I agree. The overwhelming LW moderation focus seems to be on stifling bad content. There’s very little in place to encourage good content. Even the thumbs-up works against good content. Before the thumbs-up, on OB, people would leave appreciative comments. It’s much more rewarding to read appreciative comments than it is to look at your post’s number (and probably compare it unfavorably to other recent posts’ numbers...)
On social media sites like Digg or reddit, it’s not a big deal to submit something that people don’t end up liking ’cause it’ll get voted down/buried and consequentially become obscure. On LW, submitting something people don’t like amounts to publicly making a fool of yourself. Since it’s hard to predict what people will like, folks err on the side of not posting at all.
I think the ideal solution is probably something more like Huffington Post or Daily Kos. I’m not 100% sure how those systems work but they obviously work pretty well.
I agree that it is pretty rewarding to get appreciative comments, but it unfortunately also lowers the signal/noise ratio, since everyone ends up having to read said appreciative comments (rather than the target recipient).
I’d actually argue that in most cases. keeping signal noise ratio high is much more important than increasing the sheer number of good posts. Ideally of course we could do both...
I agree that it is pretty rewarding to get appreciative comments, but it unfortunately also lowers the signal/noise ratio, since everyone ends up having to read said appreciative comments (rather than the target recipient).
Yeah, this is a downside.
I’d actually argue that in most cases. keeping signal noise ratio high is much more important than increasing the sheer number of good posts.
Why’s that? Right now, for instance, it’s easy to create an arbitrarily high-signal version of LW by going to http://lesswrong.com/prefs/ and changing the thresholds for minimum post/comment scores. Wouldn’t it make more sense to let users use this mechanism to decide their own signal/noise threshold rather than enforcing one sitewide? (With a sensible default for non-logged-in users.)
If the absolute number of good posts goes up, that’s more knowledge for LW’s collective consciousness, that we can link to or mention to one another at times when it seems relevant. LW covers a wide variety of topics, so a greater number of absolute posts also means a greater number of posts that discuss topics relevant to any particular user.
As far as I can tell the sequences have a high number of good posts but a pretty low signal/noise ratio. My guess is that to get good posts, writing a lot and then seeing what sticks works well.
On the other hand, the current LW might work well for people who want to make important but difficult-to-understand points.
Right now, for instance, it’s easy to create an arbitrarily high-signal version of LW by going to http://lesswrong.com/prefs/ and changing the thresholds for minimum post/comment scores.
Uh, did not know that. Thank you!
I still have a caveat about posts which are extremely good at getting upvotes having a tendency to be shallow in content, but I think that overall, you are correct.
I agree. The overwhelming LW moderation focus seems to be on stifling bad content. There’s very little in place to encourage good content. Even the thumbs-up works against good content. Before the thumbs-up, on OB, people would leave appreciative comments. It’s much more rewarding to read appreciative comments than it is to look at your post’s number (and probably compare it unfavorably to other recent posts’ numbers...)
On social media sites like Digg or reddit, it’s not a big deal to submit something that people don’t end up liking ’cause it’ll get voted down/buried and consequentially become obscure. On LW, submitting something people don’t like amounts to publicly making a fool of yourself. Since it’s hard to predict what people will like, folks err on the side of not posting at all.
I think the ideal solution is probably something more like Huffington Post or Daily Kos. I’m not 100% sure how those systems work but they obviously work pretty well.
I agree that it is pretty rewarding to get appreciative comments, but it unfortunately also lowers the signal/noise ratio, since everyone ends up having to read said appreciative comments (rather than the target recipient).
I’d actually argue that in most cases. keeping signal noise ratio high is much more important than increasing the sheer number of good posts. Ideally of course we could do both...
Yeah, this is a downside.
Why’s that? Right now, for instance, it’s easy to create an arbitrarily high-signal version of LW by going to http://lesswrong.com/prefs/ and changing the thresholds for minimum post/comment scores. Wouldn’t it make more sense to let users use this mechanism to decide their own signal/noise threshold rather than enforcing one sitewide? (With a sensible default for non-logged-in users.)
If the absolute number of good posts goes up, that’s more knowledge for LW’s collective consciousness, that we can link to or mention to one another at times when it seems relevant. LW covers a wide variety of topics, so a greater number of absolute posts also means a greater number of posts that discuss topics relevant to any particular user.
As far as I can tell the sequences have a high number of good posts but a pretty low signal/noise ratio. My guess is that to get good posts, writing a lot and then seeing what sticks works well.
On the other hand, the current LW might work well for people who want to make important but difficult-to-understand points.
Uh, did not know that. Thank you!
I still have a caveat about posts which are extremely good at getting upvotes having a tendency to be shallow in content, but I think that overall, you are correct.