Several times recently I asked for simple clarifications about a comment that replied to something I wrote, and had my question ignored. (See here, here, and here.) And I don’t know why. Did I violate some rule of etiquette, or what? How can I rephrase my questions to get a better response rate?
ETA: Here are the questions, in case people don’t want to search through the comments to find them:
But I’m not sure what you mean by “metaethics, a solved problem”. Can you give a link?
What prior work are you referring to, that hasn’t been broadly disseminated?
What is the remaining Problem that you’re referring to?
In my case, what tends to happen is that I either don’t notice the question, or I notice that the question requires a bunch of work to respond to and then either get to it some time later or let it slide off entirely.
I think in cases like these, you’re more likely to get a response by adding another post as a reply to the person with just a single unanswered question (start with the one you care about most), so the person will see they have a new response in their inbox and realize they never answered an earlier question. If you post each of those 3 questions as a response to the person, in context, I’d be very surprised if you didn’t get a response to at least 2 of the 3, as long as you include little to nothing else in each post so it’s obvious what you’re asking for and they can’t respond to something else in the post.
I’ve noticed that longish posts with multiple questions often get just one question answered and all the others ignored, intentionally or unintentionally. And posts that are longish with questions interspersed with non-questions tend to get responded too as if the non-questions were the substantive part, with the questions often ignored.
(The other extremely common reason for not getting a response is identifying a flaw or asking a question that shows problems with the person’s position, in which case most people seem to just ignore the post rather than admit they were wrong or can’t answer a critique. I don’t think that’s the case here at all though.)
This seems like good advice. I did think about repeating the unanswered question, but was worried that I’d come off as obnoxious if the commenter was avoiding it deliberately for some reason. Given the multiple confirmations that that’s probably not the case, I think I’ll do so more often in the future. Thanks.
Not answering a question is Internet’s way of walking away from a conversation. You don’t usually say “excuse me, I’m late to a meeting”, as interaction is asynchronous. In the current Internet culture, saying “I don’t want to bother answering” sounds rude, and so the best solution signaling-wise is to just not answer.
The first two have responses as of the time that you posted this. (If there are remaining questions in a post they are far less likely to be answered after the first couple of replies.)
The final example suffers somewhat from ‘nobody knows what science doesn’t know’. There are probably not too many people who can think of an example of a problem that UDT1 can not handle. For my part I probably wouldn’t answer just because I don’t like the name UDT1 and the language used to describe it irritates me.
I’m not sure why Eleizer didn’t answer but I probably wouldn’t bother wasting thoughts wondering. Want an answer? Make a top level post about it. Include enough of a useful description of the theory and the problems it has already solved to make you not look bad. In particular, include links to said problems and resolutions. If you really want an answer then include an assertion that UDT1 has solved all the significant decision Problems that have been discussed on LessWrong.
Why should I make that much effort to get a simple answer to a simple question? Eliezer obviously had something specific in mind when he wrote “Problem”. Why didn’t he just write a couple of sentences saying what it was when I indicated that I didn’t get the reference?
Same with the other two questions. I wasn’t asking difficult questions, just simple clarifications.
Why should I make that much effort to get a simple answer to a simple question?
I’m not suggesting that you ought to have to. I don’t think you violated any particular etiquette with your requests for clarification. If going meta and questioning whether the lack of reply is justifiable is your preferred use for the effort then by all means do that instead.
I have no idea why Eliezer didn’t answer you. Maybe he was busy. Maybe he was self absorbed. But I do make this observation in general: If someone presents a position along the lines of “it is right to believe there is are Problems’s with X” then I usually don’t expect them to answer me if I press them for an example. This is particularly the case if there are, in fact, no obvious examples. Even if an example could be given, successfully justifying themselves in response to what can be construed as a challenge does not necessarily benefit them. If you present your question in your own frame, however, the dynamics are entirely different.
Several times recently I asked for simple clarifications about a comment that replied to something I wrote, and had my question ignored. (See here, here, and here.) And I don’t know why. Did I violate some rule of etiquette, or what? How can I rephrase my questions to get a better response rate?
