent. In the example, the child comment being voted up was just meant as evidence that the comment actually ‘does’ make a great point that needs a response from the parent, which is why it’s so disappointing to see the comment ignored.
The status game I had in mind was “if I ignore that comment that points out serious flaws in my argument, people will be more likely to get the impression that the comment is not worthy of reply and that my argument really isn’t flawed, and I can avoid a response that might lower my status, even if that compromises the rational, educational aspect of this site.” The irony is that for many of us here, responding would actually be a status-enhancing act.
I think voting tends to be a function of social norms rather than status games.
Social norms only work because they piggy back on status games. They are also created and determined by status games and power plays. The trick is to accept that and harness that force the best we can!
I concur, and I don’t see that as much of a problem. Though it incentives signaling that you have changed your mind, that generally means that you have to actually change your mind, which is, after all, the whole point.
(hmm) The organization of this post is very good; it’s easy to follow from point A to point B throughout and makes effective use of references. Predictably, I’m also on board with the general project described.
That having been said, the specific style of politeness presented here seems tedious, noisy, slightly condescending, and potentially even obfuscating. The virtues of brevity and clarity can be maintained alongside the virtue of politeness.
Multi-sentence thanks for “insights” to soften a criticism take up space, may sound sarcastic, and aren’t even the most warming kind of softening praise. “Thanks for these insights” and similar sound token at best and fake at worst. If someone wants to soften a criticism of one of my posts, I’d rather hear what their favorite line is or be informed that they upvoted it. But if all they have to say that’s nice about the post is a stock phrase that could be equally well applied to any original text, I’d prefer they skip it.
Consider the brief reply to a correction, “Fixed, thanks”. This could be interpreted as abrupt or even rude, but it is short, it acknowledges the help as received and useful and implemented, and it’s clear in those functions. It’s as polite as makes sense: more humble dancing about would only be annoying to many people, and replacing it with an extended “Oh, thanks so much, silly me not paying attention to the squiggly red lines, hey do you need any help on your projects that I might be able to offer?” would be weird and not productive.
What I find interesting about this is that you’re basically saying that their signal isn’t costly enough to make you feel good. I wonder if that’s the essence of the conflict under normal circumstances, i.e., by being direct (and thus not paying the additional costs of being polite) you are signaling that you do not value your audience as alliance partners very much, or that you are so far above them as to not need to make an investment in pleasing them.
Perhaps us geeky types simply prefer our costly signaling to be in the form of someone actually having thought about what we said. ;-)
It’s not about the effort or cost, as if I expect people to be more honest when they are using more resources. The problem is that the same stock phrase could be said of anything, because it is vague and difficult to interpret at lower levels of abstraction where its truth value could be evaluated. Writing a sonnet in general praise of insights would not be nearly as valuable as identifying a single specfic insight and why it is useful, though it would be a costlier signal.
Agreed that this is part of it, but I think there’s more to it.
Yes, one thing that makes a compliment rewarding is the implication that someone considers me worth devoting effort to establishing a social bond with, and the degree of effort they devote to it (either in the form of time spent thinking carefully, or of time spent paying attention, or of time spent earning resources to gift to me, or whatever) is a big component of that. Absolutely.
But also, it’s rewarding to contrast myself positively with my surroundings… to reflect on my superiority in whatever areas I feel superior in. And the more detailed and specific that contrast, the better. And if I’ve internalized the idea that “tooting my own horn” in this way is a Bad Thing, then it’s even more rewarding if someone else does it.
And, also, my perception of the status of the person of the person making the effort is an important component. In a forum like this where perceived status is tied to perceptiveness/intelligence/etc., a compliment that demonstrates perception and intelligence is therefore more rewarding than one that doesn’t.
This is something that seems to apply more generally when complimenting. Direct praise seems cheap, at best a signal of supplication. It is often better to identify something that the person does and express approval of that activity in general, and hence compliment their identity.
You seem to be assuming that what you want to hear is how people should be learning to communicate (“I’d prefer they skip it”), but part of the point is that we are not like most people. If you want to communicate effectively with the broader population, then you have to focus on what they like to hear, not judge communication suggestions based on whether you would like hearing it.
Also, I love brevity, but I charitably assumed that the politeness examples were exaggerated to make the point. Exaggerated examples, while they often bother analytical types who already get the point (“but that’s too far the other way!”) are (IMHO) quite useful at helping get across new ideas by magnifying them.
