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TheOtherDave comments on Neurological reality of human thought and decision making; implications for rationalism. - Less Wrong
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Also, if significant numbers of people adopt this strategy, the result is I get lots of PMs telling me I used "who" instead of "whom", which seems a waste of energy.
I imagine they would stop once you correct the mistake. The inconvenience to you beyond the work of fixing your mistake seems to be seeing a few more messages once when you click the inbox. The benefit is that you improve the reception that your posts get (by virtue of slightly improved reading experience without any jarring errors to ignore.)
I meant by comparison to the strategy of leaving the correction in a comment rather than a PM, which has the same post-improving benefits without the multiple-inbox-entries inconvenience.
Admittedly, it has the added cost of creating a comment that lots of other people expend marginal time reading (which as you say also translates to some cost to me, even supposing I'm indifferent to the inconvenience of others, in terms of the reception my posts get).
OTOH, the PM strategy has the added cost-to-others of having N times as many people take the time to write such a comment, being unaware of their predecessors.Admittedly, the cost of that to me is lower. Actually, it might even be a benefit to me, since once I correct the error they pointed out it's quite likely they'll think better of me than if I hadn't made the error to begin with.
You're right of course. The cost to other people is far higher if they all message you. All for the slight benefit to you of not being publicly criticized.
Which may not even be a benefit. Being criticized publicly, and publicly responding to that criticism in a socially admired fashion, can be a net status gain.
Milking that kind of thing for status takes finesse but it is possible. Also useful for enhancing likability for those who already have high status.
(nods) Of course, for high-status individuals who are good at this particular maneuver it's also an opportunity to reinforce the public-criticism social norm, which increases their comparative advantage within the community.