That’s awesome. Thanks for linking—I didn’t know it existed. And thanks to Wei Dai for developing it in the first place!
OTOH, it’s a little disappointing to discover that (besides the Nick Bostrom transcription) my highest rated comment was an Open Thread post essentially saying:
“Herp derp, When people say nice things to you, you should say ‘Thank You’! Derp de derp”
...I might have been better off not knowing that...
Further proof of a lack of basic social etiquette.
Yes, I consider saying “Please” and “Thank you” at the appropriate times to be basic social etiquette. LW discourse seems to consider said etiquette useless/ extraneous/ waste of time and space. OTOH I tend to consider LW harsh/abrasive/lacking in social niceties. (Yes, I post here anyway. And no, I’m not trying to change it anymore)
I had previously thought that the general etiquette was just “put aside” by members in this particular context for the sake of cutting to the chase in the discussion here. But apparently it extends to real life as well. Hence, the disappointment.
LW READERS: Hey, that comment you made about accepting compliments rather than self-deprecatingly dismissing them was really insightful. Have a bunch of upvotes.
COMMENTER: No, it wasn’t insightful. It was trivial, and your upvotes on this trivial point of etiquette are evidence of an endemic lack of social niceties here.
(Apologies, but this is probably the most delicious piece of naturally occurring irony I’ve come across all year.)
Part of “not trying to change it [lack of social etiquette]” means that I don’t bother being overly polite myself anymore, either. If I put effort into maintaining niceties, and no one else does, then I get upset. But if I say “frak it, who gives a $#!7,” then I care less about the unpolite culture.
i.e- If I’m being nice, and everyone else is being...not nice (not the first phrase that came to mind, but it will do), then I get upset. But if I stop being nice myself, then everyone else being not nice doesn’t bother me as much.
Out of curiosity, I just did a quick check in the search bar, which reveals 1910 results for “thank you”, with the more ambiguous “thanks” getting 4900 and “please” clocking in at 8250. Given that we also have other mechanisms for expressing gratitude such as upvoting, and in comparison to other online forums, I don’t think minding our Ps and Qs is something we’re actually all that bad at.
Respectfully, I think daenerys has the more accurate description of the behavior of this community. There’s very little trolling, but the regulars are not always polite.
I’d say LW has very different standards of what constitutes “polite”. People will fastidiously dissect every mistake you make, and suggest all sorts of personal reasons why you might have made them, but wouldn’t provide a link to a highly time-wasting website without a warning.
My above comment was specifically on the subject of “please”, “thank you”, and expressions of gratitude, which I don’t think are especially deficient on LW.
I’ve been told essentially “WRONG” full stop, with no serious engagement with my point. I’ve had people apply inconsistent procedural standards (i.e. how much detail is required of supporting arguments) to posts I’ve made. It’s not a big deal, but it isn’t “polite.” It’s not the majority, or anything close, but it doesn’t seem to get negative feedback.
I’m interested in your recommendations for discussion forums on the Internet that are more consistently polite and have something to say worth reading.
Ok, seriously. I like it here, and I’m aware of no better place for discussing “practical” philosophy. I just think that people underestimate how abrupt/dismissive they are being. For example, I think sixes_and_sevens’ response to daenerys could plausibly be read as dismissive, because the frequency of “please” “thank you” & “thanks” is not a good proxy for politeness. Rather than pick a fight with sixes_and_sevens (because I think any slight was unintentional), I made a statement in support of daenerys, to try and show that her viewpoint was not unique or strange. To be just a bit meta, exchanges like this are how informal norms are made and changed. And I have preference for a different equilibrium.
I think politeness can be easily justified on “leave a line of retreat” type grounds. And the fact that Less Wrong is the best doesn’t mean we can’t do better.
I’m all in favor of politeness… I’ve even been known to engage in it myself, from time to time.
That said, one of the things that attracted me to LW in the first place was the civility-worthwhileness cross-product in the comments, so if you did have recommendations for forums that were better along that axis, I’d have been interested. (Sadly, I’m not all that interested in board games.)
Wei Dai got you covered: http://www.ibiblio.org/weidai/lesswrong_user.php
Out of curiosity I just threw together a quick (OK, 35 minutes) spreadsheet, and over 20% of my karma comes from wry or sarcastic comments.
So it goes. Most of my Slashdot karma came from inane humor.
I’d be happy it’s only around 20%.
That’s awesome. Thanks for linking—I didn’t know it existed. And thanks to Wei Dai for developing it in the first place!