And compactness is hard, as is habit change. So developing compact politeness seems harder than developing politeness and then polishing it with brevity and clarity. Maybe too hard for some people—one habit at a time is often easier.
Are you guessing, or did you test this?
Because I used to think the same way, but I now find I get better results with just a dash of politeness. I don’t think it takes very much time or is so bad for signal:noise ratio either.
Well, I think the “oh silly me” is fluffy, you could just say thanks. But offering to help in return I think is a great think. Most people won’t take you up on it, but it goes over really well.
Maybe try it for a month or two and see how it goes? I’m always really grateful when someone offers me a hand, and then I’m more likely to ask them a question or for a book recommendation or whatever. Even small things, most people won’t ask you for them if you don’t invite them to. Which is a shame, because then we miss opportunities to connect with people.
I’m not saying politeness is good because it’s good. I’m saying it’s good because it makes people more effective. I reckon that’s true in most non-emergency cases.
I strongly agree with Alicorn’s comment. When you suggested
as the appropriate way to point out a typo, I had to resist the urge to flame you. While there are people for whom such verbosity is the most effective mode of communication, I and the people I enjoy communicating with are not among them. Like Alicorn, I read that paragraph as tedious and condescending; if such a message were written to me, I would think that the author was either vacuous or thought I was an idiot.
I would find such an offer confusing at best and pretty creepy in the average case. “Politeness” is not a natural category and you should not expect an audience to consider something polite because you or another audience does.
It’s not the “right” way. Just one choice out of a thousand possible.
Here’s a sample email:
--
Subject: Typo in your article
Hi author,
I saw your article and liked it, but wanted to give you a heads up. You spelled (word) wrong. Best wishes,
Writer
--
What’s that take? 15 seconds? You’d probably have some goodwill afterwards.
Okay. And you’re highly analytical, right? Normal people don’t work well with ultra-direct communication.
So, are you surprised that it’s commonly offered advice on how to become one of the most productive and connected people in any work environment? Offer to help anyone on anything, do double duty on work, and be gracious of it?
Because that is, in fact really common advice. I’d really, really encourage you to try it. I used to believe in being a “straight shooter”, “all content no fluff”, etc, etc, etc. Seriously, try it the other way for a couple weeks. I think you’ll be amazed as what happens.
Try it! Don’t guess, try it. Seriously, it might change your life.
While there may be environments in which this is in fact spectacular advice and would be well-received, I find these paragraphs so obnoxious that they set my teeth on edge. Why should I believe advice about making people feel good which sets my teeth on edge?
Because whether it works or not is independent of whether it sets your teeth on edge. That would be a reason not to act on it, but not a reason to dismiss its validity.
I am a person. I belong to the same reference class as those who this sort of thing would be expected to work on.
I do not find this style of politeness to “work” for me.
It is, I grant, a weak reason to dismiss the claims, but it is a reason, and conjoined with other, similar replies under this post, it adds up to a more compelling reason.
My style, or Lionhearted’s? If mine, please do comment on problems in my comments. If not mine, you may be typing too fast.
Bah, sorry, Lionhearted’s, I lost track of who was saying what. Editing.
Honestly, that surprises me. I could see disagreeing for signal:noise ratio reasons, or not having time—actually, I spent time addressing those in my post since I knew they’d be common objections.
But I’m surprised it actually results in a strong negative emotion from you—“sets your teeth on edge.”
Honestly, I’m not sure why. For the record, I’d advocate you do this sincerely, and never insincerely. Me, if I don’t like anything someone is saying and all the points are dumb, I just ignore it. I’ll only venture to give feedback if I see some merit, and then I highlight that merit.
But seriously, I want to get to the bottom of this. Eliezer writes about how when he was fundraising, lots of people wrote in to criticize, but no one was comfortable publicly announcing and praising the cause and expressing their donation.
This can’t be the best way, can it? If it is, much less analytical groups that are comfortable being cohesive, complimentary, and encouraging will out-recruit us, out-perform us in charity, and cooperate more than us.
At least, that’s how I see it… anyway, I’d like to explore this more. In the comments and/or via PM’s or email, if you like. I wrote this post because I’d like to see our kind of people, groups, and areas of concern be more effective. The fact that there’s a very strong negative emotion from a prolific contributor to the community is surprising to me, and I’d like to find out why and reconcile our points of view to some extent if possible.
