Xachariah comments on Overcoming the Curse of Knowledge - Less Wrong

42 Post author: JesseGalef 18 October 2011 05:39PM

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Comment author: Xachariah 19 October 2011 02:48:43AM *  4 points [-]

I appreciate the link, but I wish that you would comment more than that. Eliezer's post is is excellent and topical. It's directly relevant as a source for discussion here. I appreciate you linking it, because I was going to look up that very post directly after reading this one by JesseGalef. It is definitely good for you to link to it and I upvoted appropriately.

However, if I were the OP, I think that I would be hurt reading your response. Having put work into a post including original cites and examples, I could easily interpret your post as dismissing mine as inferior or worthless compared to his. I don't think you intended to do so, but I fear you may be defecting by accident. In the long run, a culture like this could impact people's willingness to make new posts.

I like when others come up with independent identical conclusions; it makes our understanding stronger as a whole. I also like when people link to other posts so that we can share our points of reference, as you've done. I just wish that when people do the latter, they also take care to also encourage the former at the same time.

Comment author: [deleted] 19 October 2011 12:14:18PM 3 points [-]

However, if I were the OP, I think that I would be hurt reading your response. Having put work into a post including original cites and examples, I could easily interpret your post as dismissing mine as inferior or worthless compared to his.

It's pretty much customary on LW to provide links to related articles; doing so shouldn't be interpreted as a dismissal. Though it might be defecting by accident in some other context, that's not really the case here.

Comment author: JesseGalef 19 October 2011 11:15:58PM 3 points [-]

Thanks for the clarification - this is my first post on LW and wasn't sure how to interpret the "link" comments.

As it was, I'd upvoted them because I appreciate knowing what else I'd probably enjoy reading - there's so much material and it really helps having you guys pointing to relevant articles. It's good to know they're intended that way, and not as admonitions for not already including those links.

Again, everyone, thanks for making me feel welcome!

Comment author: RobertLumley 19 October 2011 07:31:57PM *  1 point [-]

Well he's so he probably doesn't know that.

I've been here for several months, and I'm not sure I'd have said it was "customary"... (But that being said, I didn't see the OP as offensive, but I see how it could be accidentally read that way.)

Comment author: RobertLumley 19 October 2011 10:48:29PM *  0 points [-]

Does anyone know why the link I tried to link in that comment wouldn't show up? When I edit it, the syntax is correct...

The text I tried to post was "new to LW" which will show up properly in this comment but not the other one...

Comment author: wallowinmaya 19 October 2011 01:08:12PM 1 point [-]

I've tweaked my comment. I hope it's now nice enough ;)