Should I not have began by talking about background information & explaining my beliefs?
Should I have the audience had contextual awareness and gone right into talking about solutions?
Or was the problem more along the lines of writing quality, tone, or style?
What type of post do you like reading?
Would it be alright if I asked for an example so that I could read it?
This is a completely wrong way to think about it, imo. A post isn’t this thing with inherent terminal value that you can optimize for regardless of content.
If you think you have an insight that the remaining LW community doesn’t have, then and only then[1] should you consider writing a post. Then the questions become is the insight actually valid, and did I communicate it properly. And yes, the second one is huge topic—so if in fact you have something value to say, then sure you can spend a lot of time trying to figure out how to do that, and what e.g. Lsuser said is fine advise. But first you need to actually have something valuable to say. If you don’t, then the only good action is to not write a post. Starting off by just wanting to write something is bound to be not-fruitful.
Sounds like you’re speaking from a set of fundamental different beliefs than I’m used to. I’ve trained myself to write assuming that the audience is uninformed about the topic I’m writing about. But it sounds like you’re writing from the perspective of the LW community being more informed than I can properly understand or conceptualize. How can I gain more information on the flow of information in the Lesswrong community? I assumed any insights I’ve arrived at as a consequence of my own thinking & conclusions I’ve reached from various unconnected sources would likely be insights specific to me, but maybe I’m wrong. But yeah, I agree with you just wanting to write something does not sound like a good place to start to be value-additive to this community. I’ll remember to only post when I believe I have valuable and unique insights to share.
This is a completely wrong way to think about it, imo. A post isn’t this thing with inherent terminal value that you can optimize for regardless of content.
If you think you have an insight that the remaining LW community doesn’t have, then and only then[1] should you consider writing a post. Then the questions become is the insight actually valid, and did I communicate it properly. And yes, the second one is huge topic—so if in fact you have something value to say, then sure you can spend a lot of time trying to figure out how to do that, and what e.g. Lsuser said is fine advise. But first you need to actually have something valuable to say. If you don’t, then the only good action is to not write a post. Starting off by just wanting to write something is bound to be not-fruitful.
yes technically there can be other goals of a post (like if it’s fiction), but this is the central case
Sounds like you’re speaking from a set of fundamental different beliefs than I’m used to. I’ve trained myself to write assuming that the audience is uninformed about the topic I’m writing about. But it sounds like you’re writing from the perspective of the LW community being more informed than I can properly understand or conceptualize. How can I gain more information on the flow of information in the Lesswrong community? I assumed any insights I’ve arrived at as a consequence of my own thinking & conclusions I’ve reached from various unconnected sources would likely be insights specific to me, but maybe I’m wrong. But yeah, I agree with you just wanting to write something does not sound like a good place to start to be value-additive to this community. I’ll remember to only post when I believe I have valuable and unique insights to share.