I don’t want to beat a dead horse, but I think I can explain this for you.
It sets her teeth on edge because it’s condescending and dismissive. Specifically, with the line “So, are you surprised that it’s commonly offered advice” you’re adopting a professorial tone—purporting to teach Alicorn something she may find surprising about the expert consensus on the subject, with which she is presumed to be unfamiliar. So right from the beginning she’s going to react by feeling insulted, because you’re “talking down” to her.
A way of making the exact same point without adopting the condescending tone would have been simply to say, “I offered that advice because I read it in How to Win Friends and Influence People and in [a few other sources].” If you proceeded to give direct quotes, that would be even better, because then Alicorn could judge for herself whether you’re accurately representing what you judge to be expert consensus (and whether or not she accepts your sources as expert). By asserting yourself as the expert you’re making a subtle attack on Alicorn’s status, whether you mean to or not.
You compound this insult when you dismiss Alicorn’s criticism as “guessing” and when you suggest that your advice will change her life—because you’re implying that she’s struggling with social interactions now. In fact Alicorn’s writings would indicate that her experience in mastering social niceties is at least equal to yours, and you should be addressing her as a peer rather than adopting this tone of superior wisdom.
The above is much more a matter of tone rather than substance, but your reply is also annoying because you’re only re-iterating your initial claims rather than engaging with the specifics of Alicorn’s criticism. As it happens, an example of a better reply is this one, from you, which addresses what Alicorn actually said in a perfectly nice and reasonable way.
Again, I’m sorry if this seems to be just “piling on.” You expressed a confusion (that I assume to be sincere) about why your writing provoked a strong negative emotion from Alicorn, and even though I’m not Alicorn I thought I could explain it to you. I hope she’ll correct me if she disagrees with my analysis.
You did a fine job :)
I have said, and repeat the sentiment: I’m in favor of being nice and polite and kind and cooperative with each other. It’s this style, the specific sort you use in your examples, that gets the skin-crawling/teeth-on-edge/etc. reaction from me. If I had to characterize the style I’d call it something like “saccharine earnestness”.
I wonder whether that “skin-crawling/teeth-on-edge” reaction only arises when this style appears as text, or whether you get the same reaction from spoken word. Same style, but here (in this vid) it is being used to actually communicate, rather than simply to illustrate a point.
It does give me the same teeth-on-edge reaction, only stronger. But then I may be atypical. I never cared for Mr. Rogers either.
Me too. Even politicians don’t usually come across as that nice. Which I interpret as evidence that it is too extreme to be really effective.
Edit: fixed broken link.
Link didn’t come through properly, but I’m curious.
Fixed now. Sorry about that.
I find listening to the linked person only slightly grating. I can’t make out most of the words, though, so most of my reaction is “this needs subtitles”.
Alright, I think we’re on the same page. I picked very, very basic examples of the most literal interpretation of my suggestions. Even adding “Interesting point” or “That’s thought provoking” or “Cool, though I wonder...” before a criticism/concern can make things go over better.
That said, that’s a little more subtle, and I wanted extremely clear and obvious examples.
Feel free to ditch my examples if they’re not helpful for you at all, or replace with your own. I read your linked post on politeness and agree with the sentiment of it, so I think we’re mostly on the same page. Toss all my examples if you understand the underlying principles—there’s almost certainly a more subtle, elegant, less saccharine-earnest-seeming way of doing it in any given case.
Perhaps it helps if you define “impolite” as “status-grabby”. Thus when someone says “nice” things in what comes across as a condescending tone it can be recognized as impolite on that basis—regardless of their intent.
It’s a relativistic criteria though: a given statement can offend some but not others. As an example, the degree of technical explanation afforded for a complex topic. If you put in too much, the experts feel like they are being condescended to. If you put in too little, the less trained feel excluded because they cannot follow all the jargon enough to relate it to anything they know.
Perhaps the real cheat code in this case would be the skill of writing things in a manner that people can interpret into their own preferred range.
There is a wide middle ground between being uncomfortable saying out loud the good things you believe about a cause you donate to, and being unwilling to criticize something without also finding something nice to say about it.
I think you have that backwards. I assume that by ‘this’ you mean the situation that obtained while Eliezer was fundraising. I assume that if ‘this’ is the best way, then a group employing ‘this’ will have better outcomes (by definition?), but you conclude the opposite.
