How to Lurk Less (and benefit others while benefiting yourself)

There is a phenomenon among students of mathematics where things go from being "difficult" to "trivial" as soon as concepts are grasped. The main reason why I don't comment many of my thoughts is that I think that since I can think them, they must not be very hard to think, so commenting them is kind of useless. I think me thinking that my thoughts aren't very novel/insightful/good explains nearly all of the times I don't comment - if I have a thought I think is non-trivial to think or I have access to information that I think most people do not have access to, I will likely comment it (this happens extremely rarely).

However, I agree that people should say more obvious things on the margin.

(I also think that, on the margin, people should compliment other people more. I liked this post and think it is an important problem to try and solve.).

Something that may or may not help: varying levels of pressure to make quality posts and comments. So you have a place for low-quality posts and off-the-cuff comments, to help generate ideas and grow some familiarity with stuff in a safer environment, and then a place for actually good content to direct people to later.

LW feels like it's one of the latter.

I had not considered commenting as a form of vulnerability practice, but as a person who struggles with vulnerability, it was a very salient point in your post. Well done.

I also appreciated the discussion of your heuristics, as it helped me frame the pedagogical facets of commenting and discussion in ways I had not previously considered. When I'm engaging with these sort of concepts, I struggle to frame them usefully in discussion with others. Your explanation made it easier for me to consider how I might engage in these discussions in the future.

Thanks for writing this. This post comes at an apt time as I'm considering commenting more on LW (a club I've crashed but I'm making myself at home).

I read this post and it feels all about positive feedback - phases like "say if you like something, ideas that stand out, worth writing more about ..."

What about comments that aren't so flattering? That might be considered critical, negative, in disagreement?

Pointing out biases and errors, things that should be re-worded and what's just a load of waffle?!

It would be useful to know which authors want honest feedback - I'm not bothered about the negative karma as such, but it's a waste of my time commenting if it's down-voted out of view and/or the author isn't interested in the thoughts of this internet-random.

If ideas are to be developed and thought improved, should they not be open to all feedback?

whether it feels warm and fluffy or whether it's a more like a kick in the guts.

Rational thinking - information gathering, logical thinking, considering all the possibilities, keeping an open mind, letting the ego go ...

How about "I don't understand X, can someone explain?" comments? I don't see those very often, but I think they would be pretty awesome! The person with the question gets their question answered; other people with the question get an answer; people who didn't have the question get some cross-linking; it provides an easy way for lurkers to participate more; and this activity on the post provides encouragement to the author. I've had this in my mind as something to do more often for a while but haven't taken much action on it for some reason.

Posts like this have been written before, but I think it's worth making the point periodically.

Agreed.

In general I like this sort of metadata in posts. Since I'm pro-making-the-point-periodically, this particular metadata wasn't necessary for me, but if I wasn't I could imagine myself progressing through the following thought process: "Ugh, this has been said already. Oh wait, he's acknowledging that. Hm, actually I think I've undervalued the benefits of making the point periodically. Let's keep reading..."

Another thing I like about this sort of metadata is that I suspect that it makes posting less intimidating. Eg for a post like this, without the metadata you as the author might feel hesitant ("People will be annoyed because this has been said already."), but by adding the metadata you might feel better about posting it ("Even though it's been said already, I do have the disclaimer.) And by including metadata it sorta shows others that doing so is acceptable and makes them feel comfortable including it in their own posts.

Thanks for posting this! I'd also tag to the idea of the "Illusion of Transparency" that it may seem like common knowledge of how to be a part of online communities but has been fairly foreign to me. It's nice to get explicit steps/suggestions such as this.

On posting related ideas, I see this as incredibly helpful as has been noted by the "zettlekasten" method and being able to develop a highly connected network of knowledge. It's really cool to think of a network growing in the direction of ideas and people by this sort of act.