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Nanani comments on Of Gender and Rationality - Less Wrong
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I'm a female-type person. I can't speak to anyone else, but I did make a post a while ago, and it was met largely with indifference and I wound up taking a (small) karma hit. This did a variety of things, some useful and some not, but one thing it hasn't done is encourage me to take the time to write another top-level post.
If I'm wandering around a large in-person gathering and I drift over to an interesting conversation and say something and get shot down - even if it's because I said something stupid - I'm more likely to drift away or at least shut up rather than continue to hang out with and seek approval from Those People Who Were Mean To Me™. "Drifting away" is much easier on the Internet, and if more women are giving up after making one or two poorly-received comments, that could easily explain the gender bias.
Possible solutions if I have the right idea (no idea how palatable they are to others):
1) Be more parsimonious with downvotes and generous with upvotes in general.
2) Attempt to draw out individual women Less Wrong ers on particular topics (solicited input puts one out on less of a social limb).
3) Identify who makes each vote on a comment or post, so people can identify Those People Who Were Mean To Me™ and not have to consider the entire Less Wrong community as a whole to be united against them.
Please don't do 2 and 3.
I overreacted a bit. Sorry.
(Edited)
Why in particular don't you like those ideas?
For 2) It reeks too much of the navel-gazing "women in X" boredom occuring in education that AnnaSalamon pointed out in her comment. I certainly don't want my ideas and imput valued because of my chromosomes; I want them to be valued if and when they have merit.
For 3), anyone who thinks the entire community is against them based on one negative reply has insufficiently thick skin to deal with the internet in general. The burden of effort not to think this way is on you, not on the community. If it helps, assume the mean person was just that, a Mean Person. Also, be Awesome so that anyone who is Mean to you will look stupid in comparison.
Overall, I just think that encouraging niceness is just going to be more trouble than its worth, and a turnoff to participating in the community for the already-interested nerdy set that doesn't much care for such things.
There's no reason male Less Wrong ers couldn't be drawn out individually in the same way; I only phrased it that way to keep it germane to the topic. If we had individual profiles on which we could sum up our relevant interests/activities, for instance, I could put in a little non-intrusive box "I am writing a paper on why the Reflection Principle is stupid for school" and somebody interested in the Reflection Principle could say "hey, Alicorn, do you feel like crossposting the précis of your paper here on Less Wrong? I'd like to read it." I'd be more comfortable sharing something like that at someone's request than I would just posting it on my own initiative, but there would be nothing stopping someone else of any gender from being solicited to make another post on another subject.
strongly agree with 2, only partly agree with 3.
There is such a thing as efficient niceness. This isn't kindergarden, and you don't get a big gold star for 'participating'. Still, it shouldn't be a crime to post a few words acknowledging a good point, encouraging someone, or wishing someone well. Even among us guys, who are conditioned to pretend we don't need them, such practices can help keep people motivated, and keep people coming back.
tl;dr: rationality/honesty should not be compromised for niceness' sake. Niceness is still possible, and indeed desirable within these constraints.