OTOH, it’s a little disappointing to discover that (besides the Nick Bostrom transcription) my highest rated comment was an Open Thread post essentially saying:
“Herp derp, When people say nice things to you, you should say ‘Thank You’! Derp de derp”
...I might have been better off not knowing that...
Why is it disappointing? It was a helpful comment for quite a number of people, apparently.
Further proof of a lack of basic social etiquette.
Yes, I consider saying “Please” and “Thank you” at the appropriate times to be basic social etiquette. LW discourse seems to consider said etiquette useless/ extraneous/ waste of time and space. OTOH I tend to consider LW harsh/abrasive/lacking in social niceties. (Yes, I post here anyway. And no, I’m not trying to change it anymore)
I had previously thought that the general etiquette was just “put aside” by members in this particular context for the sake of cutting to the chase in the discussion here. But apparently it extends to real life as well. Hence, the disappointment.
LW READERS: Hey, that comment you made about accepting compliments rather than self-deprecatingly dismissing them was really insightful. Have a bunch of upvotes.
COMMENTER: No, it wasn’t insightful. It was trivial, and your upvotes on this trivial point of etiquette are evidence of an endemic lack of social niceties here.
(Apologies, but this is probably the most delicious piece of naturally occurring irony I’ve come across all year.)
Would that I had more upvotes to give this comment.
Part of “not trying to change it [lack of social etiquette]” means that I don’t bother being overly polite myself anymore, either. If I put effort into maintaining niceties, and no one else does, then I get upset. But if I say “frak it, who gives a $#!7,” then I care less about the unpolite culture.
i.e- If I’m being nice, and everyone else is being...not nice (not the first phrase that came to mind, but it will do), then I get upset. But if I stop being nice myself, then everyone else being not nice doesn’t bother me as much.
Out of curiosity, I just did a quick check in the search bar, which reveals 1910 results for “thank you”, with the more ambiguous “thanks” getting 4900 and “please” clocking in at 8250. Given that we also have other mechanisms for expressing gratitude such as upvoting, and in comparison to other online forums, I don’t think minding our Ps and Qs is something we’re actually all that bad at.
Respectfully, I think daenerys has the more accurate description of the behavior of this community. There’s very little trolling, but the regulars are not always polite.
I’d say LW has very different standards of what constitutes “polite”. People will fastidiously dissect every mistake you make, and suggest all sorts of personal reasons why you might have made them, but wouldn’t provide a link to a highly time-wasting website without a warning.
My above comment was specifically on the subject of “please”, “thank you”, and expressions of gratitude, which I don’t think are especially deficient on LW.
I’ve been told essentially “WRONG” full stop, with no serious engagement with my point. I’ve had people apply inconsistent procedural standards (i.e. how much detail is required of supporting arguments) to posts I’ve made. It’s not a big deal, but it isn’t “polite.” It’s not the majority, or anything close, but it doesn’t seem to get negative feedback.
I’m interested in your recommendations for discussion forums on the Internet that are more consistently polite and have something to say worth reading.
Boardgamegeek.com
(Warning, that can be a huge time-waster)
Ok, seriously. I like it here, and I’m aware of no better place for discussing “practical” philosophy. I just think that people underestimate how abrupt/dismissive they are being. For example, I think sixes_and_sevens’ response to daenerys could plausibly be read as dismissive, because the frequency of “please” “thank you” & “thanks” is not a good proxy for politeness. Rather than pick a fight with sixes_and_sevens (because I think any slight was unintentional), I made a statement in support of daenerys, to try and show that her viewpoint was not unique or strange. To be just a bit meta, exchanges like this are how informal norms are made and changed. And I have preference for a different equilibrium.
I think politeness can be easily justified on “leave a line of retreat” type grounds. And the fact that Less Wrong is the best doesn’t mean we can’t do better.
I’m all in favor of politeness… I’ve even been known to engage in it myself, from time to time.
That said, one of the things that attracted me to LW in the first place was the civility-worthwhileness cross-product in the comments, so if you did have recommendations for forums that were better along that axis, I’d have been interested. (Sadly, I’m not all that interested in board games.)
Sigh. Reading implicit messages that aren’t intended is one of my failure modes. Sorry about the non-responsiveness of the rant.
No worries.
I believe that the comment was about the irony of not seeing the log on one’s own eye, pardon a biblical reference.
Yes, and my reply was that I do see the “log”, but I just don’t care anymore (at least on this site).
Nice—that one doesn’t seem to crash my browser anymore.