This far into the thread it shouldn’t surprise you. You have had the causes of the objection explained to you multiple times by multiple people from multiple perspectives. Read through this thread again with the assumption that those who are speaking to you understand the value of tact and politeness, probably better than you. They have an intuitive feel of social dynamics, what works, what is inappropriate and what is insulting. They are also analytical people—they have the ability to describe a model of social behaviour that demonstrates why ‘polite and nice’ can also be a condescending slight depending on how it is done.
siduri’s comment is a good place to start. Then you can look further and try to understand how you have managed to alienate your audience to the extent that they have completely written you off. WrongBot’s reaction is in no way bizarre or unusual. It’s what you should expect from humans if you provide the verbal stimulus like what you have provided here.
The person one is correcting is not always the intended benefactor of one’s reply.
Well, that’s just it. I’m not surprised people disagree. That’s to be expected. I’m surprised people had a significant emotional reaction to it.
Actually, there’s been overwhelmingly more appreciation of this than disagreement. It got submitted to HN and was +110 there, and 80%+ of the comments were positive. I also got a half dozen emails saying thanks.
But you know what? You’re right. I thought I would try to address everyone’s concerns, criticisms, and share my experiences. And some people are taking personal offense, on an emotional level. That’s not my intent—so yes, indeed, I’ll bow out of the discussion now. If anyone has any questions or comments, they’re welcome to email me. Really, I do think this is an area that some minor changes can produce huge dividends. Or maybe I’m mistaken—happy to discuss via email if anyone has questons or comments and wants to discuss, but I’ll move on from the comments now.
I think you should take your surprise as a sign that your model of tact is in need of updating. You were not mistaken when you claimed that following the social norms we do here would tend to serve one ill in real life, but the approach you’ve suggested substituting for it seems like a case of reversed stupidity. I think it would be a good idea for you to review the suggestions others have made in this thread so that you can apply your own advice in a more effective manner.
‘This far into the thread’ references comments not the initial post. You can get 110 upvotes on HN based purely based on having a trivially obvious premise that relates to nerds.
Others are noting that you are doing things offensive as a matter of academic interest.
Note that the ‘for now’ sounds ominous. A threat, if you will, of polluting the epistemic environment in the future. You appear to be unable or unwilling to learn or understand feedback—yet another example of what will be considered an accidental defection, here more than elsewhere.
He didn’t say ‘for now’.
Don’t you hate it when that happens? :)
Yes. Yet I’m not surprised in retrospect. Contempt is the brain killer. At least, that is the one state that I’ve learned provokes me to simple mistakes. Far more than drunkenness for example. Every time I’ve said stupid things (in my best retrospective judgement) it has been when the context has provoked me to contempt. Sometimes I remember to eject before it is too late but I evidently haven’t fully made a habit of it just yet.
Almost every time for me. I’ve managed one or two stupidities even without that preparation.
It’s just so much more embarrassing to realise that other people being foolish doesn’t preclude being stupid myself. :P
Offering to help a coworker and offering to help a stranger from an internet forum are two radically different things. The former is something I do on a regular basis; I agree that it is produces good results.
Standards of politeness are incredibly sensitive to context, and from your first line in the parent I take it you agree. Why do you believe this standard of politeness is appropriate to the contexts of both work and a semi-anonymous internet forum?
Okay, cool. You might try offering after a decent exchange—if you look at my profile or “About Me” section on any place I hang out, or any site, I encourage people to look me up for a coffee, or if they have any questions, or I can help at all. Most people don’t take me up on it, but some do—I’ve helped people with their marketing, I’ve helped people get pay raises, improve their writing and creative output, I’ve recommended books and places to stay and go in various cities… and it’s been good. I’ve made friends and colleagues like that.
I learned this because I met one of my best friends this way. When he was a stranger, he emailed me a technical question, and I went over and above the call of duty and wrote him back a 5 page reply with specs and details. He then referred me to a job because I sounded like I knew what I was talking about and invited me to stay with him if I was ever in Los Angeles. I did, and he became one of my best friends. Later, he helped me close a $60,000 deal when I bought out half of a company. We’ve been skiing together in Japan and had lots of cool memories and insights. All because I helped a random stranger, and he was really cool about it afterwards.
It might seem different, but I think most people appreciate it. A fairly prolific photographer/technical blogger emailed me a while back, and after a short exchange, he asked if there’s anything he could help me with. I asked how he made a few of the pictures that were really beautiful? And he shared some software recommendations with me. We’re now friendly acquaintances, and we’ll probably go out for food together next time I’m in San Francisco.
