In case it wasn’t clear: “losing karma” and “not good enough” were intended to be separate fears. Writing something I know is great and still losing a ton of karma hurts in one way. Writing something that shows me up as an idiot hurts in a very different way.[1] Circulating an article means fewer people to notice I’m an idiot, but also closer scrutiny and more effort required on their part. I think the fear of not being good enough would be about as bad either way.
[1] So far as I can recall, neither has actually happened to me, so I’m guessing on the basis of introspection. But I’ve had kinda-parallel experiences outside LW.
I think making it easy to circulate drafts and encouraging people to do so is a great idea, but I don’t think it’s a solution to the “fear of being Not Good Enough” problem.
I think the fear of not being good enough would be about as bad either way.
I think there are multiple different issues of “not good enough”. From my own perspective I do believe that I have good ideas worthy of sharing but on the other hand I know that the quality of my writing ability isn’t as high as I would like it to be. The writeup of the idea improves though letting the draft circulate and incorporating feedback.
On the other hand it wouldn’t help in the same way for a person who thinks their ideas aren’t good enough.
In case it wasn’t clear: “losing karma” and “not good enough” were intended to be separate fears. Writing something I know is great and still losing a ton of karma hurts in one way. Writing something that shows me up as an idiot hurts in a very different way.[1] Circulating an article means fewer people to notice I’m an idiot, but also closer scrutiny and more effort required on their part. I think the fear of not being good enough would be about as bad either way.
[1] So far as I can recall, neither has actually happened to me, so I’m guessing on the basis of introspection. But I’ve had kinda-parallel experiences outside LW.
I think making it easy to circulate drafts and encouraging people to do so is a great idea, but I don’t think it’s a solution to the “fear of being Not Good Enough” problem.
I think there are multiple different issues of “not good enough”. From my own perspective I do believe that I have good ideas worthy of sharing but on the other hand I know that the quality of my writing ability isn’t as high as I would like it to be. The writeup of the idea improves though letting the draft circulate and incorporating feedback.
On the other hand it wouldn’t help in the same way for a person who thinks their ideas aren’t good enough.