Everyone who says this site is intimidating to new people is spot-on. I’d read all the OB sequences by the time LW started up, but I still came very close to never writing any top-level posts, and if my first one hadn’t been well received I doubt I ever would have written a second.
But the current options don’t address how, as Matt Simpson said, looking dumb is a bigger barrier than karma. I got over my “looking dumb” fear by using a name that’s pretty hard to trace back to me and maintaining anonymity, but this isn’t enough. Internet etiquette generally frowns on re-registering with a new handle after you embarrass your first one, so I was still risking “my” Less Wrong reputation.
So what about short “karma holidays” every so often? During a karma holiday, people have the option to post/comment anonymously (wait! hear me out!). The karma they earn or lose doesn’t get added or subtracted to their real total. At any point, the poster can then “claim” the post and remove anonymity from it.
During a karma holiday, new people get every incentive to post and comment. If their post bombs, they don’t lose any karma, no one ever has to know it was them, and they know not to post any more until they’ve done some more study. If their post succeeds, they can take the karma and the credit, lose their feelings of unworthiness, and then keep on posting good stuff after the karma holiday’s over.
The downside is that we have to suffer through some posts that might be lower quality than normal once in a while, and we might get flooded with too many posts to read and review properly during that period.
Everyone who says this site is intimidating to new people is spot-on. I’d read all the OB sequences by the time LW started up, but I still came very close to never writing any top-level posts, and if my first one hadn’t been well received I doubt I ever would have written a second.
But the current options don’t address how, as Matt Simpson said, looking dumb is a bigger barrier than karma. I got over my “looking dumb” fear by using a name that’s pretty hard to trace back to me and maintaining anonymity, but this isn’t enough. Internet etiquette generally frowns on re-registering with a new handle after you embarrass your first one, so I was still risking “my” Less Wrong reputation.
So what about short “karma holidays” every so often? During a karma holiday, people have the option to post/comment anonymously (wait! hear me out!). The karma they earn or lose doesn’t get added or subtracted to their real total. At any point, the poster can then “claim” the post and remove anonymity from it.
During a karma holiday, new people get every incentive to post and comment. If their post bombs, they don’t lose any karma, no one ever has to know it was them, and they know not to post any more until they’ve done some more study. If their post succeeds, they can take the karma and the credit, lose their feelings of unworthiness, and then keep on posting good stuff after the karma holiday’s over.
The downside is that we have to suffer through some posts that might be lower quality than normal once in a while, and we might get flooded with too many posts to read and review properly during that period.