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Lumifer comments on Open Thread, October 27 - 31, 2013 - Less Wrong
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Comments (382)
That's very common in online forums (for the server load reasons) but doesn't seem to stop some forums from being fairly image-heavy. It's not like there is a shortage of free image-hosting sites.
Yes, I understand the inconvenience argument, but the lack of images at LW is pretty stark.
Do you think more people should include graphics in their posts?
Do you think more people should include graphics in their comments?
Do you think the image-heavy forums you mention get some benefit from being image-heavy that we would do well to pursue?
I am hesitant to put forward a recommendation. I don't know yet and approach this as the Chesterton's Fence.
That's fair.
I'll observe that I read your comments on this thread as implicitly recommending more images.
This is of course just my reading, but I figured I'd mention it anyway if you are hesitant to make a recommendation for fear of tearing that fence down in ignorance, on the off chance that I'm not entirely unique here.
I understand where you are coming from (asking why this house is not blue is often perceived as implying that this house should be blue) -- but do you think there's any way to at least tone down this implication without putting in an explicit disclaimer?
Well, if that were my goal, one thing I would try to avoid is getting into a dynamic where I ask people why they avoid X, and then when they provide some reasons I reply with counterarguments.
Another thing I would try to avoid is not questioning comments which seem to support doing X, for example by pointing out that it's easy to do, but questioning comments which seem to challenge those comments.
Also, when articulating possible reasons for avoiding X, I would take some care with the emotional connotations of my wording. This is of course difficult, but one easy way to better approximate it is to describe both the pro-X and anti-X positions using the same kind of language, rather than describing just one and leaving the other unmarked.
More generally, assymetry in how I handle the pro-X and anti-X cases will tend to get read as suggesting partiality; if I want to express impartiality, I would cultivate symmetry.
That said, it's probably easier to just express my preferences as preferences.
<shrug> I think it's fine. Reasons that people provide might be strong or might be weak -- it's OK to tap on them to see if they would fall down. I would do the same thing to comments which (potentially) said "Yay images, we need more of them!".
In general, I would prefer not to anchor the expectations of the thread participants, but not at the price of interference with figuring out of what does the territory actually look like.
I didn't (and still don't) have a position to describe. Summarizing arguments pro and con seemed premature. This really was just a simple open question without a hidden agenda.
All right.
You could put a "light" disclaimer, like "I'm curious" or "(not that I'm complaining)".
Edit (post downvote): (not that I'm saying you should have) :D
I read them this way too.
There's a good chance this is not a "fence", deliberately designed by some agent with us in mind, but a fallen tree that ended up there by accident/laziness.