There are several points here that seem entangled, but I’ll try listing them separately.
First, it is a desirable quality to be able to work out what one did wrong from minimal evidence, or repeated experimentation.
Second, it seems to me that rationality is strengthened by the ability to joyfully accept contradictions and corrections. A view that sees a downvote as a sort-of public humiliation is probably too sensitive.
Third, politeness is costly, in several ways. Most relevant to the others is the time cost of writing a reply. It often takes much longer to instill clarity than it takes to display confusion.
Fourth, as the benefits mostly accrue to the corrected, and the costs mostly accrue to the corrector, it is not clear why we should expect such correction to be the norm instead of virtuous on the part of the corrector.
She might become so upset she won’t return here again.
LWers differ in how hard they want LW to be on its new users. I tend to be softer than, say, Lumifer, but I am not certain that this is a bug instead of a feature. There are people we don’t want to discuss things here on LW, and that sort of reaction may be a decent filter.
There are several points here that seem entangled, but I’ll try listing them separately.
First, it is a desirable quality to be able to work out what one did wrong from minimal evidence, or repeated experimentation.
Second, it seems to me that rationality is strengthened by the ability to joyfully accept contradictions and corrections. A view that sees a downvote as a sort-of public humiliation is probably too sensitive.
Third, politeness is costly, in several ways. Most relevant to the others is the time cost of writing a reply. It often takes much longer to instill clarity than it takes to display confusion.
Fourth, as the benefits mostly accrue to the corrected, and the costs mostly accrue to the corrector, it is not clear why we should expect such correction to be the norm instead of virtuous on the part of the corrector.
LWers differ in how hard they want LW to be on its new users. I tend to be softer than, say, Lumifer, but I am not certain that this is a bug instead of a feature. There are people we don’t want to discuss things here on LW, and that sort of reaction may be a decent filter.
I don’t want to set up a hazing ritual to weed out the misfits from among the newbies.
What I want to avoid is LW evolving towards being victim-centric where the main concern is the possibility of giving offence.