Feedback

Negative: Negative feedback is valuable. If you think an idea is terrible, don't just downvote, also explain. The trick to giving good negative feedback is doing so with productive goals in mind, which means, rather than saying “this is the worst idea I’ve ever heard”, think about what specifically it is that you think makes the idea infeasible in its current form, and what would turn it into a good, or at least a better, idea.

Keep in mind that negative feedback is a double edged sword. It helps people refine their ideas, and can create success in place of failure. Unfortunately, even in its best forms, it also can easily sap a person’s motivation. It tends to do this on the monkey mind level, not on the analytic level, which is frustrating since negative feedback is such a beautiful tool for the analytic mind. I’ve seen how even the slightest negative feedback can have a huge impact, even stopping people from working on projects that are pretty decent on the whole. There is a minority of people who are relatively unfazed by negative commentary, but most of us can’t help but internalize it somewhat. Agentiness is rare, and something that can be cultivated or trampled with feedback. Being specific is the one of the most helpful things you can do to deliver the most constructive criticism, because the information tends to be more helpful toward solving the problems and less personal.

Another thing that helps avoid killing someone’s motivation is speaking with the assumption that the person you're talking to is an intelligent human being whose idea could be good if worked out a little further. This is often the case, especially here. When people sense that you anticipate that they'll come back with an intelligent answer, they often do.

Here's an example for making negative feedback more specific: Perhaps you think that a person is vastly underestimating the difficulty of raising funds for their idea. I would suggest phrasing it as a question: “How do you propose to get funding for this idea?” You don’t need to convey your doubt in the question, but if you do feel the need to bring it up, do it as specifically as possible: “When I’ve tried fundraising in the past, I found it extremely hard, and extrapolating that, I have a hard time imagining it working for this project. Can you please explain how you see this happening?”

In summary, I think that it is very much worth giving negative feedback, even though it does often harm motivation. Ideas need to be good if they’re going to work, and by giving negative feedback, you are helping people improve their ideas. Even if the person with the idea doesn’t get it or update, it might help bystanders. And there’s a decent chance that the person who you talk to will understand, and you might be able to help a project happen that wouldn’t have gotten off the ground without your well framed remark.

Positive: Validation for good ideas is really helpful. You may think that people who have a good idea know that it's a good idea already. I know a lot of people, though, who feel a little better and more encouraged - and who are more likely to follow through when given validation. So if you see someone mention something great, be sure to give them a thumbs up. It will be even more powerful if you respond with a comment saying specifically why it's a good idea, with as much detail as you can manage. Not only will the person feel validated, but other people reading are also more likely to see the value that you see, so the idea is more likely to get funding, refinement, and resources. If this thread goes as I hope, any comment or up/down vote that you make might well have a impact on whether or not a world-improving project gets implemented.

Clarification: Sometimes someone will make a good point that is obvious to you, but not obvious to other people. If you understand a good point that someone has made and you think it's not likely to get across to others, it's super helpful if you can restate it clearly and succinctly so that the concept gets conveyed to everyone.