Some people might take it poorly. But who cares? The upside of making a new friend or colleague because you’re always happy to help anyone is huge. Someone doesn’t like it? Well, what’s the downside? Who cares? Most people are grateful anyways, actually, but if a couple people don’t like it… so what? You offer to help someone and they take it the wrong way? Well, nothing significant lost on anyone’s end. The friends and colleagues you make, and the general good you do for the world more than compensates for the (very rare, if ever) negative reaction.
Good comment/question. I generally try to err on the side of being more polite and gracious unless there’s a reason not to, because I don’t see any real downside to it. You’re right—we’re all strangers on the net, so there’s no real repercussions if something goes over poorly. But I think there are opportunities to connect with people, make new friends and colleagues, share good information, and help each other. I think is generally good and virtuous, and try to encourage it when possible.
That does not bear any resemblance to anything I have said. In fact, I vehemently disagree with your assertion that no harm is caused when you annoy or creep someone out on the internet.
I am sufficiently annoyed by this conversation that I will probably not be able to comment further in a productive fashion.
Isn’t this a rejection of the entire point of your main post?
Who cares is very context-specific here. When dealing with someone you don’t naturally interact with, high variance in responses is good up to a certain point. Get a good reaction and you can make a valuable friend and ally, whereas it’s not likely anyone is going to think you were so polite they should come at you with an axe.
Does that mean you think the politeness—effect curve is usually much flatter on the right side of the maximum (optimal politeness) than on the left?
Exaggerated politeness often seems insincere, distancing or worse so I’m skeptical of the merits of systematically overshooting like that.
Upvoted for this. The ‘or worse’ also includes making people disregard the content of what you’re trying to say because you’re signalling low-status/self-effacement so hard that it’s difficult for anyone to take you seriously
Thanks—I was looking for a good way of saying that.
This is the kind of defection by accident that analytical more often fall in to. Condescension with advice!
I’m not saying you should always be polite. Just you should be aware of the consequences and secondary effects for not being so.
I agree with you on that point, yet I’m making my own. Analytical people are usually aware of politeness but take somewhat longer to realise that advice, instruction and offers to assist can be far more of a significant social slight than merely being curt. Those who are familiar with analytical types can see that they mean well and are just making nerdy faux pas. There are some, however, who will take offence—because the exact same words could be used by less nerdy person as deliberate one upmanship.
I second wedrifid’s reaction. Trying an entire different social approach for a month is a very high cost, especially if it’s one that makes our skin crawl. Alicorn’s not alone in that, as that is exactly my instinctive reaction to hearing it. It doesn’t make sense to give that kind of slack unless the prior for it working is high.
It’s about one part historical experimentation with styles of politeness, and one part noticing how your post made my skin crawl.
I second everything WrongBot said in the sibling comment.
A lot of that feeling is probably explained by the mere fact that we are discussing social calculations openly. Doing so almost always leaves a bad taste in people’s mouths.
I don’t ordinarily feel skin-crawly when discussing social norms/calculations/scripts/etc.
That’s right, I almost forgot you had posted on the subject before, which is odd because I’ve actually used your “Considerations in favour of niceness” post to convince people to rein in their conversational aggression.
A couple of lionhearted’s sentences sounded slightly cringeworthy to me too, but many times I have been surprised at how well such things actually go over with non-analytical people. For example, my mother prefaces even the tiniest criticism with 42 caveats and compliments (which feel like mostly white noise to me), but I can’t help but notice that she also appears to be a social genius, with at least 30 genuinely close friends. (Bla bla anecdote bla bla correlation not causation).
I’m often shocked how much completely (to me) over the top super-politeness is optimal when dealing with average people, often more than enough to make me tempted to say “Get on with it!” in a British accent. In fact a good instinct for many of us when dealing with non-nerds is to use just enough politeness to actively piss ourselves off were we in the other person’s shoes.
Yep. Play to your audience. This requires you to gain genuine skill in communication and in assessing the situation, but this is really not optional if achieving your goals requires interacting with humans. Failure to communicate appropriately in a variety of situations will lead to failure.
(No-one said instrumental effectiveness was easy.)
I would add that acceding to the corrections of another is somewhat of a compliment—particularly to nerds. In fact it is a strong enough status signal that I don’t expect high status people to acknowledge such correction unless they cannot get away with not doing so.
