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wedrifid comments on Open Thread, August 2010-- part 2 - Less Wrong
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IMO, the quality of comments on Overcoming Bias has diminished significantly since Less Wrong started up. This was true almost from the beginning, but the situation has really spiraled out of control more recently.
I gave up reading the comments regularly last year, but once a week or so, I peek at the comments and they are atrociously bad (and almost uniformly negative). The great majority seem unwilling to even engage with Robin Hanson's arguments and instead rely on shaming techniques.
So what gives? Why is the comment quality so much higher on LW than on OB? My first thought is karma, but OB didn't have karma when Eliezer Yudkowsky was posting, and the comments were pretty good back then. My best guess is that the good commenters were mostly Yudkowsky fans, and they left when EY left.
However, I don't know if anyone else shares my impression about OB commenter quality, so I may be completely misguided here.
Absolutely. OB posts are worth a read occasionally but the comments are not. And here I include even comments (not posts) by Robin himself. The way Robin replies does, I suggest, contribute to who is willing or interested in commenting there. Status interferes rather drastically with the ability of prominent figures to engage usefully in a public forum. By public forum I refer to the generic meaning not electronic adoption. It is often the case that hecklers wishing to shame and express outrage are the only ones who consider it worthwhile to show up.
For my part if I was particularly keen on discussing a topic from OB I would consider bringing it up on the open thread on LW.