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EGarrett comments on Against Open Threads - Less Wrong
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Thank you.
This looks like a case where the typical mind fallacy paid off. Part of why I made the brainstorming post is that I assumed people were like me-- blanking out when trying to come up with ideas. This gave me a theory which meant that a small amount of action might help, unlike the idea that LW had lost its best posters (but then why aren't we getting new major posters?) or that social groups (especially if they're dependent on new ideas) have a natural life cycle ending in death. Also, I consistently have karma over 90%, so I knew that fear of getting downvoted couldn't be the whole problem.
The fundamental flaw that I see with LessWrong's main site is that its karma/moderating system has the effect of silencing and banning people for being disagreed with or misunderstood. This is a major problem. You cannot mix "I don't agree with you" or "I don't understand you" with "you will be punished and silenced."
People who spam, flame, or otherwise destroy conversation are the ones who need to be silenced, ignored or banned, and a lot of sites like Facebook have separate buttons to perform exactly that function. People in the other category, who are misunderstood or disagreed with, but who discuss constructively and rationally, are the ones who MOST need to be able to speak. I think the punishment and silencing, and the threat of it, contributes largely to any lack of new posters or threads that you might see. I know I personally refrain from posting theories or models I have that are counter-intuitive and would actually start good discussions specifically for this reason...and I put them on the LessWrong Facebook page or bring them up at Meetups instead, where I've had some great conversations and made some good friends because of it.
There's at least one more category that I want to see at least discouraged-- the person whose posts are boring and numerous.
I wouldn't mind seeing a few more karma categories.
Would you be willing to post some of your ideas here that have gone over well on FB and/or meetups?
I think once I organize my thoughts on some of the topics enough, I will give it a go with a post or two.
Perhaps we could have two separate sets of thumbs up/thumbs down buttons, one for object-level merit, i.e. how much you agree with what the post is saying, and another for meta-level merit, i.e. how much you think the post is contributing to the discussion and being respectful?
I'd like to see more forums than just "Main" versus "Discussion". When making a post, the poster should be able to pick which forum or forums they think it is suitable to appear in, and when giving a post a 'thumb up', or 'thumb down', in addition to being apply to apply it to the content of the post itself, it should also be possible to apply it to the appropriateness of the post to a particular forum.
So, for example, if someone posted a detailed account of a discussion that happened at a particular meetup, this would allow you to indicate that the content itself is good, but that it is more suitable for the "Meetups" forum (or tag?), than for main.
A detailed discussion of what happened at a meetup might well belong in discussion or even main if what's important is the discussion rather than the meetupness.