Saying out loud “I was wrong and you were right” is a most amusing piece of judo to use on Usenet. It tends to explode people’s heads.
That’s probably more because you hacked into their computers to access their speakers, than what specifically you said out loud.
The additional delightful irony of this is that doing so in most contexts is an enormous status-booster… third parties who observe the exchange tend to conclude all kinds of positive things about you.
This is one of the things that bothers me most about LessWrong, and intelligent people in general. Of all the silly status games that I would think and hope people here are mature enough to see through and realize the silliness of playing in this environment, avoiding giving thanks and acknowledging errors is one that should be close to the top of the list—but sadly, it isn’t.
Alas there’s no escape from status games, silly or otherwise. The solution to the problem is to explicitly give high status to those who give thanks and correct errors. Ideally this force is sufficiently strong to more than counteract the status lost through revealing the original mistake or the need you are giving thanks for. I think we’re at least close to that for the level of thanks and error correction we want on this site.
Wow, I was wrong and you were right, thanks!
I’m not sure if I agree. Sometimes these things are important parts of the learning process, and though it is possible to see through many social norms, many of them actually facilitate communication. (For example: politeness, showing that you are leaving a line of retreat, etc.)
The one that bothers me the most is when there’s an insightful criticism or question attached to a comment, and the criticism gets voted up because it makes a valid point that illustrates what seems like a fatal flaw in the parent comment’s argument, but the author of the parent comment never bothers to respond, because they’d rather just pretend they never saw the comment or that it doesn’t make a good point that needs addressing. I don’t see how one could argue that that is a way of “facilitating communication”.
Anyway, I think you switched the topic from status games to social norms, which are not quite the same thing. My example above of not responding to strong criticisms to avoid admitting error or weakness is a status game (a pathetic and silly one, in my opinion), but it’s not a social norm. I have no problem with stereotypical social norms like politeness.
Consider that some authors may have precommitted to not responding to such criticisms because they judged they would not have the emotional capacity to sanely respond.
I agree but at the same time would be wary about advocating a strong norm against not replying. Rules can and will be gamed. It is not hard for a clever arguer to exploit such norms and play the crowd with highly undesirable results.
I thought there actually was a strong norm already that was being flouted.
The model I had in mind was:
LW’s “Strong critique of comment in direct reply to a comment or post” is to “ignoring the critique and failing to reply”
as
Academia’s “Strong paper that criticizes methodology, etc., of a published paper” is to “not publishing a response to the critique”.
In academia, a researcher that habitually failed to address serious flaws in their publications would quickly lose status and become irrelevant. I thought something like that was a norm at LW.
The judgement behind ‘strong paper’ and ‘strong critique’ is important and similar judgement must be used to decide whether to reply to criticism. This is particularly the case when the critic is not acting in good faith (again, in your judgement) and has a talent for obfuscation and rhetoric.
Strongly agree.
I’m not advocating anything like “always respond”. I’m advocating that when people actually think it’s a strong critique, they should respond rather than playing the status game of pretending they don’t really think it’s a strong critique by ignoring it. Additionally, even if they don’t think it’s a strong critique, if many other people ‘whose judgment they would trust in other similar situations’ do think it’s a strong critique, then they should also respond.
I think voting tends to be a function of social norms rather than status games. For example: voting tends to follow the policy “upvote if you want to see more like this.”
I agree. My point thought was not primarily about the child comment being voted up, but about the child comment being an insightful critique of or counter-argument to the parent. In the example, the child comment being voted up was just meant as evidence that the comment actually ‘does’ make a great point that needs a response from the parent, which is why it’s so disappointing to see the comment ignored.
The status game I had in mind was “if I ignore that comment that points out serious flaws in my argument, people will be more likely to get the impression that the comment is not worthy of reply and that my argument really isn’t flawed, and I can avoid a response that might lower my status, even if that compromises the rational, educational aspect of this site.” The irony is that for many of us here, responding would actually be a status-enhancing act.
Social norms only work because they piggy back on status games. They are also created and determined by status games and power plays. The trick is to accept that and harness that force the best we can!
I’ve gotten upvotes for publicly accepting correction.
I concur, and I don’t see that as much of a problem. Though it incentives signaling that you have changed your mind, that generally means that you have to actually change your mind, which is, after all, the whole point.