ETA: Here are the questions, in case people don’t want to search through the comments to find them:
But I’m not sure what you mean by “metaethics, a solved problem”. Can you give a link?
What prior work are you referring to, that hasn’t been broadly disseminated?
What is the remaining Problem that you’re referring to?
In my case, what tends to happen is that I either don’t notice the question, or I notice that the question requires a bunch of work to respond to and then either get to it some time later or let it slide off entirely.
“or I notice that the question requires a bunch of work to respond to and then either get to it some time later or let it slide off entirely”
Or don’t recall it.
I think in cases like these, you’re more likely to get a response by adding another post as a reply to the person with just a single unanswered question (start with the one you care about most), so the person will see they have a new response in their inbox and realize they never answered an earlier question. If you post each of those 3 questions as a response to the person, in context, I’d be very surprised if you didn’t get a response to at least 2 of the 3, as long as you include little to nothing else in each post so it’s obvious what you’re asking for and they can’t respond to something else in the post.
I’ve noticed that longish posts with multiple questions often get just one question answered and all the others ignored, intentionally or unintentionally. And posts that are longish with questions interspersed with non-questions tend to get responded too as if the non-questions were the substantive part, with the questions often ignored.
(The other extremely common reason for not getting a response is identifying a flaw or asking a question that shows problems with the person’s position, in which case most people seem to just ignore the post rather than admit they were wrong or can’t answer a critique. I don’t think that’s the case here at all though.)
This seems like good advice. I did think about repeating the unanswered question, but was worried that I’d come off as obnoxious if the commenter was avoiding it deliberately for some reason. Given the multiple confirmations that that’s probably not the case, I think I’ll do so more often in the future. Thanks.
Not answering a question is Internet’s way of walking away from a conversation. You don’t usually say “excuse me, I’m late to a meeting”, as interaction is asynchronous. In the current Internet culture, saying “I don’t want to bother answering” sounds rude, and so the best solution signaling-wise is to just not answer.
In my experience (for myself and interacting with others), it’s not uncommon at all for someone to
miss that there was a question at all
see a question, but put off thinking about it and then forget to get back to it
reply to some other part and forget about answering the question
figure replying to the question is uninteresting ‘because the thread is dead’
etc.
The first two have responses as of the time that you posted this. (If there are remaining questions in a post they are far less likely to be answered after the first couple of replies.)
The final example suffers somewhat from ‘nobody knows what science doesn’t know’. There are probably not too many people who can think of an example of a problem that UDT1 can not handle. For my part I probably wouldn’t answer just because I don’t like the name UDT1 and the language used to describe it irritates me.
I’m not sure why Eleizer didn’t answer but I probably wouldn’t bother wasting thoughts wondering. Want an answer? Make a top level post about it. Include enough of a useful description of the theory and the problems it has already solved to make you not look bad. In particular, include links to said problems and resolutions. If you really want an answer then include an assertion that UDT1 has solved all the significant decision Problems that have been discussed on LessWrong.
Please expand on that.
Why should I make that much effort to get a simple answer to a simple question? Eliezer obviously had something specific in mind when he wrote “Problem”. Why didn’t he just write a couple of sentences saying what it was when I indicated that I didn’t get the reference?
Same with the other two questions. I wasn’t asking difficult questions, just simple clarifications.
I’m not suggesting that you ought to have to. I don’t think you violated any particular etiquette with your requests for clarification. If going meta and questioning whether the lack of reply is justifiable is your preferred use for the effort then by all means do that instead.
I have no idea why Eliezer didn’t answer you. Maybe he was busy. Maybe he was self absorbed. But I do make this observation in general: If someone presents a position along the lines of “it is right to believe there is are Problems’s with X” then I usually don’t expect them to answer me if I press them for an example. This is particularly the case if there are, in fact, no obvious examples. Even if an example could be given, successfully justifying themselves in response to what can be construed as a challenge does not necessarily benefit them. If you present your question in your own frame, however, the dynamics are entirely different.