This isn’t really the best place for a flood of low-quality ideas
I somewhat disagree, but it depends on how much a “flood” we’re talking. Too many bad posts by a poster would be annoying and counterproductive because the poster would obviously not be taking the time to learn from their mistakes. However, the fastest way to become disabused of buggy thinking is to post it in public. That might annoy some who want to read only “high-quality” thoughts, but who cares? Those people can downvote and move along. A necessary prerequisite to becoming Less Wrong is to first be wrong, and to then realize that you are wrong. It seems to me that the discussion section is exactly the place where this process should occur.
Ah yes, good points there. Yeah, it really depends on the ratio of newcomers to oldcomers. Oldcomers get annoyed when they have to answer the same questions over and over again. Of course, they could just downvote and move along (in fact, it usually doesn’t cost much effort to do that). But for some reason, they get annoyed (it might even be irrational to get annoyed so easily, but lots of people believe that it’s hard not to get annoyed—and they often justify their annoyance).
Of course, they could just downvote and move along (in fact, it usually doesn’t cost much effort to do that).
And then the poster makes another post complaining about being downvoted. And when that one gets downvoted he accuses everyone of groupthink. Then it gets really nasty.
It my sound like I’m exaggerating, but this has already played out twice in the past two weeks.
I somewhat disagree, but it depends on how much a “flood” we’re talking. Too many bad posts by a poster would be annoying and counterproductive because the poster would obviously not be taking the time to learn from their mistakes. However, the fastest way to become disabused of buggy thinking is to post it in public. That might annoy some who want to read only “high-quality” thoughts, but who cares? Those people can downvote and move along. A necessary prerequisite to becoming Less Wrong is to first be wrong, and to then realize that you are wrong. It seems to me that the discussion section is exactly the place where this process should occur.
Ah yes, good points there. Yeah, it really depends on the ratio of newcomers to oldcomers. Oldcomers get annoyed when they have to answer the same questions over and over again. Of course, they could just downvote and move along (in fact, it usually doesn’t cost much effort to do that). But for some reason, they get annoyed (it might even be irrational to get annoyed so easily, but lots of people believe that it’s hard not to get annoyed—and they often justify their annoyance).
And then the poster makes another post complaining about being downvoted. And when that one gets downvoted he accuses everyone of groupthink. Then it gets really nasty.
It my sound like I’m exaggerating, but this has already played out twice in the past two weeks.