I understand your frustration. It’s not fun being voted down.
is Less Wrong really trying to tell me that they are indifferent as to whether I continue posting articles or not? As in, this article provides zero value?
The baseline isn’t zero—it’s the the opportunity cost of reading the article. Would readers have preferred reading your article to another random article? If you don’t cross that threshold, many of your readers will suffer a net loss. It’s a high bar, especially with many great articles around.
Readers outnumber article writers hundreds to one. Optimizing for quality reading is more important than producing more articles.
I understand your frustration. It’s not fun being voted down.
The baseline isn’t zero—it’s the the opportunity cost of reading the article. Would readers have preferred reading your article to another random article? If you don’t cross that threshold, many of your readers will suffer a net loss. It’s a high bar, especially with many great articles around.
Readers outnumber article writers hundreds to one. Optimizing for quality reading is more important than producing more articles.
I think some readers at least already take that into account when deciding how to vote.