I agree that it is pretty rewarding to get appreciative comments, but it unfortunately also lowers the signal/noise ratio, since everyone ends up having to read said appreciative comments (rather than the target recipient).
I'd actually argue that in most cases. keeping signal noise ratio high is much more important than increasing the sheer number of good posts. Ideally of course we could do both...
I agree that it is pretty rewarding to get appreciative comments, but it unfortunately also lowers the signal/noise ratio, since everyone ends up having to read said appreciative comments (rather than the target recipient).
Yeah, this is a downside.
I'd actually argue that in most cases. keeping signal noise ratio high is much more important than increasing the sheer number of good posts.
Why's that? Right now, for instance, it's easy to create an arbitrarily high-signal version of LW by going to http://lesswrong.com/prefs/ and changing the thresholds...
Ever since Eliezer, Yvain, and myself stopped posting regularly, LW's front page has mostly been populated by meta posts. (The Discussion section is still abuzz with interesting content, though, including original research.)
Luckily, many LWers are posting potentially front-page-worthy content to their own blogs.
Below are some recent-ish highlights outside Less Wrong, for your reading enjoyment. I've added an * to my personal favorites.
Overcoming Bias (Robin Hanson, Rob Wiblin, Katja Grace, Carl Shulman)