I think the phrase “call to action” might get used internally more than externally (although I have a blogpost brewing that delves into it a bit, as well as another phrase “call to conflict.”)
But a phrase used in both our Frontpage Commenting guidelines, and on the tooltip for when you mark a post as ‘allow moderators to promote’ is ‘aim to explain, not persuade’, where calls to action are a subset of persuading.
(Note that both of those site-elements might not appear on GreaterWrong. I think GreaterWrong also doesn’t really have the frontpage distinction anyhow, instead just showing all new posts in order of appearance)
I actually think the “aim to explain, not persuade” framing is generally clearer than the “no call to action” framing. Like, if you explain something to someone that strongly implies some action, then some people might call that a “call to action” but I would think that’s totally fine.
Agreed. And I think I was implicitly focusing on whether the post gave a sufficient explanation for its (original) conclusion, and was rather confused why others were so focused on whether there was a call to action or not (which without knowing the context of your private discussions I just interpreted to mean any practical suggestion)
I think the phrase “call to action” might get used internally more than externally (although I have a blogpost brewing that delves into it a bit, as well as another phrase “call to conflict.”)
But a phrase used in both our Frontpage Commenting guidelines, and on the tooltip for when you mark a post as ‘allow moderators to promote’ is ‘aim to explain, not persuade’, where calls to action are a subset of persuading.
(Note that both of those site-elements might not appear on GreaterWrong. I think GreaterWrong also doesn’t really have the frontpage distinction anyhow, instead just showing all new posts in order of appearance)
I actually think the “aim to explain, not persuade” framing is generally clearer than the “no call to action” framing. Like, if you explain something to someone that strongly implies some action, then some people might call that a “call to action” but I would think that’s totally fine.
Agreed. And I think I was implicitly focusing on whether the post gave a sufficient explanation for its (original) conclusion, and was rather confused why others were so focused on whether there was a call to action or not (which without knowing the context of your private discussions I just interpreted to mean any practical suggestion)