Venue also matters a lot through the social context it brings. Individual Wordpress blogs often feel like you’re saying “this is where my writing lives; by commenting, you’re coming into my house”, which can be challenging to take lightly—especially when you’re talking about a neighborhood of individual blogs, few of which get regular comments. Meanwhile social media is a weird mix of jokes and personal content with discussion-oriented ideas, where there’s an uncertain rudeness in potentially burying someone with attention or notifications by Starting Discourse. And in both of these, if it’s not controversy or gossip or dilettantism, then posting the most makes you king.
So I was/am hopeful about posting more to LW 2.0 largely for the sake of better defaults around “this is for having a conversation”—both “formally” in responding directly to or building on the OP, and more “socially” or indirectly by contributing thoughts on the same subject, and in a venue with moderation and karma where things can bubble up without the speculative/social/everyone’s-an-expert elements (or sheer consistent quantity).
I find that my writing seems to actively repel comments compared to stuff that gets comparably received by other metrics. I do try to go out of my way to write mostly on the rare occasions I have something unambiguously sensible or useful to contribute; it earns me a high upvote/downvote ratio, but little sense of how people are engaging with what I have to say.
At the same time, maybe this makes me part of the problem of silence on the best writing. I’m also interested in learning to be a better commenter, but I’m not someone who thinks they can or should always have something to say. For my part, I think this mostly indicates that I should comment more with thoughtful questions, but I’m very interested in you or anyone else fleshing out your “being a better commenter” open problem—I think this is potentially more important for success here than writing the right kinds of posts.
Venue also matters a lot through the social context it brings. Individual Wordpress blogs often feel like you’re saying “this is where my writing lives; by commenting, you’re coming into my house”, which can be challenging to take lightly—especially when you’re talking about a neighborhood of individual blogs, few of which get regular comments. Meanwhile social media is a weird mix of jokes and personal content with discussion-oriented ideas, where there’s an uncertain rudeness in potentially burying someone with attention or notifications by Starting Discourse. And in both of these, if it’s not controversy or gossip or dilettantism, then posting the most makes you king.
So I was/am hopeful about posting more to LW 2.0 largely for the sake of better defaults around “this is for having a conversation”—both “formally” in responding directly to or building on the OP, and more “socially” or indirectly by contributing thoughts on the same subject, and in a venue with moderation and karma where things can bubble up without the speculative/social/everyone’s-an-expert elements (or sheer consistent quantity).
I find that my writing seems to actively repel comments compared to stuff that gets comparably received by other metrics. I do try to go out of my way to write mostly on the rare occasions I have something unambiguously sensible or useful to contribute; it earns me a high upvote/downvote ratio, but little sense of how people are engaging with what I have to say.
At the same time, maybe this makes me part of the problem of silence on the best writing. I’m also interested in learning to be a better commenter, but I’m not someone who thinks they can or should always have something to say. For my part, I think this mostly indicates that I should comment more with thoughtful questions, but I’m very interested in you or anyone else fleshing out your “being a better commenter” open problem—I think this is potentially more important for success here than writing the right kinds of posts.