(If the current mod team got hit by a truck and new people took over and tried to implement our “no calls to action on frontpage” rule without understanding it, I predict they wouldn’t get the nuances right).
A corollary of 1.3 is that we often prefer descriptive language (including language describing your current beliefs, emotional state, etc.) over prescriptive language, all else being equal.
Which seems pretty far from “no calls to action on frontpage” and isn’t even in the “Things to keep to a minimum” or “Off-limits things” section.
(If I had been aware of this rule and surrounding discussions about it, maybe I would have been more sensitive about “accusing” someone of making a call to action, which to be clear wasn’t my intention at all since I didn’t even know such a rule existed.)
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)
When did this rule come into effect and where is it written down? The closest thing I can find in Frontpage Posting and Commenting Guidelines is:
Which seems pretty far from “no calls to action on frontpage” and isn’t even in the “Things to keep to a minimum” or “Off-limits things” section.
(If I had been aware of this rule and surrounding discussions about it, maybe I would have been more sensitive about “accusing” someone of making a call to action, which to be clear wasn’t my intention at all since I didn’t even know such a rule existed.)
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)