Wei_Dai comments on Your Most Valuable Skill - Less Wrong

28 Post author: Alicorn 27 September 2009 05:01PM

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Comment author: Wei_Dai 30 September 2009 12:14:44PM 8 points [-]

I'm going to nominate the skill-set involved in participating productively in online discussion forums. :-) This involves:

  • using proper etiquette
  • avoiding or tamping down flame wars
  • keeping track of people's identities so you can avoid crackpots and pay extra attention to those who consistently have high signal/noise ratios
  • effective communication (writing clearly and concisely, reading comprehension, resolving confusions and misunderstandings)
  • having a proper amount of confidence in one's ideas so as to not generate needless disagreements and unproductive arguments

I could also mention the skill-set for building a successful online community, but obviously far fewer people need that. (This seems like a good opportunity to say that I really admire the job that Eliezer has done building this one.)

Comment author: PhilGoetz 01 October 2009 11:22:10PM 3 points [-]

Yeah, well, the Nazis could have participated productively in online discussion forums!

Comment author: Epsilon725 12 September 2013 06:50:06AM -2 points [-]

Godwin's Law - You mentioned Nazis, you automatically lose.

(Unless that was part of a joke. If it was part of a joke, then it was funny. Also, you have a point - Those skills are rather common.)